Most Cancer types 'just bad luck'

RobertKK · 02-01-2015 08:29PM

Great advances are being made by biotech companies with cancer treatments and cures.

The future is gene therapy and drugs that make one immune.

Even pancreatic cancer will not be the dead sentence it usually is at present.
Cancer will be a 100% curable disease.

In the future, treatments will be individual in nature to match one's genes. Chemotherapy will be history in the not too distant future, it will be all about your genes and turning off cancer cell genes.

02-01-2015 08:33PM

duckcfc wrote: »

Cancer isn't down to bad luck, cancer is down to ones eating drinking smoking and lifestyle choices. I hate hearing some people spout sh1t that Joe bloggs didn't smoke or drink, used to run everyday but still got cancer.

Yes Joe bloggs did but Joe blogs also woke up every morning and brushed his teeth filled with mercury fillings in toxic toothpaste washes his mouth out with toxic ridden water contaminated with fluoride. After tgat he jumps in shower and washs in same water only to make matters worse, he covers himself in a concoction of chemicals that Wash's him.

Before he put on clothes that has been dyed in other cancer ridden chemicals, he sprays himself all over with something that might smell nice but is loaded with heavy metals and otger cancer ridden chemicals.

Next up is his breakfast that consists of food that technically isnt fit for human consumption but is widely accepted as food. Yes there might be protein and carbs in said food but its missing very essential nutrients. He'll proply have wee cup tea filled with tea grown with chemical fertilizer and sprayed with pesticides and washed down with same poison water he brushed his teeth and washed with.

Of he goes into the car but before he steps foot into it he's now breathing in toxic air. I could go on and in here but I think you get the just of it.

But hey, Joe blogs never smoked or drunk so he's just been one of the unlucky ones!! Lol

What are these cancer ridden chemicals? What cancer are they?

What is fit for human consumption? Who's the arbiter, you?

The Peanut · 02-01-2015 08:45PM

RobertKK wrote: »

Great advances are being made by biotech companies with cancer treatments and cures.

The future is gene therapy and drugs that make one immune.

Even pancreatic cancer will not be the dead sentence it usually is at present.
Cancer will be a 100% curable disease.

In the future, treatments will be individual in nature to match one's genes. Chemotherapy will be history in the not too distant future, it will be all about your genes and turning off cancer cell genes.

This is very true. Many of the chemotherapy treatments - like many traditional pharmaceutical medecines - are blunt instruments. They are synthetically developed and as such are effective to a point but typically have noticeable side-effects. The body has inherent obstacles such as the blood/ brain barrier which the medicines cannot traverse and so their target efficiency is lessened.

The biopharma industry is developing mechanisms to transfer perfectly matching treatments and mechanisms to allow the drug to get to its target destination, where it is most effective.

Tarzana2 · 02-01-2015 09:30PM

rossie1977 wrote: »

lung cancer was almost unheard of pre 1920

Yup, it's quite illuminating to see it rise (with a 20 year delay) in tandem with the rise in smoking.

Calibos wrote: »

Probably mis-diagnosed as TB pre 1920.

Side-note: nothing like a cancer thread to bring out the CT nuts....

I love the irony between the two statements in this post.

EoghanIRL · 02-01-2015 09:53PM

My name is URL wrote: »

Aging causes cancer too.. that's hardly a 'lifestyle choice'

Aging doesn't cause cancer .Causation and causality aren't the same thing . Aging increases your risk of getting cancer but it doesn't cause cancer.

Calibos · 02-01-2015 10:13PM

Tarzana2 wrote: »

I love the irony between the two statements in this post.

Explain?

gladrags · 02-01-2015 10:17PM

RobertKK wrote: »

Great advances are being made by biotech companies with cancer treatments and cures.

The future is gene therapy and drugs that make one immune.

Even pancreatic cancer will not be the dead sentence it usually is at present.
Cancer will be a 100% curable disease.

In the future, treatments will be individual in nature to match one's genes. Chemotherapy will be history in the not too distant future, it will be all about your genes and turning off cancer cell genes.

