I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer
seema.page
seema.page
Many contributors have already made good suggestions how to reduce the risk of getting cancer, or how to deal with it; but I found most posts quite _technical_.
Speaking in general terms, cancer is not a disease like a common cold. The human body sooner or later is bound to decay, which pretty much starts once one is fully grown, and mutations get less often corrected by the wonderful repair processes our bodies are equipped with. Occasionally, mutations lead to uncontrolled growth of malign tissue, some incidents of which are bound to lead to death, others not.
And while it is absolutely a good idea to life healthily and to take care of one's physical and emotional well-being, one should also never deny that we are all mortals, and cancer as well as traditional diseases can and eventually will wipe any individual out. I am at peace with that, for we need to make space for the next generation (only adding people to planet earth would not be sustainable, as resources are scarce - imagine nobody would ever die). Being on this planet for a limited time period makes it more important to make the right choices, because we have only one life.
Because it is a statistical process, we can forecast how many are affected, but not which individual, and everyone can try to minimize one's chances to be affected, but this does not mean they will live forever. And it's not just cancer, there are many ways one may pick the unlucky straw: it is not widely known, but the number of people who die from a heath attack in their 20s is significant. Make the best of every minute you have, and live it as if it were your last.
The thought may be freeing to you, but many others become paralysed by it, obsessing about “the right choices” at every moment.
An alternate view: it is because we only have one limited life that our choices don’t matter. We and everyone our choices touch will die, and nothing will have mattered. Depending on your situation, that thought can fill you with dread or be profoundly calming.
> Make the best of every minute you have, and live it as if it were your last.
That is both impossible and (I’d argue) unhealthy. I wouldn’t waste my last minute cooking a meal, yet I need to spend an hour doing it now to survive another day. “The right choice” and living every moment as if it were the last seldom overlap.
The Simpsons had a great joke on the platitude: https://youtu.be/lkAaQQal2ck?t=20
I had been struggling with the same issue. The opposite (“our choices don’t matter”) is depressing.
However, two things help me:
The first is “Optimistic Nihilism” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14) - a view very close to Zen/stoicism. The second is that ALL choices matter, but their impact is finite and subject to randomness. I used to think that all of my choices were forever and set in stone. While technically correct, it misses that the future changes only a bit. We might be tempted to think that “the grass is greener”, or “I should have bought Bitcoins”, but it is like “I miss I didn’t join my friends when they went to a cassino”. Moreover, it is FAIR that a finite effort results in a finite result.
If on your last day, you want to spend it with loved ones, and say, in nature or with music, then that's how you should be trying spend your life in general.
It's a heuristic, no a literal instruction book.
Sure, eventually. It's one thing if people are getting cancer or having heart attacks later in life. It's a little concerning when a fairly large number of younger people are afflicted. The rate of cancer has risen about 30% for young people since the seventies. So it seems that there's something wrong in our environment or lifestyles that could be increasing risk. That's very concerning in my opinion.
https://www.healthcentral.com/article/cancer-rates-rising-in...
And on the subject of dying from a heart attack in one's 20s. That's "significant", but 1 in 100,000 is pretty rare. Some could be congenital or obesity related, but the majority in that age group is due to substance abuse. That's a factor people can control, and thus not as scary to most people.
Obesity was 13% in 1970. Now it’s 42%.
Obesity can increase cancer risk by 50% https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/ho...
Note also that the study is a retrospective study, and comes with all the statistical cautions that are inherent in that methodology.
When all other causes of death are removed, only cancers will remain.
No. Living longer means we have to live with our decisions. People who live short lives don't have to live with decisions that fucked the later generation years after they're long dead. The population limit on this planet isn't natural resources, but pollution, followed by heat dissipation because humans are all 100 watts space heaters.
Make the best of every minute you have, and live it as if it were your last.
How about we just live our life as best as we can? Trust me, it's miserable living without hope or wallowing in self pity.
People already have to live with their decisions - and humanity as a collective sucks at looking towards the future at the cost of the now. Living longer won't magically change that.
