Always a good read, most cancers are environmental, and most of these are caused by obesity, bad diet and smoking/drinking, fix these four things in your life and you reduce your chances of getting cancer by 50%+
The things you mention here make it happen sooner, but no amount of healthy living lowers your risk to zero and I think that's important to note when you say things like "cancer is caused by".
Cancer is caused by math. This stuff just steepens the slope.
“Most people just don’t live that long” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. If you have a healthy lifestyle you would need to live for multiple centuries to reach 100% likelihood.
This kind of comment lowers the level of discourse dramatically.
Well, 100% likelihood is a bit silly, but the point of the person you were responding to is true -- we will all eventually die of something, and if it's not heart disease or dementia, it will almost certainly be cancer.
The question shouldn't be "will I get cancer?"; it should be, "how long do I want to live a happy, healthy, active, independent lifestyle for?" If you exercise, eat a healthy diet, don't become overweight and keep your blood pressure low, you'll maximise your changes for living well, for as long as possible.
But my father died of cancer nearing age 80, (most likely mesothelioma, though we didn't do heavy tests as it was discovered late), and it was incredibly painful and miserable for him. He had fast growing tumors in his ribs, forcing bone to spike out and hit his lungs, the tumors that grew in his lungs caused constant pneumonia and kept leaving him unable to get enough oxygen to his brain to communicate for hours at a time.
I'm not saying it's good to get cancer when you're old, I'm just saying if you had the choice no one would chose to get it earlier.
The truly sad cases are those in which the patient no longer has decision-making capacity and it falls on a family member to make such decisions. When you aren't the one experiencing the pain, it's much harder to weigh that decision rationally. This is why so many providers push patients to establish legal documentation of their end-of-life wishes.
I think 78 and fine is better than 45 and 80 in pain.
But in this country we are so adverse to giving someone agency over how their life ends.
Because it’s not good Business.
Do you think your dad would prefer to die exactly the same way at 45 instead? No? Great, conversation over.
Hmm, that actually parses for me as "it is not important to note" since the 100% assertion doesn't apply to most of us as we won't live that long.
What applies to most of us is that certain behaviors can dramatically increase your chances of getting cancer.
In the same spirit of upāya from Buddhism, I like to compress this type of topic into a simpler model, even if imperfect.
Here's how I model cancer, and how I judge whether something is likely to give me cancer, without trying (and failing) to memorize a million risk factors individually:
You are a collective of cooperating cells. When cells rebel, the order that holds your body together collapses, and you get cancer. Cells generally don't want to rebel. They're content as long as they get their energy, their paycheck.
But what about activities that cause frequent cell death? A sunburn, smoke in your lungs, alcohol in your bloodstream, radiation (essentially atomic shrapnel flying through your tissue). Anything that causes inflammation, especially chronically. When cells die before their expiration date, the survivors have to keep dividing to replace them, and they start to get pretty mad about it. Maybe even rebellious.
With every round of division, they are in essence "evolving" away from their cooperative nature to cope with a hostile environment. A cell doesn't care whether the collective lives or dies, and it doesn't have the capacity to reason about that in the first place.
So the question becomes: are you keeping your cells safe? Are your activities hurting them? If they're not happy, they'll rebel, and you'll die.
This is where the model earns its keep. Take obesity. It's on every risk list, but excess fat isn't what makes cells rebel. The real culprits are the conditions obesity creates: chronic inflammation, more cells that need to be maintained and replaced, a body that is generally harder to live in.
Weight loss is on the list because it's the easiest way to fix those conditions, not because thinness is protective in itself. Once you see that, you don't need the list. Anything that makes your cells' lives harder, day after day, is raising your odds, whether or not anyone has published a paper on it yet.
The math is real, but a model like this tells you which variables you actually control.
Are you sure that people should try? Will they live longer, or happier lives if they do?
From 1900 to 1950 the average US life expectancy went from about 47 to roughly 68. Penicillin and sanitation did most of that.
From 1950 through present day we added another 10 years. What most folks don't realize is that:
- 70% of those gains, or 7 out of the 10 extra years, came from cardiovascular health. Mostly because we got better at surviving heart attacks, and people smoked less.
- 19% came from infant mortaility gains (2 of the remaining 3 years of gain).
- 11% came from EVERYTHING ELSE that people did to become "healthier." So 1 year.
The US spends $5.3 trillion per year on healthcare, give or take. That's about $15.5k per capita every year. It's roughly 20% of the total GDP of the United States. That's 2 out of every 10 productive dollars going towards healthcare.
In exchange for 20% of every hour you work for your entire adult life you get 1 extra year at the end of your life.
In exchange for constantly worrying, exercising, staying up to date, eating right, etc you buy yourself one year more of life, and it's not even going to be a GOOD year. It's going to be one more year of being 80+ years old with everything hurting and constant medical needs.
Is it really worth 20% of the money you make every year for you entire life to live one extra, shitty, year?
I just don't think people have done the math on this one.
