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Cancer in the Cold

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Bit of a tangent, but Derek Lowe is a great example of an exceedingly rare species -- a competent science writer. His writing manages to be engaging (and occasionally hilarious [0]) while still providing the reader with enough information, clearly delivered, to understand the topic. It probably helps that, unlike the myriad journalists and PR types who call themselves science writers, he actually knows what he's talking about.

[0]: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...

I come across that dioxygen difluoride article of his every few years and it still makes me laugh (and shudder) every time. Thanks for providing my 2022 reading of it. Looking forward to next time.

Chemistry:"That FOOF Article"::Aviation:"That SR-71 Speed Check Story"

I've also read it a few times now (as well as that SR-71 story). Some real staying power!

The article of his that I re-read regularly is titled “Sand won’t save you this time.” The topic is Chlorine Trifluoride, which will burn asbestos firebrick!

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo...

>It burned its way through a foot of concrete floor and chewed up another meter of sand and gravel beneath, completing a day that I'm sure no one involved ever forgot.

Chlorine trifluoride sounds like xenomorph blood.

he remains primarily employed doing the job at the bench.

that distinguishes him from every other scicomm name i can think of, and accounts in part for this fact.

If the hypothesis that going below 22C would activate brown fat burning & starving the tumor subsequently in due process, hold - this should have some evidence in people living in very cold climates (e.g. Siberians, Eskimos etc). I don't think the prevalence is statistically different in them. Would love to hear if someone knows more about it.

I think there are likely many many confounding factors that would make extracting that data difficult. Separate from environmental/cultural factors we know that traditionally cold-weather cultures (Inuit for example) have genetic adaptions, including within the brown-fat cell pathways (for example: https://www.nature.com/articles/525429d). This would also make for confounders.

I think it's reasonable to go look for existing evidence, but it'd also be difficult to extrapolate.

This seems presumptuous to me. Living in cold climates does not necessarily correlate with being cold more than people living in warm climates.

I grew up in Norway. The coldest winter I experienced saw 3 weeks of -30 celsius. I've lived in London the last 22 years. I didn't freeze more in Norway. We had better insulated houses, and far better winter clothes, because we needed to. And so if anything I more frequently get "caught out" and have to add extra layers of clothing etc. in the UK because you can get away with not being prepared for a cold winter here, while in Norway you will have a proper winter coat etc.

Had 2 Swedish people visiting Cape Town over winter, they said it was the coldest winter of their lives...the houses have no insulation, windows &doors drafty. Average house temperature indoors approx 10-15celcius.

So a Russian professor came to teach in the south of Brazil (roughly same latitude as Cape Town). Apparently he had never experienced so much cold. Temperatures are rarely negative, but houses aren't heated.

Being from Scandinavia myself I’ve also visited Southern Europe several times during winter, thinking I’ll get a boost of sunshine, and it’ll be like spring. But the 10 C inside gets me every damn time, because as soon as you stop moving and sit down, you start freezing over.

My own apartment is so heavily insulated that even in the winter, it’s almost to make the indoor temperature drop below 20!

Where in southern Europe did you go? Where I'm from (Greece) it gets down to -20 C in the winter, so our houses are very well insulated and heated. They have to be, otherwise we'd burn up in the summer as well.

Same experience in the Bay Area. Older houses have terrible insulation, so indoor temps are lower than further north where good insulation and ample heating exists.

Many from the southern US who visit cities in the Northern US are absolutely shocked to encounter places such as subway stations or shops without chilly air conditioning in the summer months. It had probably been quite some time since they'd been indoors for any significant amount of time without heavily cooled air.

NYC is interesting in this way, in a given year living here it’s very likely you’ll spend considerable time outside or in unconditioned spaces in windy 15F/-10C as well as humid 95F/35C weather.

There are obviously places in the US with far more extreme temperature fluctuations, but most of them are fully car dependent and many people living there can wind up experiencing the weather firsthand for seconds at a time (in parking lots), unless they deliberately choose to do otherwise.

Indeed. I lived in Boston for nearly twenty years. Car ownership there is usually more hassle than not and it's also quite expensive. Most housing near subway stations is also incredibly expensive so most people rely on spotty bus service supplemented with longer walks, bicycles, and taxis/ride shares for transport. In total, I must have spent months of time in 90F-100F humid summer sun or 10F howling wind late at night traveling or waiting for busses/trollies outdoors. The worst though was around March when it's just warm enough for the salty snow and ice either falling from the sky or lining the ground to be slush so you're perpetually damp, but it's just around the freezing point and windy. To boot, everything is grey and filthy and everybody else is miserable and you question how many more of those seasons you've got left in you. But the crisp autumn days and warm summer nights around there are absolutely magical. It almost seems worth the punishment.

