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For everyone spooked by this. Cancer thrives on many things. And there’s little survival advantage for people who can effectively fight cancer after their repro

by f6v 5y ago

For everyone spooked by this. Cancer thrives on many things. And there’s little survival advantage for people who can effectively fight cancer after their reproductive age. All novel carcinogens aside(radiation, air pollution, baby powder), humans often are just not equipped to fight cancer. Certain diets probably can make it a bit better or worse, but they might not be the game changer. Our best bet is technology, like CAR T cells and whatever is invented next.

clairity 5y ago
> "humans often are just not equipped to fight cancer." blanket statements like this are almost never correct. our bodies are certainly equipped to fight cancer, having evolved a number of mechanisms in that regard, it's just that cancer is relentless and the cumulative probabilities tend to catch up with a number of us eventually, which necessarily skews mortalities older. with that said, we're certainly unlikely to naturally evolve ourselves out of cancer risk in the next few millenia, so yes, technology is one of our best bets (along with developing tech to reduce novel carcinogen risks).
- f6v 5y ago
  There’s a big difference between “often” and “not at all”.
outworlder 5y ago
> humans often are just not equipped to fight cancer But we are? The immune system is constantly at work killing malignant (or otherwise dysfunctional) cells. Cells themselves have mechanisms to commit suicide (apoptosis) if they are not working properly. It's only when the several mechanisms we have get defeated at the same time (often due to mutations) that cancer can even develop. If you mean, we are not as equipped as elephants or whales to fight cancer, then that's true. > there’s little survival advantage for people who can effectively fight cancer after their reproductive age There's some advantage, but as far as nature's concerned, there's indeed diminishing returns. As in, for the individual that has already reproduced there's no reason to stay alive, but this is beneficial for the offspring - until they are adults. So there's some selective pressures there, specially if you are competing against another group.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  My understanding is there are cancer cells in all adults. They are constantly killed off and never develop into tumors or anything of significance until … they do in some people. So to say we are not equipped to fight them is incorrect.
- dtech 5y ago
  > If you mean, we are not as equipped as elephants or whales to fight cancer, then that's true. There's some debate as to whether they have better cancer fighting mechanisms, or whether their size means they are less fast affected by cancers, and/or whether they are large enough that their cancers split into competing cancers before they are affected.
- f6v 5y ago
  I’m not disputing that, just stating that there’s no evolutionary pressure on keeping adults cancer-free. There is a big pressure at eliminating child cancers from the population.
wongarsu 5y ago
We have selective pressure to survive cancer for the first 40 years of our life (and not just barely survive but be unhindered by it). After that there are more subtle selective forces at work: having grandparents that are in good health and helping find food or care for children can certainly improve your survival chances. And of course the machinery we have developed to survive the first 40 years doesn't suddenly stop working after that. But you're right insofar as there's fairly little selective pressure to prevent cancer over the entire lifespan of a human. We probably could have much better protection from cancer, but the energy investment for that isn't worth it from an evolutionary perspective.
- caeril 5y ago
  > having grandparents that are in good health and helping find food or care for children Maybe, certainly since the advent of nuclear families. But our much longer genetic lineage selects around tribes, such that direct grandparents' longevity may not be as critically important. Third-and-fourth cousins likely easily filled this role.
  - wahern 5y ago
    > our much longer genetic lineage selects around tribes Out of curiosity, do you have any citations regarding prevalence of exogamy vs endogamy in tribal societies?
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    If your great-great-grandfather has a random genetic mutation, he can pass that down to both you and your third cousin. If that mutation helps your third cousin help you bring children to the world, you have a selective advantage. Of course that chain grows exponentially less likely the further you are from each other on the family tree, as the gene has to spread far enough by pure chance.
humanrebar 5y ago
> And there’s little survival advantage for people who can effectively fight cancer after their reproductive age. I don't know how to quantify it, but having healthy grandparents in the picture is a survival advantage.
- f6v 5y ago
  Having old grandparents who can’t hunt or forage and need to be fed is a big handicap. I’d like to see a cost/benefit analysis if there’s any.
- RosanaAnaDana 5y ago
  Its different when your grandparents are in their late 30's, early 40's. Modern reproductive ages are much, much later than they have been both historically and prehistorically. Grandparents 600-4k years ago would have been in their late thirties, mid forties for all but a very few. Still unlikely to generate significant selection pressure considering that the vast majority of cancers are late in life. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97292/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97292/
  - humanrebar 5y ago
    OK. Replace "grandparents" with "elderly relatives".
podgaj 5y ago
Palmitic acid affects oxidative stress. This is not only important in cancer, but in heart disease as well. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014482719304045 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144... https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/354235 https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/354235 On the role of Oxidative Stress and cancer, it's complicated, but it is there: https://www.med.or.jp/english/pdf/2001_12/535_539.pdf https://www.med.or.jp/english/pdf/2001_12/535_539.pdf (PDF) Go to Trader Joe's and look at the ingredients, everything has Palm Oil as an ingredient. This is important, and having a diet that suits your oxidative stress profile is important. And I do not care what anyone tells me, these oils are not something the body can handle well and are probably healthy only at low levels.
- imtringued 5y ago
  I don't know anything about palamitic acid but I know that carbs are the stronger driver of heart disease in our diet. Apparently everything causes cancer and heart disease and it's the 19th century people that magically avoided heart disease.
  - podgaj 5y ago
    Both carbs and fats will cause mitochondria disfunction at high doses and lead to disease. There are just some of them that do it faster than others as well. In the 19th century common folk did not have access to the large amount of calories as we do today. Plus there was much lower air pollution, pesticides, etc. To compare someone's health outcomes in the 19th century to someone living today is impossible. So all we can focus on is the now. And today we have an awful lot more people with metabolic disorders walking around.
btown 5y ago
> there’s little survival advantage for people who can effectively fight cancer after their reproductive age While there's less evolutionary advantage, it's far from trivial. See, for instance, https://www.pnas.org/content/100/16/9637 https://www.pnas.org/content/100/16/9637 : > In some species, postreproductive females make substantial contributions to their descendants, either through direct parental care or through grandparental care. Such contributions continue after birth in all mammals (most notably primates), all birds, many insects, and some fish (15). Postreproductive bottle-nose dolphins and pilot whales baby-sit, guard, and even breastfeed their grand-children (15). Selection against the mortality of postreproductive individuals in such species would be expected to continue.

