65% of Cancers Caused by Bad Luck, Not Genetics or Environment 180
BarbaraHudson writes The Wall Street Journal and the CBC are reporting that about two-thirds of cancers are caused by random chance. From the WSJ: "The researchers, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, analyzed published scientific papers to identify the number of stem cells, and the rate of stem-cell division, among 31 tissue types, though not for breast and prostate tissue, which they excluded from the analysis. Then they compared the total number of lifetime stem-cell divisions in each tissue against a person's lifetime risk of developing cancer in that tissue in the U.S." The correlation between these parameters suggests that two-thirds of the difference in cancer risk among various tissue types can be blamed on random, or 'stochastic,' mutations in DNA occurring during stem-cell division, and only one-third on hereditary or environmental factors like smoking, the researchers conclude. 'Thus, the stochastic effects of DNA replication appear to be the major contributor to cancer in humans.'" The CBC reports: "The researchers said on Thursday random DNA mutations accumulating in various parts of the body during ordinary cell division are the prime culprits behind many cancer types. They looked at 31 cancer types and found that 22 of them, including leukemia and pancreatic, bone, testicular, ovarian and brain cancer, could be explained largely by these random mutations — essentially biological bad luck. The other nine types, including colorectal cancer, skin cancer known as basal cell carcinoma and smoking-related lung cancer, were more heavily influenced by heredity and environmental factors like risky behavior or exposure to carcinogens. Overall, they attributed 65 percent of cancer incidence to random mutations in genes that can drive cancer growth."
IMPOSSIBLE. (Score:1, Interesting)
Capitalist theory requires that everyone is a rational, voluntary actor. The idea that hundreds of millions of people will suffer due to random bad luck renders the whole philosophy inadequate to apply to reality, requiring some sort of mixed economy with bailouts every three decades or so to be workable.
When I was young, I said to my (Russian) uncle, "Didn't communism fail?" He replied, "Yes, communism failed once, and nobody forgets. Capitalism fails every few years, but people quickly forget. We take fro
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Based on the mod, looks like someone got butthurt.
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And sjames is in, batting for the trolls .... swing and a miss.
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Perhaps some preparation H will help.
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It might. Give it a try and let us know if it helps.
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True communism hasn't really even been applied anywhere...
That's because rational people don't have to actually go through with it to see how toxic it is.
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True communism hasn't really even been applied anywhere...
I think you are perhaps unfamiliar with the early history of the state of Utah, when it was called Deseret, and subsumed most of Nevada and part of Colorado and a corner of Wyoming. The early Mormon/LDS settlers practiced early Communism (early, because it predated Marx et. al., so obviously it wasn't called that yet).
One of the problems was when the kids wanted new pair of dungarees (which is what they were called at the time), they would tend to use a knife sharpening grinding wheel to "age" the cloth p
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Considering, for better or worse, communism has been tried many times in communities of a few dozen to few hundred people, it is pretty damn impressive that it kills tens of millions every time. That would have to be one of the most impressive weapons known to mankind, to take a couple dozen people, with no special skills, plop them down on in some farming village, and then cause ten million people to die.
actual paper (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a link [sciencemag.org] to the actual paper, and a pretty nice editorial [sciencemag.org] from Science (as opposed to CBC).
I'm shocked! Well not that shocked (Score:1)
Who'd have thought that random mutation which turned us from a bunch of slime in a puddle to a race capable of space travel could have a downside!
The human body is a VHS tape being copied over and over and over again. Eventually you get replication errors, one of which could end up being cancerous. It's the price we pay for substantially increasing our lifespan in an extremely short period of time.
Re: I'm shocked! Well not that shocked (Score:2, Informative)
Some animals are much better at suppressing cancer than others. Humans rank as one of the best at this, but other animals do even better.
This is why rats are poor models for cancer in humans. They have few of our defenses and are severely prone to cancer.