It shocks me how anyone could string this pile words together and think they sound like anything at all.
> "2 out of every 10 productive dollars"
As if those dollars have anything to do with the time people work, or that they would get those dollars and time back by not caring about health.
As if the tiny portion of those dollars that actually gets spent on patient healthcare isn't dominated by end of life care.
The US healthcare system spend is so far divorced from whatever idea of "productive dollars" anyone has when it's 60-80% admin cost. The US should not even be mentioned in any conversation about the ROI of health spend.
I would agree with at least this part, if I didn't live here. I'm reminded of the MRI post from a few days back. I think the stat was that Boston had more MRI's than all of Canada combined.
How much healthier are people the United States than Canada - for all that extra spend? I'm fairly certain the number is negative.
EDIT - I googled it. The Canadian life span is four years higher than the average American and they're healthier than the average American when they get there. So, yes, the number is negative.
> Canada has a total of 432 MRI machines according to the latest official national survey.
> Per capita: An average of 10.8 units per million people, which is well below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 19.4.
Real question and no trolling to Canada: How does Canada have such good healthcare, but so few MRIs? My point: Canada is certainly rich enough to buy and operate more. Do they not need them? Does the US just have way too many? (That is my guess.)
2) Canadian healthcare spends less per capita. Per Google: > The United States spends roughly double per capita on healthcare compared to Canada. Cost Comparison Per Capita • United States: Approximately $14,885 USD per person. • Canada: Approximately $7,301 USD per person (varies by estimates, with public-only spending around $5,000 USD). • Percentage of GDP: The U.S. spends about 17.2% of its GDP on healthcare, while Canada spends about 11.3%.
3) The USA believes in diagnostic testing at a higher level than Canada. Per Google: > Utilization and Intensity: The U.S. tends to utilize higher volumes of intensive diagnostic testing and specialized medical interventions.
4) Related: hospitals are private in the USA, and they buy MRI machines to bill for high-margin diagnostic tests. As you noted, the Boston CMA is a world leader in healthcare and education, and thus has a higher concentration of MRI machines.
5) Canadian healthcare simply is not as sophisticated as the health care in the USA. There have been multiple episodes of high profile / wealthier Canadians going to the US to skip waiting for treatment and getting procedures that are just not available in Canada at the present time.
So it's great, it's saved my life a couple times, but it's not a 1-1 drop in for American healthcare. Every system has trade offs, that's the lesson of engineering.
What are you even talking about?
1) Worrying about your health is mostly useless and probably won't move the needle much unless you have obvious problems.
2) The United States spends 20% of it's GDP to accomplish nothing. That 1 year of life expectancy gain is probably within the margin of error. Certainly modern healthcare can help at the individual level, but the society is so sick that any gains are washed away by the noise and we spend a truly enormous amount of money to get nowhere.
Our worry costs us a fortune, and generally just doesn't accomplish anything worthwhile.
Saying "if you're healthy you shouldn't worry about your health" is a meaningless thing to say. The point is that most people _do_ have obvious room for some kind of health improvement, and as other commenters have pointed out, if it's not in the clear "this will help me live an additional N years" way, then very likely it is in the "this will make my life suck less as I age" way. Eg; Being able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting deeply winded.
However, would I regret not being fit enough to go for a hike in my 60s? That's another story, and it is one which many do have the ability to intervene on.
Treadmill time as an enabler of other experiences may well be worth keeping, even if the time spent on it doesn't satisfy some imagined "will I think of it on my deathbed as time well spent?" bar. I imagine there are a great many things I won't think about on my deathbed which on their own are unremarkable or even gasp not very fun, but that is of course not a reliable measure of whether something is worth doing.
> It's roughly 20% of the total GDP of the United States.
> In exchange for 20% of every hour you work for your entire adult life you get 1 extra year at the end of your life.
A person drunk driving at twice the speed limit in moderate traffic on a dark and rainy night without their lights on in an old vehicle with shoddy breaks and no traction control while not wearing a seatbelt and texting their ex probably has a near zero chance of developing a cancer given their near 100% chance of dieing in the next few moments.
Suicide is at once the worst and most effective cure for cancer.
Discussing lifetime risk of cancer without accounting for years lived is not useful.
I don't think it's helpful to point out that everyone gets cancer on a long enough timeframe, because that wasn't what the conversation was ever about.
Cancer is caused by random chance. Accumulate enough mutations of the right kind and you get it. Of course you can dramatically affect that chance through genetic factors and environmental ones.
> hereditary and environmental/lifestyle.
Unless you can demonstrate supernatural causes these are the only two broad categories you need. It's either coming from inside (genes) or outside (diet, random neutrino bit flipping your shit, smoking, x-rays, etc.).
There are other papers that attribute something like a third of cancers to the big environmental and lifestyle factors.
Basically, live healthily, and you'll have a (much!) happier and longer life.
But baseline BP is all about diet, exercise, good sleep routine and avoiding smoking.