Well that's an.. interesting take
Speaking in general terms, cancer is not a disease like a common cold.
you don't say
I am at peace with that, for we need to make space for the next generation (only adding people to planet earth would not be sustainable, as resources are scarce - imagine nobody would ever die). Being on this planet for a limited time period makes it more important to make the right choices, because we have only one life
This suggests a Malthusian, zero-sum world in which no new net value can be created. Someone could have said that 200 years ago, yet living standards are higher than ever in spite of more people than ever. Poverty rates worldwide continue to fall.
And it's not just cancer, there are many ways one may pick the unlucky straw: it is not widely known, but the number of people who die from a heath attack in their 20s is significant. Make the best of every minute you have, and live it as if it were your last.
This doesn't mean we need to accept death when it can be prevented. The promise and hope of technology is to expand human potential and not have to settle for fate. Someone again could have said this 200 years ago about any other medical condition that is now treatable or curable today,
This is the sort of defeatist logic that is popular online these days, but we won't have to settle for just giving up.
From my point of view if you look at the state of humanity objectively, it's pretty obvious that most of us are living our best lives compared to any time in history. Even the fact that we understand some of the damage we might be doing to the planet is a huge leap forward, since understanding the problem is the first step to finding a solution. And we have more tools and solutions than ever before in history: earth observation/space travel, genetic engineering, renewable energy, powerful, cheap and abundant computing, rapid prototyping etc, etc.
It'd be a rather drab outlook to life if browsing Hacker News were indeed something I'd be contented with being my end.
I spend my days shitposting here and on Reddit. This is what my world is, not traveling or doing something “wonderful” and “meaningful.” If I keel over right now, would I be discontented or upset about how things ended? Not at all.
This is my life. Why would I be surprised that it ended how I lived it?
Fertility rates are declining globally, even in Sub-Saharan Africa:
https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fertility-acr...
Unless lifespans radically expand, we will eventually start to run out of people. If this were 4chan, I would tell you outright what I really think of you, but since it isn't, I won't.
I am pretty sure that once society decays enough that people start thinking of making war again, expect a population boom to happen.
Thank you for this wonderful thought! I always struggle with mortality and my place in the world. You offered me a window into the grander scheme of things, that doesn't fall back on God or you are just a small speck in the grander scheme of things.
We are all here to keep our species going and hand over the marathon stick to the next generation and then step aside.
I also think that means the next generation or two will have so many people on the planet that literally everyone who ever lived could still be alive and it would be the same.
Scarcity is not the problem. Death is so far inevitable, but it is not necessary.
https://www.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived...
I’m against this advice because aside from the usual objections like practicality, it’s fundamentally based on fear of missing out and not having lived a good life. It’s a kind of striving and all striving leads to suffering.
If you want to spend your afternoon navel gazing or looking at fish in the pond, that’s the true thing you should do. Free and easy wandering.
Although it seems to be that there is starting to be backlash on that.
This common claim that "we need to die to make room for other people" is not obviously true, good discussion here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ufjFuHmJoysXrKXYQ/what-exact...
Also, don't be so quick to accept death as a good thing: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Aud7CL7uhz55KL8jG/transhuman.... It's basically the worst thing that can happen.
For the individual, not the species as a whole. Or for the planet as a whole.
Sure, we might not lose some existing fantastic thinkers and doers, but what happens to the new thinkers and doers? If Sir Isaac Newton was still alive, would Einstein have gotten the attention he did, having to fight against a well established hierarchy of scientists built over the millennia? Would governmental seats ever change? Would slavery have ever gone away in a world where human rights would have no need to progress?
That said, no matter how well you play, the game does end eventually. I like to think that, like poker, despite the variance, you have some degree of influence on how well the game ends.
I'd dare to say that a not-so-phisically-active moderate-smoker living in a less polluted environment has way lower cancer risk than a bio-vegan athlete buddhist monk living in a polluted industrial hellhole.