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Environmental Factors? (Score:5, Informative)
The correlation between these parameters suggests that two-thirds of the difference in cancer risk among various tissue types can be blamed on random, or 'stochastic,' mutations in DNA occurring during stem-cell division, and only one-third on hereditary or environmental factors like smoking, the researchers conclude.
The article says,
By “chance” Tomasetti meant the roll of the dice that each cell division represents, leaving aside the influence of deleterious genes or environmental factors such as smoking or exposure to radiation.
The summary says 1/3 has smoking and environmental effects, while the article says the 1/3 doesn't have smoking and environmental effects.
Lately, slashdot summaries have gotten worse and worse and completely change what is being claimed.
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Yeah, after reading the stupid and misleading summary I couldn't help but think of all the cancer villages within heavy polluted areas over in China.
What is it random that they're ALL getting cancer?
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Thus, Tomasetti and Vogelstein reasoned, the tissues that host the greatest number of stem cell divisions are those most vulnerable to cancer. When Tomasetti crunched the numbers and compared them with actual cancer statistics, he concluded that this theory explained two-thirds of all cancers.
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The article says:
Thus, Tomasetti and Vogelstein reasoned, ...
The problem with sophistry is that Aristotle himself arrived at the following "facts" through strict reasoning (as opposed to, you know counting or measuring:
(1) Women have fewer teeth than men
(2) Men have a higher blood temperature than women
(3) Men have fewer ribs than women
(4) Eels don't reproduce, they are spontaneously generated from mud
(5) The same for flies, lice, oysters, clams... all from inanimate matter. Ruined a lot of science for years.
An empiricist, he was not. If I am to have an oncologist,
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The problem with sophistry is that Aristotle himself arrived at the following "facts" through strict reasoning (as opposed to, you know counting or measuring:
Second sentence:
Tomasetti crunched the numbers and compared them with actual cancer statistics, he concluded that this theory explained two-thirds of all cancers.
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Second sentence:
Tomasetti crunched the numbers and compared them with actual cancer statistics, he concluded that this theory explained two-thirds of all cancers.
That's correlation, not causation. It's bad science.
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I would take his claim as a hypothesis that requires further experimentation, not as bad science.
This is how science works. A scientist says, "I have a model that explains these phenomena in a way that agree with real-world data. It makes these predictions. Bring it." Then people collect data and do experiments to verify that the model and its predictions hold. Or, they discover discrepancies and refine that model.
The author has a model. He feels pretty confident about it. Now the science begins.
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That's a very common lie about Aristotle, but it's false. The exact quote from Aristotle (On the Parts of Animals: Book III) is:
âMales have more teeth than females in the case of men, sheep, goats, and swine; in the case of other animals observations have not yet been made.â
That is, Aristotle did not "reaso
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That's a nice correction. But you know the meaning of 'lie' I hope.
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When people ignorantly repeat a lie, it doesn't cease being a lie; it merely absolves the repeaters of being liars.
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I am not sure mutations should be tightly linked to cancer. Here's an alternative model: the same set of genes give rise with humans to about 250 different useful 'regimes', which we know as cell types, and which are just different rhythms of the network of genes switching each other on and off.
If (some) cancers are just bad regimes of the same genes, then not a single mutation is needed. Then it's just another celltype that replicates too much.
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Look for 'homeobox' and cancer. Of course homeobox expression can itself be influenced by mutations, but I never can tell whether the mutation hypothesis is some default assumption or whether they've got confirmation.
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I didn't know that one. It's not what I had in mind - I was thinking of an abnormal state of an otherwise normal system - but it's interesting.
No such thing as luck, scientifically (Score:2, Insightful)
You may not know all the variables, you may not understand all the variables, we may not for centuries - but in the grand scheme of things, this universe is most likely deterministic.
Any 'scientist' that claims something is bad 'luck', and NOT environmental - is insane and/or completely lacking in a reasonable understanding of physics and mathematics.
I imagine what they really mean is it's not 'environmental' in any way that we can control at our scale of being, with our current technology.
