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My introductory biology classes informed me well enough to understand that fungal infections can weaken the body's immune systems, weaken the tissue, or spread

My introductory biology classes informed me well enough to understand that fungal infections can weaken the body's immune systems, weaken the tissue, or spread themselves over an inflamed area, with unfortunate side-effects of generating pro-growth local environments. Any of these may lead to an incidental increase in cancer growth. What's more, cancer was such a rare occurrence prior to WWI, you wouldn't expect that cancer rates would be directly related to pre-existing fungal flora. I'm pretty sure dissected tumors have eliminated fungal infections as integral parts of many (if not most) cancers. If it's not integral, fungal is opportunistic and likely unavoidable for most cases. I expect that these conceptual models are what makes these kinds of studies difficult to prove.

jjtheblunt 4y ago
> cancer was such a rare occurrence prior to WWI why do you say that?
- Supermancho 4y ago
  Primarily because I don't remember the dates that coincided with the industrial revolution and mass production of cigarettes, alongside demonstrative analytics. I thought 100 years ago was a decent starting point for data. I do remember that the first major pandemic of lung cancer started in the 1920s and the first controlled study of Cigarettes involvement with Lung cancer started in the 1950s - Hill & Doll in the US. A parallel study was started in 1951 in Britain, which ended in 2001. Prior to that, cancer was routinely written up in case studies and submitted to journals as interesting medical cases.
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    Perhaps infection disease killed people who would otherwise have grown a cancer, as your timing coincides with antibiotics adoption and technologies, I believe.
- chasil 4y ago
  Cancer loves sugar. They generally disable the mitochondria and burn glucose in a much less efficient anaerobic process. Areas with malnutrition and lower life expectancy would not grow them very well.
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    Is there data that supports this? (I don't even know where to look for a query of that sort)
    - chasil 4y ago
      The change in a cancer cell's glucose processing is known as the Warburg Effect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_(oncology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_(oncology) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2849637/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2849637/
      - jjtheblunt 4y ago
        Thanks. Is there any study that areas of malnutrition have lower cancers? I imagine it's hard sorting out causality, with sugar in wealthy western style diets, and perhaps different environmental stressors (pollution?) elsewhere?
frereubu 4y ago
Not quibbling with your general point, but was cancer a rare occurrence before WWI on a like-for-like basis? Life expectancy was a great deal lower then - it's gone up by around 30 years (from just over 50 to just over 80) since then.
- chiefalchemist 4y ago
  I would theorize that it was less detected prior to WW1, for obvious reasons. That aside, life expectancy, afaik, includes new born illnesses, childhood illness and so on, and then as adults there were occupational related deaths. Those brought down the average then. Did those who survived all those risks live as long as we do today? IDK. But there has to be data to figure that out, as the raw life expectancy then v now is likely misleading.

jjtheblunt 4y ago

> cancer was such a rare occurrence prior to WWI why do you say that?

Supermancho 4y ago
Primarily because I don't remember the dates that coincided with the industrial revolution and mass production of cigarettes, alongside demonstrative analytics. I thought 100 years ago was a decent starting point for data. I do remember that the first major pandemic of lung cancer started in the 1920s and the first controlled study of Cigarettes involvement with Lung cancer started in the 1950s - Hill & Doll in the US. A parallel study was started in 1951 in Britain, which ended in 2001. Prior to that, cancer was routinely written up in case studies and submitted to journals as interesting medical cases.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  Perhaps infection disease killed people who would otherwise have grown a cancer, as your timing coincides with antibiotics adoption and technologies, I believe.
chasil 4y ago
Cancer loves sugar. They generally disable the mitochondria and burn glucose in a much less efficient anaerobic process. Areas with malnutrition and lower life expectancy would not grow them very well.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  Is there data that supports this? (I don't even know where to look for a query of that sort)
  - chasil 4y ago
    The change in a cancer cell's glucose processing is known as the Warburg Effect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_(oncology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_(oncology) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2849637/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2849637/
    - jjtheblunt 4y ago
      Thanks. Is there any study that areas of malnutrition have lower cancers? I imagine it's hard sorting out causality, with sugar in wealthy western style diets, and perhaps different environmental stressors (pollution?) elsewhere?

frereubu 4y ago

Not quibbling with your general point, but was cancer a rare occurrence before WWI on a like-for-like basis? Life expectancy was a great deal lower then - it's gone up by around 30 years (from just over 50 to just over 80) since then.

chiefalchemist 4y ago
I would theorize that it was less detected prior to WW1, for obvious reasons. That aside, life expectancy, afaik, includes new born illnesses, childhood illness and so on, and then as adults there were occupational related deaths. Those brought down the average then. Did those who survived all those risks live as long as we do today? IDK. But there has to be data to figure that out, as the raw life expectancy then v now is likely misleading.