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Colds May Trigger Childhood Cancers 216

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the staying-in-a-bubble-until-you're-twenty dept.
Tiger4 writes "BBC News is reporting that the incidence of childhood cancers may be affected by the colds that child has had. From the Article: 'Scientists have found further compelling evidence infections such as colds may trigger childhood cancers. The University of Newcastle-led team looked at 3,000 childhood cancers in 0 to 14-year-olds from 1954 to 1998, the European Journal of Cancer reported. Researchers found unusual clusters of brain tumors and leukemia which were typical of infection-related disease.' As much as an 8 percent increase was observed. However, the article goes on to say that some risks go down with very early exposure to other children, 'In April, a Leukemia Research Fund study found that children introduced to nursery before the age of one were found to be at lower risk of leukemia.'"
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Colds May Trigger Childhood Cancers More

Colds May Trigger Childhood Cancers

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  • Hmm,... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bill Wong ( 583178 ) <bcw@@@well...com> on Monday December 12, 2005 @07:41PM (#14242693) Homepage
    I personally think once more research is done into this, they're going to realize that it's not the colds themselves, but, people overmedicated their children with over the counter pills with doses larger then recommended...

    • Re:Hmm,... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 )
      I had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia starting in 1980. There is thought to be a viral and a genetic trigger for ALL in-addition to the environmental factors from carcinogens and radiation.

      In the years before I got cancer, I was never "overmedicated" or medicated at all for colds or the flu. Since all the OTC and perscription drugs for colds are tested and none of them cause cancer, I think you might be off base.

    • Re:Hmm,... (Score:5, Informative)

      by xiao_haozi ( 668360 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @08:23PM (#14243003) Homepage Journal
      Although I do agree with the observation of over-medication in our society (e.g. the abuse of antibiotics and the catalyzed evolution of resistant strains of bacteria), the most likely causation here is from the actual viral infection. The corona virus (i.e. "common cold") has been shown to utilize very unique and distinct replication strategies which may be causing the mutations that would lead to increased susceptibility of tumor develop. As is stated in a later comment in these topic, HPV viral expression patterns have been shown to be linked to almost all cervical cancers. There is most likely some such related mechanism of cellular disruption causing either altered expression patterns in the cells of these children or mutations affecting the proteins that are responsible for regulating cell growth (hence tumor development). What is interesting, however, is that such situations have been shown in adults many times with various viral infections which is logical when one considers the risks of cancer related to age progression.

    • Re:Hmm,... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by moosesocks ( 264553 )
      OK, so children today are overmedicated. How to you jump from that to this unfounded claim that they're causing cancer?

      I'll easily grant you that bacterial immunity of antibiotics is a very bad thing, but to make the audacious claim that it causes cancer is going a bit overboard, no?

      • Antibiotics, fungus and cancer (Score:5, Interesting)

        by tigerflag ( 648615 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @09:20PM (#14243337) Homepage
        A number of researchers over the years discovered that what was being called cancer was in fact fungal infections, and tumors were masses of fungal cells. Fungi behave the same way "cancer" does: they change the DNA of their host cells, they cause oxygen-breathing cells to become anaerobic instead, relying on fermentation for their nutrition, etc.

        Antibiotocs kill the beneficial bacteria that keep fungus in check. Cancer rates started to explode after WWII, concurrent with the rise of antibiotic use. It could be that what we're seeing is actually an explosion of fungal infections, but interest in studying and testing for fungus waned as scientists became enthusiastic about studying bacteria, viruses and retroviruses.

        Many people seemingly come down with cancer after experiencing an illness for which they took antibiotics. Since many doctors and parents still insist on giving antibiotics to children with colds, there "could" be a connection. Many illnesses that doctors still give antibiotics for may actually be fungal infections, and the infection remains after the course of antibiotics runs out. Sinus infections come to mind. At least 80% of sinus infections are actually fungal in nature, but the majority of doctors don't test for fungus or prescribe antifungals- they still give antibiotics instead. There are other ways to "catch" a fungus; antibiotics are only one way.

        A number of children with leukemia that develop "secondary" fungal infections have gone into remission as a result of the antifungal medication they received. What if their problem was never cancer in the first place, but was a fungal infection to begin with? If you want more information about this, I HIGHLY recommend a book by Doug Kauffman called "The Germ that Causes Cancer". It has a lot more scientific documentation in it than the cheesy title would indicate.