I'd wish we lived in a world where we could actually address chemical, air-particulate +/- microplastics pollution seriously, and stuff like PFOAs that are still used round, without having it be totally overshadowed and drowned in noise by the "fight climate change" crowd or the "extinction rebellion" nutcases.
...like in, I'd rather have a petrol/gas plant to replace a local COAL power plant FAST, than a nuclear alternative that would take 20 years to get funding and have the delayed-as-usual building process finalized. And I'd rather have all the hydro and windpower we can built asap, and we can figure out later if we really care about the western-golden-lyre-bird or whatever going extinct because of dams or windmills. In the end, tbh, I've come to terms with a +5/7 C deg global warming (100y timeframe) happening, but not with me or loved ones dying 20 years earlier of cancer because of chemical and particulate air pollution or god-knows-what from the latest untested and unidentified pan or sportswear coating!
Consider smoking - the exposure of the lungs to cigarette smoke is very high and very consistent compared to almost all other environmental exposures which are also generally less carcinogenic.
The key question is - are cancers getting more common without a good explanation [1], and if so which ones? The answer is that upper gastrointestinal cancers do some to be getting more common. These are plausibly due to dietary changes and/or obesity. Personally, I think ingesting huge amounts of added sugar, particularly fructose, is the potential unifying culprit.
[1] Many cancers are increasing in incidence because of better screening and detection. Breast cancer is a good example. Other cancers like leukaemia or pancreatic cancer couldn't even be reliably diagnosed 100 years ago, so obviously they are more common today.
That's only partially true. They could still do an autopsy to figure it out. Maybe less common.
Either way, cancer rates in you people have increased 30% since the 70s. And that's considering that smoking rates have decreased during that time.
Prostate cancer is associated with contracting STD's:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15988645/
Conclusions: This meta-analysis provides evidence of a higher rate of prostate cancer in men with a history of an exposure to gonorrhea, HPV, or any STD.
Compare that to Italy where nobody I know does any effort to be healthy, eats lots of red meat (we do like our pork meat but it's all local stuff), smoke, veggies just a small side dish, no sport at all and they still live longer, healthier lives.
The few people i know who got cancer there, were well over their 60s (and all of them eventually survived). I'm talking about the region Umbria which is pretty pristine and barely industrialized.
This made me realize that the best thing you can do for your health is just picking the right place to live.
Some stats do seem to confirm your anecdote: Belgium gets 345.8 cases / 100K (6th highest in the world) and Italy 290.6 / 100K (24th highest).
Imagine you’re completely wrong about this — because it’s a very dangerous assumption to be completely confident in. What’s another answer for why Belgians seem to get cancer more often than Italians?
If I don't crack a window, me, desk-working in a ~85m³ room pushes the reported CO2 from 400 to nearly 800 ppm by lunchtime, though the device is close to (not on) my desk which probably skews it a bit. I don't have any data to compare though, I might remove the balloon when weather improves next month to see.
There's also a gas hob(!) in the adjacent kitchen, the other VOC/PM readings are elevated for as long as 12 hours (depending on how badly my cooking went :), even with a hob extractor fan running and permanently open intake vents.
The speed of CO2 increase and persistence of the effects of cooking were both a surprise to me.
I also run an air purifier all the time, but I cannot yet measure it's efficacy, because a particle counter is like 2-3× more expensive than a CO2 sensor, so I haven't invested in it yet.
Hormesis is important for our health: exposure to periods of starvation to induce autophagy of senescent cells, exposure to allergens and less-than-lethal pathogens (at a young age) to train our immune systems [1,2], etc.
Obviously we want to minimize heavy metal, PFAS exposure, etc - but living in ultrapure environments risks throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
Absolutely in favor of better environmental monitoring, but we need to be very selective about the specific things we don't want.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/22/health/leukemia-clean-childho...
Things that can never be done remotely: agriculture, construction, manufacture, hospitality, a big part of health/elder care, a big part of education, anything that requires expensive equipment (research, ...), artists/shows/events, the list goes on.
