The Silence Doctors Are Keeping About Millennial Deaths
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
My father died of esophageal cancer not long ago - as a man in his early 60s he followed a path similar to the first patient in the article. Two friends are currently battling similar cancers and headed down the path of more and more agressive or experimental treatment. A large part of that choice seems intrinsic. When my dad was told he was stage 4, he smiled and reflected on the life he had lived - at peace with his mortality. When my close friend was told the same, he was distraught that he'd never had the opportunity for children. I understand how those unstated biases about a life well lived enter the medical field - an important reminder that a life is not simply measured in years.
Doesn't lung cancer risk basically drop off after quitting smoking? I thought skin cancer could be caused by just one burn?
Oftentimes, yes. Quitting smoking reduces your risk of cancer but it is still higher than if you never smoked. Cancer is when a cell/cells mutate in specific ways that cause out of control growth, prevent the cells from self-destructing, prevent DNA repair inside the cells, etc. It is like playing a slot machine where all 4 reels have to come up “cancer mutation” for it to actually become a cancerous cell, otherwise the body processes fix or destroy the cell.
For the sake of argument, lets say each reel starts with 1,000 options and only 1 “cancer mutation”. Your inherited genetics could add a “cancer mutation”, solar radiation from a bad sunburn could add 3 “cancer mutation”, smoking could add 10, etc. It doesn’t mean that the next cell generation will have all 4 reels come up cancer, in fact it is incredibly unlikely. But as those mutations and damage build up, and as your cells divide and divide and divide over the years, it becomes more likely.
That change over time of your statistical likelihood is exactly why cancer almost never happens at the same time is the exposure (carcinogens, smoking, radiation) except in rare cases (rapidly dividing skin cells after massive solar radiation damage, extreme nuclear radiation exposure, etc.).
Still, I couldn't help but be reminded of the final installment of a blog from a woman in a similar situation a few years back:
Van Life (Cancer Edition) Finale
https://imgur.com/gallery/van-life-cancer-edition-finale-prU...
I honestly have read the finale once or twice a year since it was posted in order to try and sort of reground/reassess my life's direction.
After reading about the woman in the article or the woman in the blog I posted, I can't help but get this feeling. A feeling of struggle. Struggling to rationalize the life that I have been conditioned to believe that I am "supposed" to live. After all, that very well could be me one day.
It further spurs this almost sick to my stomach feeling that if I were in either one of these women's shoes, then I would probably have quite a few regrets about how I chose to live my life so far into my early 30s. All the countless hours of hard work, all the frugality, all the stress, the lack of taking risks, etc.. What has it all truly been worth? The stability and security has brought sustainability and placation but the contentment such a life has bred is equally ensnaring. I can't shake the feeling that there is more to life, but alas, what is it then?
The key is realizing that this feeling never goes away. It's just part of being a human, whether you are a billionaire or a begger. The only truth I've ever found to anything is that the point is to be a good person and enhance the lives of those around you, and maybe try to leave the world a better more beautiful place than you found it. Nothing else really matters at all.
Eat whole fruits, not just the juice in a glass, which in the end it's sugar, too.
Also, Americans need to build cities around sidewalks and not cars.
I understand this is not necessarily the point of the article, but how is this not considered a massive crisis? I have heard this stat mentioned before but never with much urgency or impetus to determine the cause of what appears to be a massive health crisis introduced in fairly young generation.
Is it our diet? It's hard to imagine that millennial diets are that much different than what was/is eaten by older generations. Certainly older generations also had their own major carcinogenic lifestyle factors to contend with in terms of smoking and chemical exposure.
Base rate up but total numbers still low. Google says 150k people/year (of all ages) get colorectal cancer, out of 333.3 million people.
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/i...
The large amount of possible causes is leading many people to jump onto any possible theory - from processed foods, air quality, plastic containers, vague notions of "toxins", vaccines, etc. And this leads to companies taking advantage by implying their competitor's products are bad (eg: Goop) but with little scientific backing. So it's getting hard to know the difference between scientific evidence and advertising.
California has a law on the books passed all the way in 1986 (Prop 65) which requires labeling of any toxic substance that can cause cancer or birth defects. It seems like everything has a Prop 65 warning on it, it's not quite possible to avoid it.
- A software dev