        • Re:Antibiotics, fungus and cancer (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          At least 80% of sinus infections are actually fungal in nature

          Source? According to this Virtual Hospital article [vh.org], Allergic Fungal Sinusitis accounts for "5% to 10% of cases of chronic sinusitis requiring surgical intervention". From the article, it sounds like the fungal infections tend to be worse than the bacterial ones, so it'd be less than 5-10% of all sinus infections.

          • Yeah, great link (sarcasm). It actually states that:

            Fungi are closely related to bacteria.

            That is completely WRONG. In reality, we've learned that (true) fungi, things like bread mold (Rhizopus), black mold (Stachybotrus and Aspergillus), etc. are more closely related to animals (and yes, we are officially "animals") than bacteria.

            This is why bacterial diseases of animals are (relatively) easy to control with antibiotics. We can take seriously "powerful" inhibitors of bacterial biological process

    • Re:Hmm,... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Manchot ( 847225 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @11:57PM (#14244047)
      The thing about science is that your opinion does not change the facts.

      Fact 1: Cancer is caused by mutated cells run amok.
      Fact 2: Over-the-counter pills do not directly change your DNA. They are not overtly carciongenic, and even if they are carcinogenic in large quantities, the effects would take years to manifest. (Think about how long it takes most smokers to get lung cancer.)
      Fact 3: Cold viruses do change your DNA. Just because our bodies are used to fighting off various strains of the common cold, it doesn't make them any less mutagenic to individual cells.

      With these facts in mind, which is most likely to cause cancer? The weak drugs, or the cell-mutating virus? You offer no evidence to support your claim except for your social commentary. That is not science any more than Intelligent Design is.

    • I think a few colds.. (Score:4, Funny)

      by teknomage1 ( 854522 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @12:25AM (#14244159) Homepage
      I think a few colds causing Childhood Cancer are a small price to pay for the continual protection from Martian Invasion that the common cold provides us.
  • If a kid has to suffer cold, most likely her family's financial condition is not good, therefore cannot provide a lot of necessary nutritions to her developing body. Could this be the cause too?

  • Cause or correlation? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drgonzo59 ( 747139 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @07:42PM (#14242700)
    Is is also possible that the same children that have a weak immune system and get more colds would also be more susceptable to cancer? So both the colds and the cancer are effects of some other, 3rd cause.
    • It's funny when slashdotters make comments like this. I mean a lot of researchers do these studies for "living". Do you really think they don't think of such factors. Have some faith in science and scientists okay? Infact to quote the researcher in question

      These findings provide more clues to a link between viruses and some types of childhood cancer, but we need more evidence before we can be sure

      clearly indicates he needs further evidence.
      • Many Microsoft developers develop software for a living. Yet look at the crap that came out of there until fairly recently.

        Just because somebody does something for a living, even if they have numerous qualifications and credentials, does not mean that they are actually any good at it.

        It's just as easy for a trained scientist or doctor to overlook a flaw in their data or findings as it is for a programmer to dereference a NULL pointer.

      • Some researchers tend to lose sight of the process and try to "prove" a theory they have in their head. If you massage the data different ways, you can come up with different conclusions from the same data. Correlations are easy to find. Causes are more difficult and often require the researcher to have no preconceived notion as to what it is so as to not inadvertantly introduce their own bias (hence the reason double blind studies are used when possible).

        I have seen far too many "professionals" try to s
      • It's funny too how often researchers make outlandish claims and manage to write whole books about it when in fact their data or analysis are wrong.

        In this case it might be the problem with the reporting. The researcher should report what she or he found in fact based on data. In this case what the researcher you quoted said was exactly what the headline should have been. Between the "link" and "cause" is a big difference. So to jump from that to "cold triggers cancer" is big mistake.

        You might also want

      • "faith in science and scientists"

        Science is science because its based on doubt. I also immediately went for the third conclusion. Perhaps something is depressing the immune system, while weakening you enough for the cold may lead you to another infection. Perhaps its a hormonal problem, which often affects the immune system too, that is overstimulating cell growth in that region for a prolonged period. Maybe it is the previously mentioned overmedication, or a certian type of medication even. All that the

    • Re:Cause or correlation? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ChrisKnight ( 16039 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @07:55PM (#14242806) Homepage
      Given that the vast majority of cervical cancer turned out to be a result of HPV infection, it easily falls into the realm of possibility that other cancers have their roots in viral infections, such as colds, as well.

