study: why we get cancer: Plain old bad luck per Johns Hopkins

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  • cp418
    cp418 Member Posts: 7,079
    edited February 2016

    Some of these articles IMO are letting the big pesticide and chemical companies off the hook. For years we have been exposed to pesticides and hormones used in our food supply. I don't think it is fair to always point to "life Style" choices with so many people dx with cancer and the numbers increasing in industrialized nations. I agree some people do make poor food choices while others can't afford to make healthy choices. However, our parents generation ate cleaner food and were more physically active IMO and many of them survived to live to elderly age. Now you see younger people dx with cancer due to environmental exposure which may have triggered these genetic mutations -> cancer.

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  • Fallleaves
    Fallleaves Member Posts: 806
    edited February 2016

    I agree with okbecca that attributing cancer to "bad luck" is a really unsciency way to put things. I think we just don't know yet. Just like a lot of car "accidents" are caused by something (a slippery spot in the road, a moment's inattention), so too are cancers caused by something, we just can't discern what. There are so many factors at play in every individual, and you might have multiple things working in different directions. Me as an example: anti-cancer---normal weight, exercised, vegetarian, tee-totaler for 25 years, very healthy otherwise. Pro-cancer---raised in a smoking environment, night owl, ate a lot of sugar, dairy (high IGF-1), worked at a job handling money and receipts (BPA exposure), bad at handling stress, best friend killed herself and aunt died of BC in year before lump was found. So maybe at some point the balance shifted in favor of cancer and the random mutations were able to take hold instead of being mopped up by my body's immune defense.

    I also agree with cp418 that chemicals are a huge environmental wild card. There are about 80,000 man-made chemicals. We are conducting a massive uncontrolled experiment on ourselves. We test a tiny proportion of chemicals and ban an even tinier fraction. (And when companies are pushed to move away from harmful chemicals like BPA, they often come up with something even worse, like BPS!) Meanwhile our kids are exposed to all kinds of endocrine disrupting chemicals from utero onwards. Girls are having first menstruation at earlier and earlier ages here, and in many parts of the world, which in itself creates more risk of breast cancer. Not to mention the pervasive exposure to multiple chemicals that may have additive or synergistic effects. Even people who try and do everything "right" can't avoid the chemicals in our environment. But, by the same token, it certainly doesn't hurt to do the things we know will benefit our health, and maybe that will shift the balance in our favor against cancer.

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  • SelenaWolf
    SelenaWolf Member Posts: 1,724
    edited February 2016

    While I agree with much of what has been said, we cannot forget that the human body is a huge biological wild card. Our bodies are made up of millions and millions of cells that are replicating millions and millions of times, over and over again, year in and year out. The potential for error is astronomical; each one of those cells must do everything right in the right sequence at the right time to not make a mistake. And the potential for error increases as our bodies age. Cancer will happen... without pollutants, without chemical exposure, without bad lifestyle choices. The potential for disaster exists in every one of us. Our bodies are accidents waiting to happen. In many ways, the question is why more of us don't have cancer....

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