There is no scientific evidence to support you're fantasy.

Anyway, mitigating factors exist.

Genes,for example,will not eradicate radiation,solar,that is.

Wibbs · 02-01-2015 10:43PM

Tarzana2 wrote: »

Yup, it's quite illuminating to see it rise (with a 20 year delay) in tandem with the rise in smoking.

Aye, though interestingly a California study looking at the lung cancer rates from IIRC 1950 and 2005, found that although the rate of smoking had gone down from nigh on 50% to 10% in the population the rate of LC stayed remarkably stable over that time. I'll try and dig a link up. Similar was seen in Japan. Even though smoking was high in the population their cancer rates were/are much lower and their longevity higher. Diet seems to be much of it. Even though the Japanese diet seems to increase the rates of other cancers like bowel.

The problem with cancer is that it's a loaded word and it's not a single disease. It's many different diseases, with many different causes. It's akin to labeling all viral diseases by one name, where the common cold and ebola are seen as the same and requiring the same treatments. IMHO there will never be a one stop shop "cure for cancer", as it's a disease that is as individual as we are.

Cure is another loaded word. I can see more and more that people will live with cancer, rather than die from it. That's happening today. Prostate cancer a good example. A large cohort of men over 70 and certainly over 80 have the disease, but they will end up dying with it, rather than from it.

There have been huge leaps in treatment and outcomes with various cancers, even in the last decade, where cancers that were a death sentence in the 1990's are either curable or manageable today. The "problem" with these amazing steps forward is that they were slow and cumulative, not like a new vaccine that can generate headlines for the short of attention span. But the fact is men and women are surviving longer and even beating the various cancers, who 20 years ago were in a pine box 6 months after diagnosis.

deseil · 02-01-2015 10:49PM

EoghanIRL wrote: »

Aging doesn't cause cancer .Causation and causality aren't the same thing . Aging increases your risk of getting cancer but it doesn't cause cancer.

Yes but aging causes death, something is going to kill us that is undeniable.

It has to boil down to luck what eventually gets you, its a lottery of disease and ailments but one will eventually cause your death. Arguing about the how and why is pointless!
* apologies for the morbidness

Wibbs · 02-01-2015 10:50PM

gladrags wrote: »

Genes,for example,will not eradicate radiation,solar,that is.

Ehhhh, nope. Showing your ignorance on such matters there I'm afraid. The glaring example is different populations susceptibility to melanoma. The obvious one is that a dark skinned African lad from Tanzania has significantly less risk from melanoma than a fair skinned Finnish chap. The difference? Genes. Oh it gets better. Asians, even the very palest Asians have about the same lifetime risk of melanoma as dark skinned African folks and way lower risk than pale Europeans. At some point in the evolution of pale skin for less sunny climes Asians selected for a different set, a better set of genes for paler skin. Switch those genes on in Europeans and melanoma rates would plummet.

An easier way? eat lots of processed tomato products. A few studies have shown that this basically gives you built in sunblock(factor 15 to 20 apparently). And it's one example where processed is better than the raw deal. More lycopene is released in the processing and adding fat makes it more bioavailable.

Tarzana2 · 02-01-2015 10:52PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Aye, though interestingly a California study looking at the lung cancer rates from IIRC 1950 and 2005, found that although the rate of smoking had gone down from nigh on 50% to 10% in the population the rate of LC stayed remarkably stable over that time. I'll try and dig a link up. Similar was seen in Japan. Even though smoking was high in the population their cancer rates were/are much lower and their longevity higher. Diet seems to be much of it. Even though the Japanese diet seems to increase the rates of other cancers like bowel.

Can you link to the studie(s)? Were they any good? Might seem an odd question, but even some peer-reviewed studies are absolute stinkers.

Mr_Muffin · 02-01-2015 11:00PM

Cancer will be curable in the future as will every other disease and illness.