      -Chris

      • Re:Cause or correlation? (Score:4, Informative)

        by BewireNomali ( 618969 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @08:04PM (#14242872)
        agreed.... so to the incidence of stomach cancer relative to those who've had ulcers. Ulcers are now known to be caused by h.pylori infections, which are notoriously difficult to eradicate.
        • h.pylori infections, which are notoriously difficult to eradicate.

          Eh, no. H.pylori are quite easy to eradicate using a 3-way cure of
          1: omeprazole or esomeprazol (ProtonPumpInhibitor)
          2: clarithromyzin
          3: metronidazole or amoxicillin

          to be taken daily for a week. If that is difficult, look up the cure for TB.
      • Given that viruses function by modifying a host-cell's DNA, and that not all DNA modifications are perfect, and that Cancer is usually the result of an error in DNA transcription, I think the virus-cancer relationship is pretty much a no-brainer. Of course, there's a difference between theory and practice. . .
      • And given that colds happen through a weakened immune system, the latter of which can be shown to be caused by stress, we could therefore deduce that Cervical Cancer can be caused by stress.
         
        <Gong!>
         
        .
        -shpoffo
    • When I read the article, it doesn't actually quote one of the scientists as saying 'colds cause childhood cancer.' It seems to me that the media has once again sensationalized this, and mixed up correlation and effect. Next up: When children cry, scrapes appear!

    • Re:Cause or correlation? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cipster ( 623378 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @08:14PM (#14242943)
      No read the article. It wasn't just a simple correlation, there was also a spatial and temporal association. Pretty much cancer data overlapped with infectious data. Things like weak immune system etc. would lead to constant rates not clustered in both time and space.
    • This is important insight. I wrote about a recent article from the UPI [blogspot.com] regarding studying children who haven't been vaccinated and how they didn't find one case of autism.

      We're needing more studies by independent researchers into childhood diseases and problems. I personally don't trust the AMA, but I also don't trust anecdotal evidence. I have a friend who believes that AIDS occurs from a mutation, not blood/fluid exchange. He's a tinfoil investor, but there is research out there by the medical communi
      • Autism is not caused by childhood vaccinations, the supposed link is formed by the fact that the vast majority of children are vaccinated and those who are not are often from very spicific ethnic and social groups with beliefs against immunization or modern medical procedures in general.
      • It is interesting. I read the article and your comment about it. The way I see it is often not a black and white issue of "homeschoolers/non-traditional medical practitioners are always right" or "AMA and traditional doctors are always right." I think both are right and wrong to a certain degree.

        In the case of the vaccinations and autism, I wonder if there could be a third variable that should be considered - for example what if there is something else that parents who do not vaccinate their children do t

    • Cause or Effect?

      Could children with early stage cancer be more likely to catch a cold?

      Really the chances of a child getting cancer is already so low that multipling it by 1.08 doesn't increase the odds all that much. IMHO anyway.
    • Why is this news? A weakened immune system opens the door. Sheesh...

  • Is that really the cause? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bwd ( 936324 )
    Or are the frequent colds indicative of a weak immune system, which in turn gives way to cancer later in life? I bet if the study was conducted over a broader range of illnesses, they'd find that these children suffered from all kinds of ailments.
  • Some of the data reportedly goes back to the 1950s. Medical technology was quite different back then. I know a number of people who died around that time from what we now would refer to as some form of cancer, but at the time the doctors weren't sure what the ailment was.

    That said, what is the quality of the data from forty or fifty years ago? Are there misdiagnoses mixed in, for instance?

  • genes? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by boog3r ( 62427 )
    So you have genetic structures being manipulted in pre-pubescent humans? Is there such a thing as early-onset testicular or ovarian cancer? Something like that could affect the stem cells producting reproductive cells.

    If so, this could be concrete evidence of an evolutionary mechanism.

  • Viral causes for disease (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @07:44PM (#14242715)
    It's interesting that for awhile, people were looking at genetic causes for various diseases such as cancer. Now we're back to the disease model, which turns out to also be due to genetics.

    Basically anything that fiddles with your DNA is quite dangerous, be it smoking or radiation and the like. Viruses modify the DNA of millions of cells, most of which are destroyed in the process. Unfortunately a few survive, which can cause mutations that lead to cancer.