Some foods like licorice can elevate BP; the glycyrrhizic acid inhibits an enzyme that deactivates cortisol.
I personally drink hibiscus tea a few times a week which is an ACE inhibitor and is shown to reduce systolic blood pressure by 5-7mmHg. Also the occasional beetroot juice (+ apple and carrot) or magnesium bisglycinate for a 2-5mmHh systolic reduction due to the nitric oxide.
All of the following affect it, and many other things do too:
- sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium intake
- exercise
- obesity
- many drugs (including ibuprofen and stimulants)
- alcohol
- smoking
- prescriptions for lowering BP
My personal theory is that they are scared of ending up on the Internet when they don't have control.
This is more like alcohol apathy - not drinking, but also not explicitly anti-alcohol. That the more generational shift in Gen Z that I've seen. But, those sentiments can certainly change over time.
1. health concerns mean moderate drinkers drink less, but heavy drinkers have not changed their habits 2. young people seem to go more to extremes: either drink a lot or be teetotal.
Now, I agree that’s not the only factor — there’s something else going on reducing alcohol consumption even in people who’ve never taken GLP-1RAs — but when you have >10% of the population taking them, that’s another significant factor contributing to falling drinking rates.
Of course, there are still people who go out and have a good time, or who grab a bottle on the way home from work. But as with most things these days, there's been a socioeconomic bifurcation that has split the fertile consumerist middle into haves and (mostly) have-nots. And the have-nots aren't bothering.
https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/diet_alcohol/re...
https://publications.iarc.who.int/Book-And-Report-Series/Iar...
Not in any country I've ever been in. Do you mean in the US?
What else could it possibly mean?
I'm less convinced of the negatives of this than I used to be. Humans are quite well adapted to alcohol.
If it's something you enjoy, I'd say go for it, in moderation. It's probably less unhealthy than e.g. living in a city, eating processed meat, or working an office job.
No. But drinking every now and then makes so little difference it's not a huge concern. Drinking a lot, though -- that's more problematic.
Like most of my friends around my age, I've cut out almost all alcohol in the last few years. None of us miss it. But it's still nice to drink occasionally, and I'm not going to stop entirely.
Profits of main alcohol suppliers has certainly taken a hit over the last 5 years but this is arguably far more because of rise of remote working, inflation (drinking at pubs have become much more costly than before) and people in general just addicted to their phone rather than going out (similar to the impact on almost all social activities no just going to pubs)
Synthetic rational religion even replicated hypocrisy in its own way. Cancer is just life going wrong. Its not avoided by being dead while alive.
> Additionally, all these environmental factors such as X-rays, gamma rays, the radiation emitted from radioactive materials, aniline type dyes, cigarette, free radicals, asbestos, silica dust, air pollution, food additives, various drugs, some of the chemicals used in perfumes, oncogenic viruses and bacteria are playing an important role in cancer formation and contribute the increase of incidence of cancer.
Do the four you cited really cover 50% ?
E.g. moving to a place with less air pollution or better building materials could have a lot more effect than fixing your diet if you're in the average.
A long while ago i read about this and a link to wealth. Of those families with know genetic problems, the poor ones seems to have actively dealt with the issue internally after realizing the problem. They adopt, have fewer children, or use surrogacy. They cannot afford sickly kids. But wealthy families did not, the best examples being those royal families with known problems.
Personally, my cancer risks went way up when my heavy-smoker uncle died of throat cancer. Going from zero cancer in related family to "some" moved me up the charts.
It's like saying BRCA1 causes breast cancer, but 90% of cases don't involve the gene, and many people with the gene don't get cancer.
I'm not saying it can't be a reason, but it looks like it's a common and maybe convenient excuse.
Really no, not that many, 5-10% estimated. And I'd not be surprised if a lot of the "everyone in the family get cancers" aren't environmental either (factory next door, working in a field using chemicals, etc.)
https://cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/reduce-your-risk/che...
No. This is 5-10% are from inherited genetic issues, not environment. And that is the canadian cancer society saying so, not a random website or drug company. 5-10% is a monumental number of cancers. If someone came out with a drug to reduce cancers across the board by 5-10% there would be talk at the Nobel commitee.
> If someone came out with a drug to reduce cancers across the board by 5-10% there would be talk at the Nobel commitee.
I have one, stop drinking, where is my nobel?
diet, tobacco, infections, obesity, alcohol, others
I'm wayyyy less likely to exercise if I've only slept 5 hours
And you don't even have to be hard and fast with any of that. Drink on occasion and eat stuff that isn't good for you on occasion and you're probably still getting 95% of the benefits. Not sure about smoking though.
It's very simple at the end of the day. Simple != easy to do. Drinking is fun. People enjoy smoking. Junk food is appealing because it's relatively cheap and tastes good.
The best biohack is to eat like your doctor recommends while we all nod along and silently ignore. Just eat what is widely accepted as good for you and you'll have a good chance at living a happy, healthy life.
/s for the trust fund kids reading