> This seems presumptuous to me. Living in cold climates does not necessarily correlate with being cold more than people living in warm climates.

I understand the sentiment. While we have done climate control to our comforts, I am talking of environmental factors at large. Just because Norway has great heating & insulation doesn't imply Scandinavian climates are as good as Spanish ones. We get exposed to lower temperature climates in higher latitudes, and that thermal effect if any should add up over the few decades of human lifespan or even in the genetic assessment in terms of prevalence (in my OP). We are talking in statistical sense - not an individual trial.

Proper & consistent indoor thermal regulation have been around in past few decades, whereas useful medical record keeping has been around for a good two centuries in most of Europe & America (maybe slightly longer). So, my inquisitiveness is to check if this hypothesis matches with statistical observations in the northern population. And several medical studies do factor in environmental temperature (going by my brief exposure during grad school). These factors are not disregarded because we have great ACs for temperature management or sunscreens to block the UV. If human interventions could so effectively mitigate, skin cancer prevalence would be uniform around the globe (which absolutely isn't) due to effective sunscreens sold nowadays.

I think the more important factor here is internal body temperature, and if people living in colder climates exhibit the sorts of adaptations related in the article. It's quite possible to be outdoors in very cold conditions and have little to no core body temperature changes.

AFAICT, homeostatic temperature in humans does not vary by a great deal. It is 37±1°C always. I haven't come across a study where any large deviation was stated.

Human bodies lose heat very quickly. We evolved from a primate line which lived in South Central African plains. Our hand/feet digits are great radiators. Although still debated, our skin tone originally could have been light, much like the skin under the primate coats (with brown and African skin tones being later developments in evolution, when we started to get less furry & produced higher melatonin). So the evidence generally points in the direction that we are just another warm-blooded species without much thermal attributes. Given that, environment should show some kind of statistical difference if this cancer pathway's reliance on temperature is so pronounced. Its hard to measure, because there are several confounders in the biochemistry. It is also hard to find a body of people who have lived in both cold & hotter climates simultaneously to make direct comparisons

Edit: some more details.

I think you mean melanin vs. melatonin. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin

And I am saying I think this is presumptuous, as it doesn't match my experience.

I would argue based on experience that I would expect people in London to have been exposed to more cold than the average Norwegian.

By all means, it's worth checking, but my point is that if you don't find a difference, the logical conclusion is not that cold does not work, but that people in colder places don't get that cold.

EDIT: I would also argue that proper heating has been around for centuries, not decades. Regulating temperature down is a lot harder than regulating it up. In fact, the house I grew up on was a log house heated in part by a wood fire during winters - we used electrical ovens during fall or spring, but the wood oven could easily dump far more heat into the house in a very short amount of time, because it heated up a large stone chimney that was exposed in all the main rooms. But even a tiny cast iron oven can heat up a small house in no time if it's decently insulated - Norway's best established current cast iron oven manufacturer is over 160 years old. My grandparents cabin is heated that way, and you'd get it from freezing to room temperature in less than half an hour.

Never come to Michigan, ( Or Minnesota, or North Dakota ), in the winter!

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/us-states-with-the-w...

The inhabited Minnesota and North Dakota areas haven't seen multiple weeks of -30C/-22F in a very long time. Global Warming has affected these places as well. Not to say it doesn't reach <-22F at times (only down to -10F for a day or 2 in 2020 for Fargo, ND), but it's never weeks of that cold.

Fargo is in southern North Dakota. Look at the temperatures of the northern cities (e.g. Devils Lake, Duluth). The -30F days befor wind chill sucked.

I belive in my lifetime from central ND there has not been that consistent cold of that for ~10 years but, a few weeks in a row of -10 were much more common. Although Grand Forks may be an exception as they are usually 5-10F cooler than central ND.

Yes -- my wife and I are both from the northern midwest. We live in San Francisco now. We are actually colder here in the winters, then we ever were in the midwest, because houses in San Francisco are not insulated, and don't have good heating systems. Whereas houses in the midwest are essentially little heating plants.

Life in the midwest is organized around staying warm and it works very well.