Re:No such thing as luck, scientifically (Score:4, Informative)
As I recall a great deal of effort has been spent attempting to prove the existence of "hidden variables" in Quantum Mechanics, yet to date virtually all evidence suggests that they do not exist, and that quantum-level events are truly random. What makes you think that future discoveries will fundamentally change that? Do you just not like the idea that there might be some option for choice in your life?
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I'm with Einstein on this one, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Let's take your basic double slit [wikipedia.org] interference pattern. Either they have some hidden quantum state which means it's not really the exact same thing or the laws of nature are rewritten at a whim for each photon that's far more absurd. Particularly when we can observe the exact same phenomenon on a macro scale in ripple tanks, if we send waves of water against a slit the size of the wave length
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It sounds like you are misunderstanding Quantum Mechanics - and that's okay. I believe even Feynman suggested there were at most a handful of people who *really* do. But I think I've got a more secure perch on the shoulder of this giant, so let's see if we can't improve your understanding a bit, shall we?
> Particularly when we can observe the exact same phenomenon on a macro scale in ripple tanks
Umm, no we can't actually. We can observe something *analogous* in ripple tanks, but a ripple tank will stil
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We also have a very good understanding of what "wave-height" means, at least in applied terms: the wave-height at a given point is the probability of finding the particle-like manifestation of the quarticle there.
Quantum mechanics is absurdly weird in more ways I can count, but with regards to having a hidden state and determinism I think I was trying to arrive at the de Broglie-Bohm theory where the universe is in a particular quantum state and there is no more true randomness or free will than in classical physics.
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Not directly, no. But in a deterministic universe there is *zero* opportunity for choice at all. Every moment in your life was predetermined from the moment the universe came into existence.
With a random substructure you at least have an interface between subatomic chaos and macroscopic order where interesting things like choice might become possible, even if we don't yet understand the mechanism. After all such a chaos/order interface is at core of evolution itself - practically the definition of an awes
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Initiators vs promoters (Score:5, Interesting)
The headline is shocking when one consider the steep rise of cancer since 1945. If it was luck, then how it could change over time?
But I think the paper could still be a valuable contribution, it is just that this summary ignores the difference between cancer initiation and cancer promotion. Many environmental factors favor existing tumors but do not create them. Hence initiation can be random, while promotion can be environment-induced.
Re:Initiators vs promoters (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed. I seem to recall reading something several years ago claiming that the average person develops cancer many times in their life - it's just that most of the time the tumor doesn't survive for long, or never grows beyond microscopic size. It's not the starting that's the problem, it's the conditions that allow it to grow and spread dangerously.
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Yes, if you consider the conditions required to get a cancer, it seems to be really bad luck:
Re:Initiators vs promoters (Score:5, Informative)
You seem to misunderstand: cancer requires more than a single mutation. At a bare minimum cancer needs a protooncogene mutation, and then typically also requires Knudson two-hit on at least one of the tumor suppressor genes. That, together, gets cancer started.
The angiogenesis and metastasis mutations (among others) happen later due to natural selection. Cancer is just evolution.
To restate: I have never heard of a single DNA point mutation from wild type that can cause cancer. Multiple mutations of specific types are required. The odds of this happening are increased because most adult cells are on "pause" in the cell cycle, so mutations can accumulate without causing immediate triggering of apoptosis.
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However 95% to 100% of tumors are reported Aneuploid.
Yes, chromosomal duplication, wholesale deletion, transposition, etc, do tend to happen in cancer due to accumulated errors in a positive feedback loop. For example, the most famous human cancer cell line for lab use is HeLa (taken from Henrietta Lacks' cervical cancer back in the 1950's) have 70-80 chromosomes rather than the normal human 46.
However, in a larger sense your point isn't well-made because we are discussing oncogenesis and you are talking about sampling cells from an, ipso facto, established c
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You appear to be performing the act you advise me not to do.
