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Contradicting Previous Study, Cancer Risk Has Strong Environmental Component (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the science-is-hard dept.

The Real Dr John writes: A new study published in the journal Nature provides evidence that intrinsic risk factors contribute only modestly (less than ~10–30% of lifetime risk) to cancer development in humans (abstract). An earlier study had found that the more stem-cell divisions that occurred in a given tissue over a lifetime, the more likely it was to become cancerous. They said that though some cancers clearly had strong outside links – such as liver cancers caused by hepatitis C or lung cancer resulting from smoking – there were others for which the variation was explained mainly by defects in stem-cell division. The new research shows that the correlation between stem-cell division and cancer risk does not distinguish between the effects of internal (genetic) and external (environmental) factors such as chemical toxicity and radiation. They also found that the rates of endogenous mutation accumulation by internal processes are not sufficient to account for the observed cancer risks. The authors conclude that cancer risk is heavily influenced by environmental factors.

1 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Interesting. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Well, statistics of 1 is not really statistics, anything can happen.

    But let me give you a more numeric anecdotal story. An old farmer died of prostate cancer few years ago, and he told me that almost every farmer in the region that he had known had died of prostate cancer too. We are talking about 20-30 people.

    http://www.cancer.org/cancer/c...

    So normalized data shows 15% chance, but for older farmers based on that farmer's testimony, it's about 80% if you ignore heart disease deaths.

    So yes, I believe we'll kill ourselves with the chemicals we produce and spray on ourselves. Anecdotal evidence shows that too. But studies? Which company would fund long term studies into cancer rates of their products? And which government would do that? They don't even acknowledge that Agent Orange fucked up Vietnam.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
    http://www.snopes.com/photos/m...