A lot of these sectors were either closed or running slow during COVID, which was not sustainable (you can't maintain the purchasing power of an entire population for decades if suddenly half of it stops working - it only works for a short while if you expect to be able to repay the debt you incurred to keep non-working people afloat).
So even if every single person that can work remotely does so, still expect big cities with transportation issues.
And that's without counting all the jobs that can be done remotely but are better done in office.
That's... extremely totalitarian :) ...but legally forcing employers to allow remote work X days a week for jobs where it makes sense + solid investment in public transit would make wonders.
Doesn't have to be industrial. Just any city full of cars will do.
Have a look here. https://waqi.info/#/c/29.217/70.608/3.8z
And that is just the things we regularly monitor, think of all the toxic crap several industrial process may be releasing.
Most of the people you called "nutcases" are protesting against exactly the pollutants you described.
...but their name and their most used description doesn't help either: first words you read are "climate change" and "biodiversity loss". No organization can focus on everything, and if they've chosen to focus on that, then from my pov. they're not focusing on what I care about most: engineering and sustaining environments (natural or artificial or hybrid...) that maximize HUMAN health & lifespan in economically sustainable ways.
You could live in a bubble of pure clean air and only eat pure, clean organic food and get cancer.
The answer is to do the best you can, then live your life.
That's like saying "even in the absence of lead poisoning, your child could still be retarded".
> You could live in a bubble
...they point is we do live in "a bubble", it's called Earth, and we can work to make this a cleaner and less toxic bubble.
I know perfectly well that cancer is a natural component of aging. And I also know that advances in anti-aging and regenerative medicine will make it possible to live longer and for this very reason cancer will be MORE of problem in the future and for future generations. Heck if modern medicine could enable my children to reach a theoretical max age of 250 years, I don't want them to only achieve let's say 50% of that achievable lifespan-increase because we've left them a "poisoned bubble" to live in.
It's amazing how little people want to pay attention to the environment and justify this by arguments of "but wrong thing X could still happen in regardless of environment" (ignoring that its probability would be 20% lower in a different environment). And when we do, we focus on fuzzy global properties of the environment that are hard to predict and have uncertain effects (eg. "global average temperature") instead of all the toxic stuff that can be easily traced and measured and where reduction would have impacts (measurable if people would be able to spend the money and relax some "ethical" rules to properly measure them...).
Some of those errors could be epigenetic from your parent's exposure.
Sure, there's stuff outside of our control. But with young adult cancer rates increasing 30% since the 70s, it seems there's an environmental or mass lifestyle factor involved that we should be looking to correct or mitigate.
In general, I think both the op, and this post vastly underestimates how little people actions affect the probability of cancer. Sure you can lower them slightly, but I have never seen anything indicating you can drop the odds of cancer more than 10% by clean living and pristine environments. Highly specific issues like very high radiation does concretely increase the odd's, but its barely noticeable outside of old school radiology nurses, or nuclear accidents. Things like a heavy tobacco habit does increase the odds substantially and significantly above baseline, but most people who smoke daily for a few years are still far more likely to die of something else. We can also infer that microplastics is less carcinogenous than tobacco due to its prevalence and negligible increase in cancer. Not saying its safe, just worth remembering that most cancer is better through of as bad luck, and very unlikely to be the persons fault. Basically cancer isnt anything you can expect that healthy habits, healthy food, or pristine environments could have fixed.
In the astonishingly rich biosphere there are exceptions to everything though, impossibly improbable things which had eons to occur. Concretely, we have yet to design a single antibiotic, geneditor or new trait, instead we find them. I care very little about the downsides for humans caused by pollution and global warming, but the loss of information which comes with damaging the biosphere is incomprehensible. In other words, I'm all for fixing both, but not at the expense of the biosphere. Fortunately, nuclear is a perfectly good alternative.
I totally agree on this. This is why it saddens me that in the current set of overlapping information wars we're living in, "biodiversity loss" was also weaponized and used like another red herring to distract people in many fights.