Probably not in our life times though.

gladrags · 02-01-2015 11:11PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Ehhhh, nope. Showing your ignorance on such matters there I'm afraid. The glaring example is different populations susceptibility to melanoma. The obvious one is that a dark skinned African lad from Tanzania has significantly less risk from melanoma than a fair skinned Finnish chap. The difference? Genes. Oh it gets better. Asians, even the very palest Asians have about the same lifetime risk of melanoma as dark skinned African folks and way lower risk than pale Europeans. At some point in the evolution of pale skin for less sunny climes Asians selected for a different set, a better set of genes for paler skin. Switch those genes on in Europeans and melanoma rates would plummet.

An easier way? eat lots of processed tomato products. A few studies have shown that this basically gives you built in sunblock(factor 15 to 20 apparently). And it's one example where processed is better than the raw deal. More lycopene is released in the processing and adding fat makes it more bioavailable.

Nope,indeed.

A vacuous explanation.

Malignant growth,is not specific to human life forms!

Or for that matter,animal life forms.

DNA is not ONLY, a human traite.

Think.

challengemaster · 02-01-2015 11:28PM

EoghanIRL wrote: »

Aging doesn't cause cancer .Causation and causality aren't the same thing . Aging increases your risk of getting cancer but it doesn't cause cancer.

Actually ageing does cause cancer. To age you must remain alive. The process of being alive requires cell replication to grow and survive. That requires DNA replication events (around 300 quintillion base pair replications every day). Mistakes happen during this process naturally, resulting in mutations that can lead to cancer. The reason it doesn't happen more is due to mistake fixing proteins, the immune system , mistakes having no effect, etc etc.

Carcinogens can alter any part of this cycle resulting in increased risk. For example UV radiation can cause increased mutation occurrence. Other carcinogens can alter the proteins that fix cancer mutations. Others can result in a weakened immune system allowing a cancer to survive (although cancerous cells naturally have mechanisms to evade the immune system)

Cancer is a by product of living and subsequently ageing. The news article isn't really a surprise.

Calibos · 02-01-2015 11:59PM

Wibbs wrote: »

An easier way? eat lots of processed tomato products. A few studies have shown that this basically gives you built in sunblock(factor 15 to 20 apparently). And it's one example where processed is better than the raw deal. More lycopene is released in the processing and adding fat makes it more bioavailable.

No wonder my skin and thus the rest of me looks over 10 years younger than I actually am. So its not simply the fact that I'm not a sun worshipper nor work outdoors. Its also down to my lifetime chronic addiction to tomato ketchup and spaghetti bolognese!

Next time loved ones give out to me for trimming the hedge during a heatwave without applying sunblock, I can put their minds at ease by telling them I already applied my Heinz Factor 57 varieties at lunch time.

gladrags wrote: »

Nope,indeed.

A vacuous explanation.

Malignant growth,is not specific to human life forms!

Or for that matter,animal life forms.

DNA is not ONLY, a human traite.

Think.

You forgot to call him a sheeple

I don't think that Wibbs needs to 'think'. I don't think there is a poster on boards whos opinion on any given matter I respect more.

Wibbs · 03-01-2015 12:12AM

Calibos wrote: »

I don't think that Wibbs needs to 'think'. I don't think there is a poster on boards whos opinion on any given matter I respect more.

*paypal sent* Jayzuz, this is getting expensive. :eek::)

Wibbs · 03-01-2015 12:16AM

gladrags wrote: »

Nope,indeed.

Indeed. Squared.

A vacuous explanation

I think you may have a comprehension problem with both the word vacuous and explanation. Or, please point out where I am incorrect. You do know that just because you hold an opinion that doesn't make it correct?

Malignant growth,is not specific to human life forms!

Or for that matter,animal life forms.

No shít Sherlock. Still doesn't address a single one of my points mind you.

DNA is not ONLY, a human traite.

Getaway? Really? *mind blown*.

Think.

Physician, heal thyself. Hippies. Sheesh.