Haha, no, I merely misphrased. As I said before, cancer requires a mutation in a protooncogene and a two-hit to disable a tumor suppressor gene.
Perhaps only mutations that lead to stable aneuploidies are an issue.
Feel free to back up that claim. I'm sure you'll understand why less weight is given to speculation from an AC that seems to contradict both Occam's Razor as well as current understanding in the field.
That is how I meant to phrase it. Sorry for the confusion.
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Also how do you explain the effects of non mutagens such as asbestos? The claim that two hits to a oncogene and suppressor are REQUIRED is surely too strong.
Don't take this the wrong way, but you really should familiarize yourself with basic concepts in the field before trying to speculate.
For example, two hits are required on a tumor suppressor gene but only one hit is required on a protooncogene. This will be obvious if you understand the mechanisms involved. Once you learn why that's the case, you can probably also learn from proximate educational material why persistent irritants that cannot be cleared by the body (asbestos is the classical example) can cau
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If the narrative you subscribe to is correct, people should be able to take a normal cell, introduce the point mutations, and observe it transforming. They can't...
[citation needed]
Reputable, peer-reviewed journal articles only, please.
I still suggest you educate yourself, even though you seem to have already convinced yourself of the (dubious) veracity of your speculation. You might then understand, for example, about oncogenes, tumor suppressors, and cancer inducing viruses. Yes, scholasticism is not science, but ignorance is no virtue.
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but the burden of proof lies on you when you contradict the preponderance of established knowledge.
You could read about oncogenesis in HPV, the mechanism of which is well elucidated, but I doubt you will even admit that viruses can cause cancer. I'm not going to play your "guess where I will move the goalposts next" game, especially as you seem to be applying some new "appeal to ignorance as a form of authority" fallacy. No doubt eventually you would demand evidence that cells ex
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Imagine someone trying to publish a paper on aneuploidy->tumorigenesis (or any other "alternative" process) with someone having your attitude as a reviewer!
I'm sure they would get a warm reception for an intriguing paper.
However, if the content of the paper made it clear that they were ignorant of even the basic, undergraduate-level concepts in the field that they were "overturning", I doubt I would take the time to try to tease out what they meant to say when they fail to properly execute their "refutation" of established knowledge. I mean, after all, it's not like I would be getting co-author credit or receiving tuition for providing their education.
Ask your
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I think you're talking about angiogenisis. http://www.ted.com/talks/willi... [ted.com]
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That's only one of the contributing factors - yes, a cancer that never triggers angiogenesis is unlikely to become an issue, but that's only one of the factors that contributes to a cancer becoming life-threatening, and is not sufficient on it's own. It's probably not strictly necessary either - after all a cancer could form in tissue that's already rich in blood vessels.
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Re:Initiators vs promoters (Score:5, Informative)
Context matters (Score:5, Insightful)
The headline is shocking when one consider the steep rise of cancer since 1945. If it was luck, then how it could change over time?
You're forgetting the context in which the study was made.
By assigning most cancer to random chance, they are laying the groundwork for the defense against future lawsuits for negligence and compensation against corporations. Companies will pour money into shouting these results as widely and loudly as possible, it will become a public meme, and the populist mantra will be "I got cancer, but it was just bad luck" for decades.
This is similar to the recent history of the tobacco industry, it took over 50 years to sort that out and the damage hasn't yet settled.
Expect this report to be wildly popular for the next few years.
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they are laying the groundwork for the defense against future lawsuits for negligence and compensation against corporations.
This isn't laying any groundwork that isn't already there. Cancer is already known to have many possible sources, including many environmental sources, even if the environmental sources versus background rate wasn't quantified as well before. It was already quite difficult to take a specific example of cancer and point to a specific cause with certainty. This research doesn't change any of the previous research that certain things can quantitatively increase cancer rates. The burden on getting company's
Re:Initiators vs promoters (Score:4, Interesting)
The rise of cancer is related specifically to the rise of life expectancy.