by f6v 5y ago

clairity 5y ago

> "humans often are just not equipped to fight cancer." blanket statements like this are almost never correct. our bodies are certainly equipped to fight cancer, having evolved a number of mechanisms in that regard, it's just that cancer is relentless and the cumulative probabilities tend to catch up with a number of us eventually, which necessarily skews mortalities older. with that said, we're certainly unlikely to naturally evolve ourselves out of cancer risk in the next few millenia, so yes, technology is one of our best bets (along with developing tech to reduce novel carcinogen risks).

f6v 5y ago
There’s a big difference between “often” and “not at all”.

outworlder 5y ago

> humans often are just not equipped to fight cancer But we are? The immune system is constantly at work killing malignant (or otherwise dysfunctional) cells. Cells themselves have mechanisms to commit suicide (apoptosis) if they are not working properly. It's only when the several mechanisms we have get defeated at the same time (often due to mutations) that cancer can even develop. If you mean, we are not as equipped as elephants or whales to fight cancer, then that's true. > there’s little survival advantage for people who can effectively fight cancer after their reproductive age There's some advantage, but as far as nature's concerned, there's indeed diminishing returns. As in, for the individual that has already reproduced there's no reason to stay alive, but this is beneficial for the offspring - until they are adults. So there's some selective pressures there, specially if you are competing against another group.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
My understanding is there are cancer cells in all adults. They are constantly killed off and never develop into tumors or anything of significance until … they do in some people. So to say we are not equipped to fight them is incorrect.
dtech 5y ago
> If you mean, we are not as equipped as elephants or whales to fight cancer, then that's true. There's some debate as to whether they have better cancer fighting mechanisms, or whether their size means they are less fast affected by cancers, and/or whether they are large enough that their cancers split into competing cancers before they are affected.
f6v 5y ago
I’m not disputing that, just stating that there’s no evolutionary pressure on keeping adults cancer-free. There is a big pressure at eliminating child cancers from the population.