Wibbs · 03-01-2015 12:34AM

Calibos wrote: »

No wonder my skin and thus the rest of me looks over 10 years younger than I actually am. So its not simply the fact that I'm not a sun worshipper nor work outdoors. Its also down to my lifetime chronic addiction to tomato ketchup and spaghetti bolognese! Next time loved ones give out to me for trimming the hedge during a heatwave without applying sunblock, I can put their minds at ease by telling them I already applied my Heinz Factor 57 varieties at lunch time.

Maybe not too far off C.

One kinda odd thing about skin cancers is that the further south you go in Europe, the rate declines on average. Now local adaptation is gonna be some of it(not a lot of pale redheads in Italy), but some of it may be in the diet and the oul tomato stuff may well be a big factor in it. In mouth cancers lycopene from said fruit may have a big beneficial effect.

delw · 03-01-2015 12:52AM

duckcfc wrote: »

But hey, Joe blogs never smoked or drunk so he's just been one of the unlucky ones!! Lol

So how do you explain a young child being diagnosed with cancer probably the parents fault or all the drinking & smoking the child has done

bb1234567 · 03-01-2015 01:14AM

duckcfc wrote: »

Cancer isn't down to bad luck, cancer is down to ones eating drinking smoking and lifestyle choices. I hate hearing some people spout sh1t that Joe bloggs didn't smoke or drink, used to run everyday but still got cancer.

Yes Joe bloggs did but Joe blogs also woke up every morning and brushed his teeth filled with mercury fillings in toxic toothpaste washes his mouth out with toxic ridden water contaminated with fluoride. After tgat he jumps in shower and washs in same water only to make matters worse, he covers himself in a concoction of chemicals that Wash's him.

Before he put on clothes that has been dyed in other cancer ridden chemicals, he sprays himself all over with something that might smell nice but is loaded with heavy metals and otger cancer ridden chemicals.

Next up is his breakfast that consists of food that technically isnt fit for human consumption but is widely accepted as food. Yes there might be protein and carbs in said food but its missing very essential nutrients. He'll proply have wee cup tea filled with tea grown with chemical fertilizer and sprayed with pesticides and washed down with same poison water he brushed his teeth and washed with.

Of he goes into the car but before he steps foot into it he's now breathing in toxic air. I could go on and in here but I think you get the just of it.

But hey, Joe blogs never smoked or drunk so he's just been one of the unlucky ones!! Lol

I think calling our water toxic is a bit much considering were part of the small number of privileged people in this world with access to clean drinking water 24/7. Half the world have to drink water with literal **** in it.

bb1234567 · 03-01-2015 01:30AM

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe not too far off C. One kinda odd thing about skin cancers is that the further south you go in Europe, the rate declines on average. Now local adaptation is gonna be some of it(not a lot of pale redheads in Italy), but some of it may be in the diet and the oul tomato stuff may well be a big factor in it. In mouth cancers lycopene from said fruit may have a big beneficial effect.

I actually thought skin cancer rates would be low in places like ireland and uk and other northern european countries due to us having so few sunny days and so much cloud cover. Especially in ireland.

03-01-2015 04:33AM

Wibbs wrote: »

Aye, though interestingly a California study looking at the lung cancer rates from IIRC 1950 and 2005, found that although the rate of smoking had gone down from nigh on 50% to 10% in the population the rate of LC stayed remarkably stable over that time. I'll try and dig a link up. Similar was seen in Japan. Even though smoking was high in the population their cancer rates were/are much lower and their longevity higher. Diet seems to be much of it. Even though the Japanese diet seems to increase the rates of other cancers like bowel.

I'd be interested in seeing that. My first guesses about it would involve the timeframes and life expectancies involves. There was a study suggesting that smokers were less likely to get Alzheimer's. Turns out it's because they tend not to live as long. :P

My name is URL · 03-01-2015 05:36AM

EoghanIRL wrote: »

Aging doesn't cause cancer .Causation and causality aren't the same thing . Aging increases your risk of getting cancer but it doesn't cause cancer.

As does smoking or anything else...

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/chromosomes/telomeres/

Anyone that lives long enough will get cancer at some point.