We do appreciate the blue skies and the sun of California, however. In the midwest in the winter, you can often go weeks without seeing the sun.

We also like the houses in California. They're historic and beautiful and in many cases greatly elegant. Also, easy (arguably continuous) outdoor access is a beautiful thing. But there is great irony in paper maché houses being, relatively, so much more expensive.

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

Out of curiosity, would you mind linking to a few brand/models of what you would consider a proper winter coat? I have mostly lived in milder climates and would be interested in knowing what kind of gear can keep you warm by -30C

Not -30C, but something similar to this[1] jacket on top of a shirt and warm undershirt have kept me reasonably warm in -20C canadian winters. The best way to stay warm is to have a windproof outer layer, then layer up (light layers!) underneath to trap the warm air close to you.

[1]: https://www.columbia.com/p/mens-centerport-ii-jacket---tall-...

The observation about wind proof outer layer is spot on. On the other hand the jacket from the link is too short for my taste. It requires special trousers to match.

One needs something that reaches knees to stay warm in lighter trousers.

That's a fair point, my legs don't really get as cold ime, so that's probably why I glossed over the longer jackets when I bought mine

That looks like a pretty light jacket. I might wear that kind of thing skiing, but I'd want something heavier for in-town. A heavier jacket is nice because it's a pain to put on and take off a lot of layers just for a short trip outside.

I have a jacket similar to this one [1], and I find it to be a nice medium. However, if I had to do any work outside, I would get an actual parka.

[1]: https://www.hellyhansen.com/en_ca/barents-bomber-53489

That's the kicker, it's lighter weight, but the "omni-heat" insulation* keeps me just as warm as a heavier down jacket, if not warmer. I even managed to work up a bit of a sweat while outdoors at 3am this past Feburary in my jacket.

Though I don't doubt that I'd need a heavier/longer jacket if I were further north, but here in southern Ontario it's more than good enough.

*Not an ad, just sharing what keeps me warm

Just wear lots of layers. They don't have to be fancy. If you are out for a long interval, long underwear helps a lot.

> The coldest winter I experienced saw 3 weeks of -30 celsius.

Early 1987, perchance?

As someone who grew up in northern canada, a week or 2 of -30 every year and not particularly special.

I visited Northern Alberta ages ago, so I can imagine. But at least every house I went to was properly insulated (can you tell UK building standards annoy me)

Timing sounds about right.

I believe there is some evidence that those who grew up in colder climates prefer warmer interior temperatures. Imagine you live in Norway. In the winter, you need to heat your home so you pick a temperature you prefer. Now imagine you live in Seattle. You might not need to regularly heat your home to the degree required in Norway. When the temp dips below your normal temperature, you might acclimate to it instead of turning on the heat.

Possibly. I don't yet follow what relationship this fact has to finding evidence of lower cancer rates. Is it maybe you were answering to some other reply?

Well, people in this thread are saying the people in cold countries should have a lower cancer rate. My point is that people in cold countries may keep their homes warmer, and they might not spend much time below 22C, whereas people in more temperate climates may spend more time below 22C even if the climate is warmer.

Cold also seems to dampen the immune system which could theoretically increase the rate of cancer incidence.

I read different take on that. There is a recent hypothesis that humans has a budget of energy that is spent each day independent of calorie intake, like 2500 kkal for a male, unless the body switches to the starvation mode with persistent multi-months calorie deficit.

If one does not do a physical activity and does not spent energy to warm the body, the body instead spends that energy budget on various expensive activities like synthesis of hormones (like testosterone for males) or to activate immune system more than necessary leading to asthma. But immune system for normal function does not require much energy and as long as one eats enough, the persistent cold exposure should not affect it.

Eskimo people have a mutation related to metabolism that prevents going to keto state when eating mostly meat. That alone can make proposed mechanism not working for them.

Plus the persistent cold exposure may not be there due to warm clothes.

For me more interesting is the story of cancer among aboriginal population of Australia. They do not use much clothes and at night there it can be rather cold.

The inverse might actually be true, colder climate people tend to over-heat their houses and over-dress for cold making their core temperature on average warmer. Where as hotter climate people tend to under-dress and over cool their house with air conditioning making their core temperature on average cooler.

In fact, cancer incidence and all cause mortality increase the further you are from the equator.

Brown fat activation is not efficient from an energy perspective. If you live somewhere cold, with generally sparse food supply, burning precious calories to warm yourself up isn’t a winning strategy. I highly doubt brown fat activation is more prevalent in the colder climate populations.