Live long enough and cancer will kill you; it's the primary obstacle in immortality.
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However from a purely information perspective, that is how good can we theoretically replicated cells etc, being effectively ageless is quite possible. Theoretically. (aka Shannon's information capacity of a noisy channel). But alas i doubt such deployments are going to be aroun
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I think aging is a more easily solvable problem. 3D printed organs using your own DNA could replace sick ones. We can sequence out your DNA when you're young as a master copy and then constantly revert your body to it using viral vectors and introduction through stem cells.
I'd imagine the only real problem we're going to have is with maintaining the brain.
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Antibiotics for one thing.
Less people have died from infection so something else has to make up that 100%.
Hence a reduced proportion of deaths from TB etc and a higher preportion from cancer.
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The headline is shocking when one consider the steep rise of cancer since 1945. If it was luck, then how it could change over time?
But I think the paper could still be a valuable contribution, it is just that this summary ignores the difference between cancer initiation and cancer promotion. Many environmental factors favor existing tumors but do not create them. Hence initiation can be random, while promotion can be environment-induced.
The headline is highly misleading. It should read '65% of Cancers Types Caused by Bad Luck, Not Genetics or Environment'. This means the steep rise of cancer can be attributed to the 33% types that now take a larger share and depend on environmental or genetic factors. You need really careful with omitted words as people want to see and hear what they want and not what you want to converse. I guess a lot of don't regulate us, let's pollute and save money guys will soon join the bandwaggon.
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The headline is highly misleading. It should read '65% of Cancers Types Caused by Bad Luck, Not Genetics or Environment'. This means the steep rise of cancer can be attributed to the 33% types that now take a larger share and depend on environmental or genetic factors. You need really careful with omitted words as people want to see and hear what they want and not what you want to converse. I guess a lot of don't regulate us, let's pollute and save money guys will soon join the bandwaggon.
Indeed, let me rephrase. No wait, let me sum up. /. but it was initially picked up at WSJ - which should never be posting such muck.
Remove the two largest types of cancer, breast and prostate, from the analysis. Then apply the remaining "types" of cancer, and state that 65% of those are not attributable to known factors. This is a "study" in hijinx that no one should read. People are pointing fingers at
Instead of getting lost in the fear factor of this thing, look at it this way. Percentage of total re
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The headline is shocking when one consider the steep rise of cancer since 1945. If it was luck, then how it could change over time?
we need to be careful that we are comparing apples with apples when comparing cancer rates between different countries or time periods. We have higher rates of people reaching their 70s and 80s now. And in addition to increased longevity, we also (in developed countries at least) have a higher proportion of our populations being older.
This is why we use an "age standardised cancer incidence" rate, to account for differences in the population makeup.
I'm not sure if the age-adjusted rate is much difference be
I guess bad luck is on the rise... (Score:2)
Really /., really?
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Sure just leave out the top two cancers. (Score:3, Interesting)
Leave out the top two, by far the most common, and the remaining top two are still predominantly hereditary and or environmental.
From: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/uscs/toptencancers.aspx
Top 10 Cancer Sites: 2011, Male and Female, United States Rates per 100,000
1. Prostate 128.3
2. Female Breast 122.0
3. Lung and Bronchus 61.0
4. Colon and Rectum 39.9
then a big drop in numbers before you see ...
5. Corpus and Uterus, NOS 25.4
Me thinks somebody is playing funny buggers with the numbers to get some funding for their particular line of research, while undermining the preventative medicine message at the same time. Evil.
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Prostate cancer is just a disease because it only affects a lesser/non-protected class: MEN
Breast cancer affects mostly a PROTECTED CLASS: WOMEN
Pink Ribbons everywhere. Prostate cancer ribbons? Who the fsck know what color(s) they might be.
Tripe.. (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, hey, trace arsenic [berkeley.edu] cuts breast cancer by FIFTY PERCENT.