    I suspect the early exposure to colds actually boosts a child's immune system. They're better able to fight off colds, so though they get more at a younger age, the ones they get later don't modify as many cells. Just a guess, of course. I doubt they'd approve a scientific study on modifying the DNA of small children.
    • Good post. This needs reiterated in light of how little most people (judging by the posts here, at least) know about cancer. Cancer is not a disease in the classic form, in the sense that medication, your immune system, and many other factors associated with traditional disease have no bearing whatsoever upon the likelihood of developing cancer. There has been many instances [cancer.org] where cancer has been directly linked to viral infection, most prominently cervical cancer. Basically, being exposed to anything t

  • Another one (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MasterPi ( 896501 )
    They keep doing more studies and whaddaya know... everything causes cancer. Except those things which prevent it of course. Its enough to make a man skeptical.

  • signal to noise ratio? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blackcoot ( 124938 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @07:55PM (#14242807)
    interesting research, but i'm not exactly certain how useful their data are.

    first off, the study only speaks to cancer rates in one very small (geographically speaking) portion of the world. the researchers themselves point out the importance of geography, so i'm not quite certain how they arrive at their conclusion that viral infections are linked. i'm not saying it's not possible, i'm just saying that it's a pretty common occurrance when running clustering algorithms to find that you're either converge to different solutions, your clusters actually split "natural" class boundaries, and so on. without seeing their cluster analysis results (and, in particular, what clustering algorithm they used), it's potentially easy to explain away their results as artefacts of the clustering algorithm.

    secondly, the article doesn't really go into great detail, but i'm not really convinced that there is a statistically significant variation here (or, rather, i'm not sure what the statistical significance of the variation is). 8% isn't really a whole lot -- certainly not in my line of work. i imagine that when dealing with human beings, most things in that ballpark of 10% can be explained away by looking at the population variance. of course, i am not a doctor, i have no idea what their statistical methodology was, etc. etc. etc.

  • Disregard Please. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Foamy ( 29271 )
    The BBC has the worst science writers on the planet for any major publication.

    The BBC article doesn't even mention the actual article, which I assume is this article [nih.gov], or perhaps this one [nih.gov].

    Here are some of the juicy conclusion which I assume the craptacular BBC writer honed in on for his/her craptastic masterpiece.

    The results support a role for infectious exposures in glioma aetiology that may act preferentially in certain geographical areas.

    Or this beauty.

    In conclusion, these findings are consisten

    • If you would like to discuss your complaint with my post, then please do.

      Do you take umbrage at my slam on the BBC? If so, then lay out your reasoning.

      Or do you not like my interpretation of the findings?

      It does a disservice to the general public for the BBC to post this crap, then to have it propagated by sites like Slashdot.
    • The article mentions the European Journal of Cancer in the first paragraph. And the page has a link has a direct link to the online version. EJC [elsevierhealth.com]

      A little more poking around takes you to the abstract [sciencedirect.com] at Science Direct

      • You're correct. I missed that link in the box on the right as I was so incensed at the crappy article and I have trained by eyes to avoid links in boxes like that as they are often ads.

        If you note, in my post I linked to both relevant publications in Pubmed and in a latter post linked to the full articles in EJC.

        Thanks for the heads up!

  • Pathogens and genes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @08:01PM (#14242850) Journal
    A friend of mine, Greg Cochran, co-authored a paper a few years ago suggesting that pathogens, not genes, should be looked at as the possible cause for many fitness-reducing conditions. His reasoning was pretty simple: evolution gets rid of genes that reduce fitness.

    Along these lines, he suggests that homosexuality is best explained as a side-effect of some early childhood or pre-natal infection. The numbers simply don't work out for any genetic theory. (Such as the gay uncle who improves the fitness of his nieces and nephews.)
    • "side-effect of some early childhood or pre-natal infection"

      Then one would be inclined to expect outbreaks of 'gay' infections. I buy that it is environmental at a very young age, and I agree that it is statistically improbable that it is purely genetic, but I find it hard to believe that an infection would be the (singular) cause of it. I suppose I could be wrong... it might explain the Ancient Greek's.
      • It certainly explains teh Intarweb. Your teh GAY!!@>>>??!!!

        Computers cause gayness, that must be it!
      • Well, it wouldn't be an infection that causes homosexuality in 100% of the people who get it. It would be more like something that causes it in 5% of it's victims, and half the population comes down with it. Lots of diseases work like this.

      • Re:Pathogens and genes (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Reziac ( 43301 ) *
        Homosexuality seems to hover at around 20% of the population, regardless of other factors. This would be reasonably consistent with the expected expression of a widespread simple recessive gene, where there is no selection FOR that trait.