Take pesticides and herbicides for example - it's 100% percent clear that they are a huge cause of biodiversity loss. But practically all the opponents of pesticides are also against artificial fertilizers and against GMOs that when used properly actually have a much lower impact on wildlife, and in many areas of the world they are absolutely necessary to prevent famine. (Also, why aren't we actively developing GMOs that work with less pesticides and herbicides instead of the current abominable idea of developing plants resistent to higher doses of these chemicals? It's like we have a tool but we're using it all wrong to screw ourselves with it... maybe we need to have more state-funded GMO research instead of having it all in private sector with skewed incentives.)
Now, when people are made to choose between "full bio agriculture" (no pesticides at all AND no artificial fertilizers) and "classical agriculture", it's obvious the odds are stacked against full-bio, and any discussion on better limiting and regulating use of pesticides is avoided. Also, nobody even raises the issue that going full-bio would mean lower yields, ergo larger swaths of lands would need to be used for agriculture, so less land for wildlife and potentially more loss of biodiversity.
And when people argue against hydro lowering biodiversity, we rarely discuss how its alternatives would also impact biodiversity probably even more.
To make it clear, I'm not against focusing on biodiversity, I'm against it's current "weaponization" and use as a red-herring together with climate-change in a "mixed eco-activist save-the-planet-from-humans + CO2 is the devil" discourse that prevents any meaningful and results oriented discussion...
> Fortunately, nuclear is a perfectly good alternative.
Then let's solve the political and economical problems that make it unfeasible in most places. Let's build 100% non-military nuclear programs that are safe + cost-effective.
Nuclear is not in fact a good alternative. But solar and wind are.
It is unfortunate that the cheapest solar panels have 8g/m^2 of cadmium; one hopes that is reclaimed at EOL. But a house fire with those on would seem to create a superfund site.
The problem with this stuff is that it's not a hard "20 years earlier", it's minor tweaks to the statistical odds, and without special training humans are just not very good at coping with lots of different low risk of death issues.
We've seen this highlighted with COVID, where people have taken the death odds to mean both extremes of "this is completely irrelevant to me so I'm not going to get vaccinated or wear a mask" and "I'm not leaving the house again".
Those then cross over with the moralising of risk. This article is "I did everything right, I'm a good person, so why did I get cancer?" to which I can only answer that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and that we're all mortal and vulnerable to horrible internal surprises. Plenty of the people in the "not leaving the house again" category know that, if they were to catch COVID, people would point to their pre-existing conditions as a reason why they deserve to die, and would be blamed for taking risks.
People absolutely love to moralise about weight, as well. There was a story going around twitter the other day of "my dad lost several stone unexpectedly, couldn't get his doctor to do anything other than congratulate him, then died of undiagnosed cancer". Medical professionals being unable to look past the weight to realize that rapid weight loss is a bad sign.
They list 50 countries, and relevant to your post:
- Belgium #4 with 329.9/100K
- Italy #24 with 290.6/100K
Not a huge difference tbh. Regarding the comments about vitamin D, Sweden is lower than Italy. So I think the correct conclusion is: These things are complicated.
Outside of the known pollutants I am curious to know how much of the world population living in normal polluted areas vs living in highly polluted areas have more cancers?
Also it would be interesting to get data on the tribes living in say the Amazon. If their incidence of cancers is above or below average the rest of the human population
Most people who get cancer are quite old. This doesn’t lessen the tragedy of young people dying from cancer but it is rare.
https://www.dailydot.com/irl/plastic-pig-feed-tiktok/ (not the only source, this video and issue has gone viral)
This is why we can't have nice things or a nice life: everyone treats the anonymous other as disposable. That makes everyone disposable, and our society a degenerate hellhole.
I always heard of general phrasing like "increases likelihood of cancer", but this sentence gives me the impression that there have been multiple conclusive studies on the direct contributions of urban pollution to individual cases of cancer. Can someone here who looked through such studies comment, or at least point to them by any chance?