So it seems that both very cold and very hot are good for cancer prevention/delay.

Cold influences the glucose uptake while hot influences the immune system and probaly also promote ROS which normal cells can fight off better then cancer.

Metformin + low carb + sauna + cold room seem like great combination.

You'd think there would be a lower rate of cancer in places like Finland then, since they really enjoy their saunas and have relatively colder weather.

It may be cold in those places but why do you assume body temperature is any different there? Humans are good at regulating that, with layering and building heat.

Finns truly have lower body temperatures. 35.3°C right now.

According to american internets I am suffering from constant "hypothermia".

Also I am obviously sufferring from "bradycardia", it is not normal that 70-year old has resting pulse 45.

Not knowing your own personal health no one can say, but it's common for older people with heart issues to have a slower heart rate, so you may be fit as a horse, or you could be having heart issues. If that's the case low temperature has been linked to poor outcomes with heart failure. But only your GP can decide. It just doesn't feel like the slam dunk proof of better health you're saying it is.

This condition been the same for 50 years. I am worried when it changes.

I am pretty sure this is somekind of hereditary trait for Tundra dwellers. If I dont sweat, mosquitoes do not bother me. Also all ticks drop off or just die.

> Also all ticks drop off or just die.

Ok, now I'm definitely worried about your blood.

Achually there was one successful tick-bite. It was July 1957. It managed to suck some blood, but removed itself rightaway when mother Noko burned it with cigarette.

Ah, and it told the others.

I'm half worried and half envious.

That's interesting. I have a very low resting heart-rate and lower than normal body temperature as well. (Also from a northern area).

same. grew up in northern canada and have always had a low body temperature with a resting heart rate of ~47.

Source on that lower body temperature? I live in Finland and am regularly low 36 high 35. My partner is high 36 and Finnish. I can’t lie near them without feeling overwhelmingly hot.

Works for heart disease and likely all cause mortality.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30486813/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35908583/

This is almost certainly confounded with other healthful behaviours. Eg people who sauna also eat better, exercise, go to the doctor etc

Pretty well everyone I knew in Finland would sauna, regardless of how they lived the rest of their life, it was just part of the culture.

I would expect a lower rate in Singapore. Sure, it's hot outside 24/7, but people mostly work and live around aircon so strong it's like being inside a refrigerator.

My experience in Singapore is that AC is either not used at home (except during the hottest days) or set very high. When I visited an office there it was set at 27C (82F).

I did an experiment in college on exvivo cells. We lowered the temperature and then applied radiation treatment. At lower temperatures cells can go to hibernation state and uptake less oxygen. Oxygen radicals are what kill healthy cells during radiation. We were actually pretty successful in increasing survivability compared to the base case.

Have you seen that infrared light is use to create melatonin in the mitochondria, sweeping up the free radicals?

Personally, I cured my winter eczema with a bit of infrared light.

22C is "mildly cool"? At least in the US where the author is from, it's the upper end of what's considered a normal room temperature:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_temperature

Does this relate to the Krebs cycle running backwards thing that was talked about earlier this week?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32392937

I believe I encountered similar ideas googling wim hoff and the cold exposure therapy stuff. There was a time in my life where I was taking cold showers in the morning for a different therapeutic purpose, to cure depression. I can tell you that for the duration of the cold shower my existential angst was no longer top of mind.

then you start reading things like: cold weather increases the risk of heart attacks, constricting blood vessels, etc, and suddenly that cold shower doesn't just feel shocking, it feels existentially dangerous!

Or it could be like brucine in Count of Monte Cristo, as your body gets used to it, it's less likely to kill you.

Good old Selye. It's generally true that a stressor that doesn't overcome the body's capacity will result in adaptation toward future instances thereof.

Of course there are limits, as the idiot who tried working his way up from BBs to develop a bullet immunity learned the hard way.

>Of course there are limits, as the idiot who tried working his way up from BBs to develop a bullet immunity learned the hard way.

shut up, i don't believe you. Actually??

It's risky for people who have already developed health issues. That doesn't make it dangerous for healthy people.

it was a bit tongue in cheek, but really I was alluding to the broader issue where some conditions/treatments/lifestyles/etc both decrease and increase different risk factors.

You definitely need to ease into cold to avoid the shock. Slowly ease one body part at a time into the cold stream. Or slowly turn down the temperature as it hits you.