        • By 20%, I think you mean 3%. And no it wouldn't. Any such recessive gene would be driven out of the gene pool remarkably quickly. Do the math.

          In fact, the only genetic disease with nearly the same fitness hit would be sickle cell—in some of the high-malaria regions of Africa it kills 1 or 2 percent of the population. That's still far lower than the fitness hit of the imaginary homosexuality gene. Sickle cell is only around because it has been selected for. (One copy is a malaria defense, and m
          • I did the math. A non-lethal simple recessive, more or less universally carried and not selected for or against, has a 25% incidence of expression.

            A trackable example is the yellow gene in Labrador Retrievers. In the 1800s, yellows were usually bucketed as an "off colour", and remained rare as a phenotype, tho the gene persisted. However once the colour gained acceptance, the percentage recorded in the registries normalized to around a quarter of the population. (And when selection FOR the colour started, s
    • Could you provide a link to Greg Cochran's paper? I'm starting to suspect an infectious role in triggering several chronic conditions.
      • No link, but here is the citation:
        Cochran, Gregory M. "Infectious Causation of Disease: An Evolutionary Perspective" Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - Volume 43, Number 3, Spring 2000, pp. 406-448

  • May depends on the virus specie (Score:5, Informative)

    by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @08:05PM (#14242877) Homepage
    First : The only thing that the article mentions is statistical correlation. As always repeated *THAT* doesn't constitute proof of causality. Experimental proof of the *processus* is necessary before reaching a conclusion, otherwise it may be anything else, including causes due to external 3rd factor (some other /.ers mentionned bad medication, defective immune system or poor socio-economic level. The article itselfs mentions this may depends on genetic factors), or even pure coincidence (this study hasn't been replicated yet).

    Second : There's a lot of virus that can cause cancer. They do this by inserting bogus genetic material into the cell that causes it to replicate, or that disables important anti-cancer genes at the point of insertion.
    Examples of such known viruses includes Human Papilloma Virus [wikipedia.org], of which some variants (although rarer in the western world) could cause cancer [wikipedia.org] of the woman genitalia (to be precise : the cervix. It's a part of the uterus) and is routinely monitored by the gynecologist.

    Some of these viruses, like the Epstein Barr virus [wikipedia.org], may only manifest as "colds" or even be asymptomatic, specially in young children (Mononucleosis [wikipedia.org] happens more to older children).
    So, most likely, cancer isn't caused by "common cold" (influenza, RSV, or a bunch of other common viruses and bacteria), but the increased numbers may be explained because some cancer-associated viruses may have "cold"-like symptoms. (Even if the "cancer" variant are rarer in europe than some other parts of the world, as far as I know)
  • Wasn't there some news a few years back about the increase in childhood asthma being related to kids not getting sick enough? Food and houses were becoming too sterile.

    I think the theory was that colds and flus strengthen the immune system, and asthma was somehow related to a non-strengthened immune system.

    I'm not sure how you keep kids from getting sick... mine get a cold three or four times a year (a couple times more than my wife and I).
    • The "hygene hypothesis" as it is often termed is not based on children's level of exposure to communicable disease. It is based on children's exposure to more benign but pervasive environmental contaminants.

      Basically, the hypothesis is that the immune system is designed to be constantly fighting off the kind of relatively benign organisms (bacteria, virii, parasites, etc.) found all around us in dirt/soil/water/etc. There are antibodies and white blood cells constantly circulating throughout our system look
  • A cold has never killed anyone. HAH.

    What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Nope wrong again.

    All of sudden those Star Trek jokes where they still have not found a cure for the common cold is not so funny eh?

    I am not going to make any usefull comments of course. Virusses of a different kind I know something about. I am not even sure what causes a cold.

  • Yes... (Score:2, Funny)

    by eosp ( 885380 )
    Just another excuse to stay home from school.
  • There is a huge difference between two things being related, and causally related. Colds cause cancer? Maybe, but this article wasn't enough to convince me. More likely kids with weak immune systems are more succeptible to colds. And cancer. (Cancer is after all, just over-replicating cells that get away from your immune system's defense, of killing dangerous cells, and replicates ad infinitum).
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • As a father, I worry enough about my kids as it is.

    This article couldn't have come at a worse time, as right now all three of my kids have a cold.

    So if they get a tumor, I'm blaming *you*.

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