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Cancer is a fairly modern disease. You can even see from the accounts of encounters with native tribes, cancer is virtually unknown until they start consuming w

by dalore 7y ago

Cancer is a fairly modern disease. You can even see from the accounts of encounters with native tribes, cancer is virtually unknown until they start consuming western food.

vajrabum 7y ago
Cancer is virtually unknown until people start living long enough to develop cancers. Oh and don't forget the juvenile cancers.
- mr_toad 7y ago
  Cancer increases with age, but also with smoking, drinking, pollution, bad diet, obesity, lack of exercise, and exposure to viruses. I wouldn’t be surprised if people living in a tribal society had lower cancer rates even if you corrected for age. On the other hand, if they did get cancer, survival rates would be much lower.
- dalore 7y ago
  You forget that life expectancy for native populations aren't due to them to not living long lives, but more due to the fact they have more deaths at childhood (due to stuff like bacteria infections and other diseases we now prevent). So you have a big chunk of population dying young. Also these cultures can be more violent and often have wars killing a big chunk. But past that bump it's not as short as the average (it's far larger). For example the Native Americans if one of them lived to 40, he could expect to live to round 70. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12o4py/what_was_the_average_life_expectancy_of_a_native/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12o4py/what_... 70 is easily a cancer age. Going by the current research at https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-cancer-rates-increasing/ https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-... one can expect 3/4 people over 60 to have cancer. And it's increasing. So yeah the not living long enough doesn't really hold water. Also juvenile cancers weren't really a thing at all until the modern world (more likely bacterial infections until we discovered penicillin were more likely for juvenile deaths).
carterehsmith 7y ago
>> Cancer is a fairly modern disease. Depends on what we consider "modern". Last I checked, they found cancers on dinosaur fossils. see e.g. https://www.cancerquest.org/cancer-biology/cancer-wild-animals https://www.cancerquest.org/cancer-biology/cancer-wild-anima... As for humans, it is documented back in the ancient Egypt, etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cancer
- dalore 7y ago
  Yes Egyptians started the "modern" diet of consuming grain/wheat etc. They also have records from those eating that type of food poor dental hygiene. The hunter gathers tribes we all encounter have very low (if non existent) rates of cancer, diabetes, obesity, and other western diseases. Once they start consuming a modern diet of flour, sugar etc these diseases are now at extremely high rates. You can see this in the aborigines of Australia for example. The inuit of Canada, and so forth. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of... Your links about dinosaur cancers said they found cancers only one type of dinosaur. I would say that's a genetic thing more than an environmental. Then the other animal cancers mentioned underneath seem to have a human component involved. I would say that further supports the theory.

by dalore 7y ago

Cancer is a fairly modern disease. You can even see from the accounts of encounters with native tribes, cancer is virtually unknown until they start consuming western food.

vajrabum 7y ago

Cancer is virtually unknown until people start living long enough to develop cancers. Oh and don't forget the juvenile cancers.

mr_toad 7y ago
Cancer increases with age, but also with smoking, drinking, pollution, bad diet, obesity, lack of exercise, and exposure to viruses. I wouldn’t be surprised if people living in a tribal society had lower cancer rates even if you corrected for age. On the other hand, if they did get cancer, survival rates would be much lower.
dalore 7y ago
You forget that life expectancy for native populations aren't due to them to not living long lives, but more due to the fact they have more deaths at childhood (due to stuff like bacteria infections and other diseases we now prevent). So you have a big chunk of population dying young. Also these cultures can be more violent and often have wars killing a big chunk. But past that bump it's not as short as the average (it's far larger). For example the Native Americans if one of them lived to 40, he could expect to live to round 70. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12o4py/what_was_the_average_life_expectancy_of_a_native/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12o4py/what_... 70 is easily a cancer age. Going by the current research at https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-cancer-rates-increasing/ https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-... one can expect 3/4 people over 60 to have cancer. And it's increasing. So yeah the not living long enough doesn't really hold water. Also juvenile cancers weren't really a thing at all until the modern world (more likely bacterial infections until we discovered penicillin were more likely for juvenile deaths).

carterehsmith 7y ago

>> Cancer is a fairly modern disease. Depends on what we consider "modern". Last I checked, they found cancers on dinosaur fossils. see e.g. https://www.cancerquest.org/cancer-biology/cancer-wild-animals https://www.cancerquest.org/cancer-biology/cancer-wild-anima... As for humans, it is documented back in the ancient Egypt, etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cancer

dalore 7y ago
Yes Egyptians started the "modern" diet of consuming grain/wheat etc. They also have records from those eating that type of food poor dental hygiene. The hunter gathers tribes we all encounter have very low (if non existent) rates of cancer, diabetes, obesity, and other western diseases. Once they start consuming a modern diet of flour, sugar etc these diseases are now at extremely high rates. You can see this in the aborigines of Australia for example. The inuit of Canada, and so forth. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of... Your links about dinosaur cancers said they found cancers only one type of dinosaur. I would say that's a genetic thing more than an environmental. Then the other animal cancers mentioned underneath seem to have a human component involved. I would say that further supports the theory.