wongarsu 5y ago

We have selective pressure to survive cancer for the first 40 years of our life (and not just barely survive but be unhindered by it). After that there are more subtle selective forces at work: having grandparents that are in good health and helping find food or care for children can certainly improve your survival chances. And of course the machinery we have developed to survive the first 40 years doesn't suddenly stop working after that. But you're right insofar as there's fairly little selective pressure to prevent cancer over the entire lifespan of a human. We probably could have much better protection from cancer, but the energy investment for that isn't worth it from an evolutionary perspective.

caeril 5y ago
> having grandparents that are in good health and helping find food or care for children Maybe, certainly since the advent of nuclear families. But our much longer genetic lineage selects around tribes, such that direct grandparents' longevity may not be as critically important. Third-and-fourth cousins likely easily filled this role.
- wahern 5y ago
  > our much longer genetic lineage selects around tribes Out of curiosity, do you have any citations regarding prevalence of exogamy vs endogamy in tribal societies?
- wongarsu 5y ago
  If your great-great-grandfather has a random genetic mutation, he can pass that down to both you and your third cousin. If that mutation helps your third cousin help you bring children to the world, you have a selective advantage. Of course that chain grows exponentially less likely the further you are from each other on the family tree, as the gene has to spread far enough by pure chance.

humanrebar 5y ago

> And there’s little survival advantage for people who can effectively fight cancer after their reproductive age. I don't know how to quantify it, but having healthy grandparents in the picture is a survival advantage.

f6v 5y ago
Having old grandparents who can’t hunt or forage and need to be fed is a big handicap. I’d like to see a cost/benefit analysis if there’s any.
RosanaAnaDana 5y ago
Its different when your grandparents are in their late 30's, early 40's. Modern reproductive ages are much, much later than they have been both historically and prehistorically. Grandparents 600-4k years ago would have been in their late thirties, mid forties for all but a very few. Still unlikely to generate significant selection pressure considering that the vast majority of cancers are late in life. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97292/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97292/
- humanrebar 5y ago
  OK. Replace "grandparents" with "elderly relatives".

podgaj 5y ago

Palmitic acid affects oxidative stress. This is not only important in cancer, but in heart disease as well. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014482719304045 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144... https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/354235 https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/354235 On the role of Oxidative Stress and cancer, it's complicated, but it is there: https://www.med.or.jp/english/pdf/2001_12/535_539.pdf https://www.med.or.jp/english/pdf/2001_12/535_539.pdf (PDF) Go to Trader Joe's and look at the ingredients, everything has Palm Oil as an ingredient. This is important, and having a diet that suits your oxidative stress profile is important. And I do not care what anyone tells me, these oils are not something the body can handle well and are probably healthy only at low levels.

imtringued 5y ago
I don't know anything about palamitic acid but I know that carbs are the stronger driver of heart disease in our diet. Apparently everything causes cancer and heart disease and it's the 19th century people that magically avoided heart disease.
- podgaj 5y ago
  Both carbs and fats will cause mitochondria disfunction at high doses and lead to disease. There are just some of them that do it faster than others as well. In the 19th century common folk did not have access to the large amount of calories as we do today. Plus there was much lower air pollution, pesticides, etc. To compare someone's health outcomes in the 19th century to someone living today is impossible. So all we can focus on is the now. And today we have an awful lot more people with metabolic disorders walking around.

btown 5y ago

> there’s little survival advantage for people who can effectively fight cancer after their reproductive age While there's less evolutionary advantage, it's far from trivial. See, for instance, https://www.pnas.org/content/100/16/9637 https://www.pnas.org/content/100/16/9637 : > In some species, postreproductive females make substantial contributions to their descendants, either through direct parental care or through grandparental care. Such contributions continue after birth in all mammals (most notably primates), all birds, many insects, and some fish (15). Postreproductive bottle-nose dolphins and pilot whales baby-sit, guard, and even breastfeed their grand-children (15). Selection against the mortality of postreproductive individuals in such species would be expected to continue.