What's that? Lithium in drinking water [nih.gov] is also associated with a host of benefits? Say it ain't so..
Gee, getting some sunshine / vitamin D [vitamindcouncil.org]can lower risk of pancreatic cancer??
I could go on and on but what would be the point.. supplementation and the like is at best psuedo-science in the eyes of western medicine.. it's much more profitable to engage in "sick care" than to actually equip our bodies with the things it needs at some single percent of the cost.
people now live long enough (Score:2)
Sorry, I believe in a just world (Score:4, Funny)
I must believe that when people get cancer, it is solely due to a personal failing, like smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise, drug use or obesity. Then I can blame them personally and feel good knowing that it can't happen to me because I don't commit any of those vices. Nor should society, aka me, have to pay for their cancer through higher insurance rates or government taxes because cancer patients are simply reaping what they have sown! The made the wrong heath choices, they should face the consequences.
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And people who have kids do so by choice so why should they get all those tax breaks!
Probably the side effect (Score:1)
Really bad summary. totally bogus math (Score:4, Informative)
bogus math. pointless conclusion.
There are lies
Damn lies
Then there are statistics
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Simple fix (Score:2)
Ban chance!
Bad Luck Prevention Pill (Score:2)
I'm sure any viable drug would be a best seller (for those lucky enough to be able to afford it).
Sigh. (Score:3)
Of course... if you read it at proper news outlets, they might be able to get a headline with some semblance of truth in it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/heal... [bbc.co.uk]
Most cancer TYPES 'just bad luck'
Most TYPES of cancer can simply be put down to bad luck rather than risk factors such as smoking, a study suggests. 338
Evolution Discovered!!! (Score:2)
The most telling point in the article was when they said the rate of colon cancer was 4 times the rate of small intestine cancer, and that exactly matches their differing rates of stem cell divisions overall. They did note that certain cancers such as lung cancer and skin cancer had environmental effects and that there were also general inheritance effects from your genes (who'da thunk
Smoking (Score:2)
I would have liked to see the study also exclude smoking.
If the number is as high as 65% including the smoking, I would think that after removing that it would be way higher - like on the order of 80% or more.
This won't Help (Score:2)
Re:mostly bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think you missed the part about 65% and not "all" cancers, and some cancers are highly affected by carcinogens and some are less based on biases created in modern living.
Still, these factors play into each other. Your lifestyle and environment influence how vulnerable you are to bad luck - I have heard it said that we all have cancer all the time, but our immune system normally manages to kill off the cancerous cells; external factors can weaken our immune system to the extent that some cancer cells may survive.
The way I understand this new research is that of the cancerous mutations that survive long enough to manifest themselves as a noticeable disease, 65% are caused by
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He did but the original post was from a member of the First Church of the Organic loving skeptic.
Anything that violates that dogma is a danger to them because they are sure that they are rational so all of their beliefs are rational and anything that endangers their beliefs must be bad science.
It is funny because one of the worst risks is from the all natural organic tobacco plant. And no modern tobacco is not any more dangerous than what people smoked in 1600s.
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Re:mostly bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
So, you're saying you're a lawyer?
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Oh of course...how dare this research pit itself against your AC confirmation bias.,
100% of cancers are caused by bad luck (Score:1)
Either you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or your cells didn't do the thing because of the genetic lottery. Now we can write everything off as luck, and never take responsibility for anything!
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Your post seems to have an underlying message of blame.
That's because you're poor at making accurate assumptions. Although, let's face it, many cancer patients have only themselves to blame, due to their lifestyle. Others clearly had cancer done to them, like Viet Nam. And our soldiers there too, but a whole country being sprayed with dioxin is more serious than just some people we sent there for economic reasons. And then there's the immense middle ground, where the average person's immune system and thus resistance to everything, not just cancer, is impaired
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Epidemiology is a science. Deal with it.
Any time you have two people with slightly different goals, politics happens. Deal with it.
