3 ms·
> A lot of people don't die from cancer because they don't live long enough, but prevention will never happen. Cancer is inevitable. Except of course for all t
by tremendo 15y ago
> A lot of people don't die from cancer because they don't live long enough, but prevention will never happen. Cancer is inevitable.
Except of course for all those that do live long enough, I don't think the centenarians and beyond die of cancer http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/7/862.short http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/7/862...
From what I can see at FastStats http://seer.cancer.gov/faststats/selections.php?series=age http://seer.cancer.gov/faststats/selections.php?series=age incidence does go up with age, but there's still plenty of cancers that happen at relatively young ages, and if you look at the trend, going back to 1975 which is not that much really, you can see a marked increase towards 1990 and then a stabilization, which to me suggests it's quite likely that environmental and lifestyle factors do come in play, as similar trends occur in other health related issues (metabolic syndrome). Markedly lower Vit-D levels, our increased consumption of n-6 poly-unsaturated fatty acids and processed foods, all likely play a role.
I short, I agree with gp in that there is surely a bigger payoff in prevention, but that doesn't mean that cures wouldn't be welcome too. I can't agree that cancer is inevitable.
Edited to add links, formatting.
- freehunter 15y ago>Except of course for all those that do live long enough, I don't think the centenarians and beyond die of cancer There are people immune to AIDS as well. These are the outliers. Just because people die of disease before they get cancer doesn't mean they wouldn't have gotten cancer otherwise. >it's quite likely that environmental and lifestyle factors do come in play Yes, I accepted that in my post. There are ways to increase your risk of cancer. My opinion was that there is never a statistically relevant zero risk for cancer. Prevention of cancer will never completely stop cancer from forming unless we know and can avoid all possible risk factors of cancer (impossible). Prevention is a good step, but finding a way to reverse cancer is the only way to keep people from dying from it.