Start with "it's complex" and "some people are just more susceptible" and you have a great platform for arguing against eg. banning lead-additived gasoline.
Then add the shifting away of blame from industry and corporations to individuals, sprinkle some "focus on what you can do" (eg. the "ban plastic straws" type useless token-gesture) or "it's that little things" and you get exactly the kinds of stuff industry is currently gaslighting us with, distracting us from high-impact but profit-lowering big measures that could be implemented instead!
Nuanced thinking can be weaponized against you just as well as black-and-white oversimplification...
That said, there is a toooon of cancer that we can prevent as a society though better public health messaging and better environmental laws, such as creating housing and cities that ban cars, so that we are not continually exposed to pm25 risks.
Colon cancer takes a decade to develop from polyp to tumour. The main purpose of a colonoscopy is to find and snip any polyps there could be in the colon. Then you'd be safe from colon cancer for a decade or more.
You would normally not feel much: the sensory nerves in the colon are only really able to feel if you have gas. And many hospitals offer sedation, so you wouldn't need to experience the procedure anyway. The worst part is the restricted diet for a week before (avoiding foods that would cling to the intestine wall) and emptying the bowels the day before. If you know that you have healthy kidneys, do ask your doctor for the good laxative that is a small dose that doesn't taste bad.
Myself I have an unusual genetic condition, so I unlike normal people, I do a colonoscopy every year. I stay awake and watch the monitor, because I actually want to see what I look like inside. At the end when you reach the small intestine, the cilia on the walls inside there are quite fascinating.
They offer "gas and air" mainly. You don't even have to have that. You are fully awake during the procedure, laughing at the live HD video feed from inside you on the big screen.
You can be fully anaesthetised but that's very rare here in the UK.
After the appointment, it's a free cup of tea, and some biscuits. You have to wait for a couple of blood pressure tests, but after 15 mins recovery you can leave and go home. The entire process from entering the clinic unti leaving is about an hour.
The process is mildly uncomfortable but not really painful. Nothing like childbirth for example.
Don't be scared. It doesn't hurt too much. And as other commenters have written, any polyps they remove could have become tumours in 10 years, and afterwards, you are effectively safe from colon cancer for a decade.
If the NHS (UK) find and remove any polyps, they'll add you to a watch list for regular colonoscopy procedures. I have one every 2-3 years, others have them annually.
Get that camera up you... It might save your life.
I also have to do MRI every year and it's much more frustrating for me because they always complain I'm breathing wrong, and I have asthma so it's not easy to "breath right". It takes ages.
However, I have a hunch that frequent colonoscopies are maybe not a good idea.
Doubts:
1. We know more but we don't know all things creating colon cancer. Knowing the existence of cancers caused by viruses, disinfection procedures applied on the device could matter a lot.
2. Even if we disinfect properly, we know of a notorious little fellow: H.pylori, which can go down to the intestines. "Helicobacter pylori infection is associated with colon adenomatous polyps detected by high-resolution colonoscopy." https://bmcgastroenterol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/...
3. H. pylori (which serves just as an example, there can be other bad guys) is really hard to get rid of with disinfectants. It builds up resistance over time so it's doubtful that our disinfectants currently in use will stay as effective as well.
4. Frequently putting a foreign object to different people's colons (yes, I know it's disinfected) would increase the probability of transmitting such unknown risks.
I didn't talk about perforation risk. Just the possibly transmissible cancer risk.
So I remain doubtful that it's completely harmless It's necessary but every year? Doubtful without more data.
Finally, thanks for the people who invented and use it to save lives. I wanted to share my doubts on frequent colonoscopies
Does anyone know why I got cancer? No. Does it really matter? Honestly, no.
Just to re-iterate the point: Go through all the screening you can, cancer (of any form) is easer treated when caught early. Or even prevented.
If you have the money, I recommend a bidet toilet seat (which I recommend anyway) before you do the prep for it - makes the whole process a breeze.
Same here, but I stopped watching the monitors; I just watch a movie on my phone; makes it go (much) quicker for me => I hardly notice anything if the movie (or tv show) is good.
