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Fossil evidence reveals that cancer in humans goes back 1.7M years
- joneholland 10y agoBut I thought it was from red meat, Aspartame and GMOs.
- lagudragu 10y agoThese are factors that indirectly increase the probability of cancer occurring in your body. There is always a small chance your body would develop cancer.
- Odenwaelder 10y agoCancer is a fundamental dread of all higher multicellular life. It has always existed and will always exist.
- audessuscest 10y agoExactly.
- bootload 10y ago"Cancer is a fundamental dread of all higher multicellular life." Yes, we wouldn't exist if cell division didn't exist. Cell division is the basis of life and death.
- M_Grey 10y agoIt may not always exist, but what it would take to drive it out of our species would be no less than either incredibly sophisticated (not to mention ongoing) genetic engineering, very good nanotech that can intelligently monitor and control the process of division, or I suppose something like the "AutoDoc" from Larry Niven's 'Known Space' works. It's all very much science fiction now, but "always" is a long time. Still, I would place bets on our civilization taking it on the chin before we beat cancer entirely.
- gozur88 10y agoWhat you say is certainly true, but there is a large number of people who've managed to convince themselves you only get cancer if you've lived an unhealthy lifestyle. It never hurts to have headlines like this bubble to the top of the news heap.
- lalos 10y agoEven plants have cancer, from what I understand if it has some kind of cell tissue it can deviate to cancer.
- mwfunk 10y agoSurely cancer has always been a threat, it's just that in more recent centuries or millennia humans have achieved long enough lifespans to actually see its effects. Nowadays we live long enough to actually see the results of accumulated transcription errors as our cells regenerate (every 7 years I think?), which is basically the root cause of cancer. Things like carcinogens or radiation make those errors more likely and can cause fatal cancer to occur sooner, but even with otherwise perfect health and perfect bodies, my understanding is that we'd all die from cancer eventually (with a long life, but not that much longer than what we enjoy today).