I often wondered about a primal reptilian brain therapy. Where you overload your brain with deep priorities. Physical EMDR.

not only that, cold water also helps with obesity and type 2 diabetes

https://you.com/search?q=cold+exposure+therapy+for+obesity

> I can tell you that for the duration of the cold shower my existential angst was no longer top of mind.

I bet you if you hit your thumb hard with a hammer, your existential angst will also no longer be at the the top of your mind.

Likely, any significant physical acute discomfort will remove existential angst from the top of your mind.

I think that we need a bit of physical discomfort to push against.

We have created an environment with the least amount of effort and variations and as a result the more prevalent diseases are the result of too much calories and not enough effort exerted.

I'm pretty sure that's the joke OP was making :)

Yeah that is kind of what I was low key trying to impart. That I couldn't be sure it was working. Certainly it was no silver bullet

Arctic populations used to have low cancer rates. Nowadays its up, especially lung cancer in males. Maybe this reflects the cold climate, but heated housing (and tobacco use) have negated the historical benefit?

I built a hospotal in Nome AK.

I'd never been in such cold climate - even growing up in tahoe... Stepping into the cold air and feeling your nose hairs crystalize is a weird feeling - I can imagine huffing a cigarette in that cold... but I suppose ? the cigarette may warm the air slightly?

It was -40 F on typical days in the winter months - and there were Inuits who would stand outside the back of the old hospital and smoke in minus 40 degrees. and looking like any place else outside. There are a lot of heavy smokers in that area it seems.

(The hospital had a drunk tank for the alcohol problem in the tribes, where they dont arrest you for being drunk, they throw you in the tank and one has to deal with tribal council for such matters. It was important because very often people got too drunk in the cold and pass out on way home and freeze to death.)

Reminds me how often I used to stand or sit outside in (Québec's) winter completely miserable with fingers hurting just for some nicotine, day or night. Good times. One of my favorite parts of having quit (on top of health, stink and money of course) was not leaving my living room repeatedly to go freeze for 5 minutes at a time. So satisfying.

FWIW, I recall the smoke didn't really have a warming effect. After all, I reckon your throat should still be around body temperature even if it's <-30C outside (for the record, -40C is -40F, -30C is -22F), the mild warmth from the smoke wasn't really perceptible.

In Canada the police intentionally caused some drunken tribal members to freeze to death by dropping them off out in the cold.

https://gladue.usask.ca/node/2860

Canada has some dark shit. SORRY.

The tribal internment and rape and trafficking and fucking of tribal minors in the fields around their "schools" of pedophiles that rape and murder kids.

Yes, this is a real thing. They actually did this and covered it up with the help of.... (The reason the purple color is associated iwth royalty has nothing to do with the crushing of sea snails to create purple dyes for garments.)

I didn't get what you were implying. Why is purple associated with royalty?

Isn't 22 C == 71.6° Fahrenheit ? That sounds like standard room temperature, not cold

If you're used to being warm, then I could see 71 with some air flow and no/very thin clothing being enough to trigger a shiver. With my office set to 70, a fan on my bare legs can be too chilly sometimes. I hate heat and sweat a lot in summer, so I'm not opposed to cold either.

The guy claims that we don't understand well enough how Insulin resistance develops. Didn't bother to read the post past that paragraph.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people are waking up to the fact that if you stop eating carbs, you can completely reverse Type 2 diabetes.

The Tibetan Buddhist practice of Tummo, which allows practitioners to survive freezing temperatures for a prolonged time, has been experimentally verified to start thermogenesis.

Is this why whales don't die of cancer very often?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1HFP84RXak

Part of it is they have a lower metabolic rate. They may also have a better version of tumor suppressing genes than most mammals. Elephants have the same version as us but expressed many more times.

Im confused though: 22C is basically room temperature. Like i usually have my thermostat set to 21 in winter time.

Wouldn't an easy test for this be to look at cancer rates in the winter/summer?

For pure cancer rates, no, it's still a relatively slow progressing disease and a cancer may grow more in the winter only to be diagnosed in the summer.

I guess you could look at cancer growth rates during winter/summer, however we live in relatively controlled environments. I don't think you could control for AC usage / how much time you spend outside versus outside.

Living in a climate where buildings and clothing are adapted to cold, I rarely find myself cold enough to shiver, so I'm not sure there would be much difference. People actively avoid cold despite the weather.

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