A person can also avoid cancer by choosing a career that is not cancer-inducing. Given the author's cabin crew history:
3.4% of female flight attendants reported having had breast cancer compared with 2.3% of women in the general population group
2.2% of female flight attendants reported having had melanoma skin cancer compared with 0.98% of women in the general population group
1.2% of male flight attendants reported having had melanoma skin cancer compared with 0.69% of men in the general population group
7.4% of female flight attendants reported having had non-melanoma skin cancer compared with 1.8% of women in the general population group
3.2% of male flight attendants reported having had non-melanoma skin cancer compared with 2.9% of men in the general population group
Here is an anecdote - growing up we used to have local festivals in the temples where they would distribute meals in banana leaves almost exclusively in all the temples. Fast forward these have been replaced with single usage low grade plastics and cups which when served hot I honestly fear leech plastic into food. The number of cars in any metropolitan cities have exploded - older forms of transportation like rickshaws are almost gone (not that I am saying I condone the poor rickshawalas having to pull weights twice their own but just setting context). Traditional Indian meals involved less frying and using ghee, which has higher smoke temperature compared to soybean which is also very poor quality.
It's way cheaper than treatments and medicines once you're sick and the best part, you don't get sick that much.
And that's something private healthcare can't provide, or at least not as effectively as the public healthcare.
Edit: of course country averages are mildly pointless, since it can strongly vary between different places in that country, so it might be worth to check on the city level
This combined with Sweden being a fairly cold country (with people keeping their windows shut) was a recipe for disaster with the further combined effect of smoking and radon gas leading to quite a few fatalities.
These days multi-family housings are regularly inspected to make sure that Radon gas amounts aren't too high (even if the required limits are fairly high in an international context).
At the end of the day, the outcome is still random. You'll still come across chain smokers that live to be 100 and people like Seema in the post, who get cancer despite doing everything "right". It doesn't seem fair - because it isn't, it's random. The best we can do is change the odds, not guarantee the outcome.
Humans are in quite an unlucky position when it comes to developing cancer, due to our relatively small size and long lifespan. Cancer doesn't affect smaller animals so much, as they generally don't live long enough for it to develop. Larger animals that live long lifespans aren't affected so much, such as elephants and whales.
Perhaps not that scientifically savvy but this video presentation by a medical doctor does highlight the anomaly of the Middle East population that have significantly least mortality due to cancer, most probably because of their lifestyle and habit.
[1]Why Does the Middle East Have the Lowest Cancer Rates in the World:
We’re still grasping at straws
Its nice that we have all these distinct populations to give clues to a broader solution, but there is still nothing to emulate, no rubric to follow, just a couple things to help you feel like you’re in slightly more control than you actually are
All these rates of cancer stats per capita are based on detecting the cancer, which we are notoriously bad at. It is either by happenstance or because its too late. We don't know how fast it grows, some practically overnight, some over decades. The delta changes as well. When detection methods get more personalized and better, I think the rates will go up dramatically while also providing the biggest chance at fixing and figuring out real prevention methods.
Ban / substantially reduce both, please.
So Copper is used to make melanin the skin pigment which then converts 99.9% of UV radiation into heat. Now if the copper in your diet is going towards the melanin production there is less for Interleukin-2 which helps white blood cells become more accurate. Ironically, people eat more leafy greens (salds) during the summer months when UV levels are highest so there is a seasonal environmental element to factor in as well.
Too much copper though and it will make you paranoid (dopamine-noradrenaline), and the female oestrogen pill (oestrogen) increases or retains more copper in the body which might probably explains some young womens reports of not feeling too brilliant when young and on the pill.
It’s just that everything can be cancer and nothing. Some cancers have obvious symptoms others not so much. Any unexplained and rapid weight loss seems to be the most obvious. I don’t want to look up all the symptoms. Everything from gastric issues, back pains to moles and warts can be due to cancer.