The Strawman Argument · 03-01-2015 08:06AM

More that there's so many potential causes that it's really difficult to identify what a person would have to live like to avoid all the cancers rather than putting it down to bad luck alone, surely?

My dad's first two cancers had pretty much no sign of what caused them at all, but the third was almost certainly related to a lifetime of not doing anything about constipation and haemorrhoids.

Sorry to hear about your dad OP, stage 4's hard

unkel wrote: »

A lot of it is luck / genes

I read somewhere that only 1 in 6 life long smokers die of lung cancer

If it's directly attributable to lung cancer, that seems like a pretty high figure to me considering all the other ways they could be killed.

RobertKK · 03-01-2015 09:47AM

My name is URL wrote: »

As does smoking or anything else...

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/chromosomes/telomeres/

Anyone that lives long enough will get cancer at some point.

I see telomeres mentioned.

I bought some shares in Geron who have a drug in development called Imetelstat, still a very cheap stock...but Johnson and Johnson penned a deal with this company to pay for half the cost of development of the drug and royalties will be paid to Geron on it's sales, a deal worth close to $1 billion once all endpoints are met.
The drug is used for blood cancers and JnJ got involved when they saw how the drug stopped an enzyme called telomarase from working which the cancer cell needs to maintain the length of the telomere so it can replicate. The drug just affects the cancer cell telomeres and prevents replication.

gctest50 · 03-01-2015 10:21AM

RobertKK wrote: »

I see telomeres mentioned.

I bought some shares in Geron who have a drug in development called Imetelstat, still a very cheap stock...but Johnson and Johnson penned a deal with this company to pay for half the cost of development of the drug and royalties will be paid to Geron on it's sales, a deal worth close to $1 billion once all endpoints are met.
The drug is used for blood cancers and JnJ got involved when they saw how the drug stopped an enzyme called telomarase from working which the cancer cell needs to maintain the length of the telomere so it can replicate. The drug just affects the cancer cell telomeres and prevents replication.

isn't this their last hope after everything else failed ?

After putting up evidence to show that the liver toxicity triggered by its lead drug can be reversed, the FDA has lifted the full hold placed on its lead--and only--cancer drug.

Bog Standard User · 03-01-2015 10:52AM

most cancers are probably failed evolution attempts by nature.

RobertKK · 03-01-2015 10:58AM

gctest50 wrote: »

isn't this their last hope after everything else failed ?

Yes, JNJ have a great track record though and the Mayo Clinic are involved with this drug too.
There is a big risk because of this being a one drug company, but one has to just look at JNJ's involvement with Pharmacyclics for one of their leukemia drugs back in 2011. They know what they are doing.
There is always a risk it could all go wrong, but the information we have at this time points to this being a potential cure for the particular cancers it deals with.
The science behind the drug is exciting.

Rubberlegs · 03-01-2015 11:08AM

My mother never smoked , and very rarely has a drink. She was diagnosed with breast cancer about 15 years ago. After gruelling chemo and radiotherapy she beat it. Thankfully , she is all clear for years now.

My Dad smoked for years, from his early teens till he was in his 40s in the 1980s. He struggled to give them up, but eventually did it. He was as fit as a fiddle for years , and had not long been given a clean bill of health by the doctor, when he began to feel very unwell, losing weight etc. It turned out to be an extremely rare form of lung cancer, caused by exposure to asbestos dust, on the building sites in London as a young man. Within 4 months he was gone.

Sometimes I think it's just the luck of the draw as to whether or not you get cancer or not, especially if you don't drink/smoke. If I'm right , once someone gives up smoking, within a certain amount of time, their lungs return to pretty much full health. I don't tend to dwell on it , as to whether or not I will get it at some point.

Phoebas · 03-01-2015 11:08AM

unkel wrote: »

I read somewhere that only 1 in 6 life long smokers die of lung cancer

Those are terrible odds.

Anyone up for a game of Russian roulette?

Most Cancer types 'just bad luck'

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