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65% of Cancers Caused by Bad Luck, Not Genetics or Environment
BarbaraHudson writes The Wall Street Journal and the CBC are reporting that about two-thirds of cancers are caused by random chance. From the WSJ: "The researchers, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, analyzed published scientific papers to identify the number of stem cells, and the rate of stem-cell division, among 31 tissue types, though not for breast and prostate tissue, which they excluded from the analysis. Then they compared the total number of lifetime stem-cell divisions in each tissue against a person's lifetime risk of developing cancer in that tissue in the U.S." The correlation between these parameters suggests that two-thirds of the difference in cancer risk among various tissue types can be blamed on random, or 'stochastic,' mutations in DNA occurring during stem-cell division, and only one-third on hereditary or environmental factors like smoking, the researchers conclude. 'Thus, the stochastic effects of DNA replication appear to be the major contributor to cancer in humans.'" The CBC reports: "The researchers said on Thursday random DNA mutations accumulating in various parts of the body during ordinary cell division are the prime culprits behind many cancer types. They looked at 31 cancer types and found that 22 of them, including leukemia and pancreatic, bone, testicular, ovarian and brain cancer, could be explained largely by these random mutations — essentially biological bad luck. The other nine types, including colorectal cancer, skin cancer known as basal cell carcinoma and smoking-related lung cancer, were more heavily influenced by heredity and environmental factors like risky behavior or exposure to carcinogens. Overall, they attributed 65 percent of cancer incidence to random mutations in genes that can drive cancer growth."
I think you missed the part about 65% and not "all" cancers, and some cancers are highly affected by carcinogens and some are less based on biases created in modern living.
You may not know all the variables, you may not understand all the variables, we may not for centuries - but in the grand scheme of things, this universe is most likely deterministic.
Any 'scientist' that claims something is bad 'luck', and NOT environmental - is insane and/or completely lacking in a reasonable understanding of physics and mathematics.
I imagine what they really mean is it's not 'environmental' in any way that we can control at our scale of being, with our current technology.
Oh please, there are so many billions of people living wildly different life styles and there's a considerable incidence of cancer all of the world. And we got cases of cancer that are 3000 year old, it's not like it showed up recently. And if you correct for increased lifespan there's no explosion in cancer, we only have a lot more old people whose cell reproduction system has had longer to develop a critical fault. Obesity is a contributing factor to heart problem, there's still normal weight/underweight people with heart problems. I don't know any rational basis to assume the default is almost no cancer and it all must be part of some conspiracy, but apparently the tin foil hatters are modding you up. I guess they can mix the cancer-giving stuff into the chemtrails...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
True communism hasn't really even been applied anywhere...
That's because rational people don't have to actually go through with it to see how toxic it is.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
OTOH lifetime risk of death (by whatever cause) is 100%
The headline is shocking when one consider the steep rise of cancer since 1945. If it was luck, then how it could change over time?
You're forgetting the context in which the study was made.
By assigning most cancer to random chance, they are laying the groundwork for the defense against future lawsuits for negligence and compensation against corporations. Companies will pour money into shouting these results as widely and loudly as possible, it will become a public meme, and the populist mantra will be "I got cancer, but it was just bad luck" for decades.
This is similar to the recent history of the tobacco industry, it took over 50 years to sort that out and the damage hasn't yet settled.
Expect this report to be wildly popular for the next few years.
Prostate cancer is just a disease because it only affects a lesser/non-protected class: MEN
Breast cancer affects mostly a PROTECTED CLASS: WOMEN
Pink Ribbons everywhere. Prostate cancer ribbons? Who the fsck know what color(s) they might be.
Agreed. It's mostly bullshit reporting too. 65% of cancers are not caused by "bad luck". They are caused by yet unknown reasons. Unknown reasons is not "bad luck". Bad luck is getting hit by a meteor.
http://www.medscape.com/viewar...
In the United States, 1 in 3 cancer deaths is related to obesity, poor nutrition, or physical inactivity, and the problem will only increase as more countries and regions adopt the diet and lifestyles of more economically developed economies.
Nearly 20% of the world's adult population smokes, and worldwide tobacco is killing around 6 million people each year from a variety of smoking-related diseases, the report estimates.
Precise figures are given for the year 2000, when 4.38 million premature deaths globally were attributed to smoking, with causes listed as cardiovascular disease
Still under-recognized, and not acted on, is the association between drinking alcohol and cancer.
The IACR has labeled alcoholic beverages as "carcinogenic to humans" (and placed them in group 1, alongside ultraviolet light and chronic infection with hepatitis B). This classification was first made in 1988, and then confirmed in 2007 and 2010.
http://www.livestrong.com/arti...
33% is from obesity, and inactivity. 20% of the population is succeptible to smoking related cancers. In the US that is 60m people and 200k got cancer from it. And 1.6m total cancers a year. So, 12% of all cancers are tobacco.
http://seer.cancer.gov/statfac...
So, WTF? 100% - 33% - 12% = 55% remaining
so *how* do you even get to 65% with just tobacco and obesity/inactivity accounting for 55% already? We haven't even accounted for external chemical factors like record usage of RoundUp alone, never mind the rest of the crap.
Considering, for better or worse, communism has been tried many times in communities of a few dozen to few hundred people, it is pretty damn impressive that it kills tens of millions every time. That would have to be one of the most impressive weapons known to mankind, to take a couple dozen people, with no special skills, plop them down on in some farming village, and then cause ten million people to die.
Agreed. It's mostly bullshit reporting too. 65% of cancers are not caused by "bad luck". They are caused by yet unknown reasons. Unknown reasons is not "bad luck". Bad luck is getting hit by a meteor.
"Unknown reasons" _is_ bad luck. If there are things that I should avoid and could avoid to increase my chances of being cancer free, but nobody knows about it, then it is just bad luck if I encounter these things. If there are things that I know I should avoid but I can't avoid, that's also bad luck. Being hit by a meteor is just an extreme case of the second kind of "bad luck"; it's something I know I should avoid but I can't.