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Well... I think the article is missing something. The summary certainly is.
What the article says (somewhat simplified) is that there's a strong positive correlation between the rate of cell division, and cancer. If random mutations cause cancerous cells, it will be worse or spread faster in rapidly multiplying ones. Makes sense.
Now... What if you add carcinogens in there that make each cell division more likely to fail in a way that causes cancer? The same correlation. So it really doesn't say all that much
Re:mostly bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh please, there are so many billions of people living wildly different life styles and there's a considerable incidence of cancer all of the world. And we got cases of cancer that are 3000 year old [popular-archaeology.com], it's not like it showed up recently. And if you correct for increased lifespan there's no explosion in cancer, we only have a lot more old people whose cell reproduction system has had longer to develop a critical fault. Obesity is a contributing factor to heart problem, there's still normal weight/underweight people with heart problems. I don't know any rational basis to assume the default is almost no cancer and it all must be part of some conspiracy, but apparently the tin foil hatters are modding you up. I guess they can mix the cancer-giving stuff into the chemtrails...
Re:mostly bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:mostly bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
That's all pretty muddy thinking. Suppose that all cancers are decided by a roll of a set of dice, and carcinogens and genetics merely control how many black and green faces there are on the dice. Then a cancer is never just a matter of luck or carcinogens but always both. But it's still possible to conclude that there would be 35% less cancers if we kept the carcinogens down. Or put differently, we shouldn't hope to be able to cut in half the number of cancers by just removing carcinogens, because it just doesn't have enough impact. So you have a potentially very valuable research result, but it gets interpreted in a nonsensical manner.
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Agreed. It's mostly bullshit reporting too. 65% of cancers are not caused by "bad luck". They are caused by yet unknown reasons. Unknown reasons is not "bad luck". Bad luck is getting hit by a meteor.
http://www.medscape.com/viewar... [medscape.com]
In the United States, 1 in 3 cancer deaths is related to obesity, poor nutrition, or physical inactivity, and the problem will only increase as more countries and regions adopt the diet and lifestyles of more economically developed economies.
Nearly 20% of the world's adult population smokes, and worldwide tobacco is killing around 6 million people each year from a variety of smoking-related diseases, the report estimates.
Precise figures are given for the year 2000, when 4.38 million premature deaths globally were attributed to smoking, with causes listed as cardiovascular disease
Still under-recognized, and not acted on, is the association between drinking alcohol and cancer.
The IACR has labeled alcoholic beverages as "carcinogenic to humans" (and placed them in group 1, alongside ultraviolet light and chronic infection with hepatitis B). This classification was first made in 1988, and then confirmed in 2007 and 2010.
http://www.livestrong.com/arti... [livestrong.com]
33% is from obesity, and inactivity. 20% of the population is succeptible to smoking related cancers. In the US that is 60m people and 200k got cancer from it. And 1.6m total cancers a year. So, 12% of all cancers are tobacco.
http://seer.cancer [cancer.gov]
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Re:mostly bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. It's mostly bullshit reporting too. 65% of cancers are not caused by "bad luck". They are caused by yet unknown reasons. Unknown reasons is not "bad luck". Bad luck is getting hit by a meteor.
"Unknown reasons" _is_ bad luck. If there are things that I should avoid and could avoid to increase my chances of being cancer free, but nobody knows about it, then it is just bad luck if I encounter these things. If there are things that I know I should avoid but I can't avoid, that's also bad luck. Being hit by a meteor is just an extreme case of the second kind of "bad luck"; it's something I know I should avoid but I can't.
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Lifetime risk for cancer death by a smoker is 28 percent compared to 16 percent for a non-smoker. One in three smokers will die of a disease related to smoking, there are other fun diseases such as emphysema which can kill you
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH lifetime risk of death (by whatever cause) is 100%
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I personally haven't found that to be true yet. Maybe your stats are slightly off.
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Buy now before the FDA and Big Pharma catch on!!!