Most Cancer types 'just bad luck'

bb1234567 · 03-01-2015 1:30am

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 4:33am

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 5:36am

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 8:06am

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 9:47am

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?

Wibbs · 03-01-2015 11:54am

Deleted User wrote: »

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

IIRC even when that was taken out of the equation they still had lower rates, lower rates of some forms of parkinsons too. Seems to be the nicotine that has the protective effect, the problems come with all the other poisons that come along with it. Nicotine may have some other positive benefits too, for example in ADHD and ulcerative colitis(the latter is much rarer in current smokers). Research in the area is kinda low level though as naturally the health risks of the usual form of nicotine delivery are so high.

73Cat wrote: »

If I'm right , once someone gives up smoking, within a certain amount of time, their lungs return to pretty much full health.

Apparently if someone gives up by 30 years of age their risk in later life is the same as a never smoker. Levels of B vitamins in the blood seem to have an effect too. Smokers who avoided lung cancer were found to have higher levels of same.

The Diabolical Monocle · 03-01-2015 12:30pm

No such thing as luck.

Grumpypants · 03-01-2015 12:36pm

The media are being incredibly dumb and irresponsible reporting this study incorrectly to suggest smoking and lifestyle is less of a risk.

It does not say that smoking only increases your risk slightly and the rest is bad luck, it says it causes less "types of cancer". For example smoking has little to do with skin, testicular or ovarian cancers. That does not translate to a lower risk of developing lung cancer from smoking.

They show a basic lack of understanding of percentages and averages.

Let's just say for the sake of simple math there are 10 types of cancer and smoking causes 2 of them. That does not mean there is an 80% chance of getting non smoking related cancer anyway, and smooking only increases it slightly.

It means out of all the types of cancer diagnosed smoking related to only 20%. But the number of people in that 20% bracket is massively disproportionate to the other brackets.

you could have 100 people, 92 with the 2 smoking related cancers, and 8 with the other 8 cancers, and the math still says only 20% of cancers are related to smoking, but that 20% of cancers accounts for 92% of the diagnosis.

dd972 · 03-01-2015 12:53pm

An ex work colleague of mine died at 47 recently, didn't smoke, full head of hair without a tint of grey, barely looked any different to what he did 20 years ago, had the occasional piss up but was no habitual 'drinker', etc, etc, cause of death as of yet unknown

Reminded me of another work colleague from the same place who's still about, 20 years older than the aforementioned chap but smoked like a chimney and drank like Richard Harris.

TheBeardedLady · 03-01-2015 12:54pm

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.

Don't you mean causation and correlation are not the same thing?

EoghanIRL · 03-01-2015 12:57pm

TheBeardedLady wrote: »

Don't you mean causation and correlation are not the same thing?

Yes I do . Oops.

Noobascious · 03-01-2015 12:57pm

It's 50/50 in terms of a balanced diet and your physical resistance. In the latter some horses are just physically faster than others. The balanced diet is the ph balance in your blood due to what you eat. You could lash in the beers and smokes but also eat healthily.

gctest50 · 03-01-2015 1:41pm

Noobascious wrote: »

It's 50/50 in terms of a balanced diet and your physical resistance. In the latter some horses are just physically faster than others. The balanced diet is the ph balance in your blood due to what you eat. You could lash in the beers and smokes but also eat healthily.

oh noes ! the dyscrasia

and what of the pH of the yellow humors and black humors ?

how do we regulate them ?

Skin 4-6.5
Urine 4.6 to 8.0
Gastric 1.35 to 3.5
Bile 7.6 to 8.8
Pancreatic fluid 8.8
Vaginal fluid <4.7
Cerebrospinal fluid 7.3
Intracellular fluid 6.0–7.2
Serum venous 7.35
Serum arterial 7.4

Most Cancer types 'just bad luck'

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