We've not been doing colonoscopies nearly as long and we still don't do them to the general population (Even if your country recommends you get them once you reach a certain age: Healthcare is sparse in many areas of the world). This does mean that we really don't know how prevalent it is except in some populations. And even then, we probably don't know since we do not routinely do them to younger folks.
I'm sure there are all sorts of other issues with this, but I'm a layperson and I'm guessing you are too.
I love that the author of this kicked it off by saying she's the healthiest person she knows. It short-circuits the victim blaming and lets you see it as the unfortunate random event it is.
It's sad to me to see this. It is denying reality and it is unnecessarily hostile to those who are already struggling. I have a sister who died of breast cancer in her late 30s. It's a slap to my face for someone to blame her for getting sick and dying.
Each of needs to be able to accept that sometimes bad things happen to us regardless of the choices that make.
https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/study-examines-cancer-rat...
It seems that the title claims this person was healthy, but apparently also in a higher-risk occupation. Cannot say how much the occupation influence things, looking at the article probably very little, but I think it's relevant to mention it.
I needed inpatient treatment, so from probably August until just before Christmas I was mostly in hospital, with the occasional week or two break. By the end I was having people bring me McDonald’s most days, because the idea of another bland hospital meal was incredibly depressing—which sounds silly writing it out, but it really started getting to me.
Interrupted sleep and reduced privacy on the ward starts to wear you down too—the times where my immune system was as its lowest and I was moved to private side rooms were actually a big improvement for me, it got lonely but being able to put some music on and having my own bathroom helped a lot.
Not sure what my point was with this but 0/10 would not recommend.
Anyway thanks for sharing and I hope you're recovered.
For example using a microwave with microscopic cracks in the glass and staying nearby. All the diesel particles and exhaust car fumes and tire dust in the cities. The terrible air quality near maritime ports because of the bad quality ships do with ultra cheap fuels.
The extermination of gut microbiota with the use of pesticides and the use of artificial sweeteners.
Genetically engineered food that is flooded in pesticides(engineered so the plant can withstand them).
The excess use of liquid oils and refined sugars that were never consumed by humans and that are correlated with cancer and cardiovascular disease.
The excess use of the fridge and premade foods making essential nutrients go away as the food freezes, so you eat but starve.
Contraceptive pills that are hormone bombs in your body.
Chemical products like benzene that industries like energy extraction's leak on aquifers and Perfluorooctanoic acid you could generate just burning a teflon pan you forget to put oil or butter in(or using the 3d printer with exotic materials).
All of those risk can be extreme but most people just can't see it. I have seen people burn out a teflon pan and not understand that they have to trow it away immediately. I have seen people handling benzene like water.
You can believe that you are eating healthy because you eat lots of vegetables but if those are flooded in pesticides, then it is not so healthy.
EDIT wavelength of microwaves is 1mm so could also be efficient diffraction
Long time since I've had to think about these things... Unsure...
- proven carcinogenics: car fumes, by far
- proven carcinogenics that causes VERY LOW risk for most people (pesticides, benzene, teflon)
- some good advice: eat healthy
- absurd wild claims e.g. "excess use of the fridge" "All of those risk can be extreme"
No, this is false. Microwave are non-ionizing radiation, and microscopic cracks in the glass won't do anything. Maybe large cracks in the metal mesh under the glass would allow a bit of micro waves to come off, which you might be able to feel as heat would be transferred, but since this is non-ionizing, it would be exactly the same thing as your hear heating up if you stay on a cell-phone for a long time. Just heat.
(For example freezing can destroy cells and tissue, but how can it destroy molecules? Microwaves are non-ionizing so how can they give you cancer? Plus someone already mentioned that it's the metal mesh behind the glass - a Faraday cage - that keeps the microwaves inside.)
Where it gets even worse is that these potentially carcinogenic toxics are hardly tested individually for their long-term effects, let alone in combinations. And unfortunately, the few biotoxicology studies that have been done show that mixes are dangerous at concentrations 1 to 2 orders of magnitudes lower than the different items taken individually..
One important thing to add: Vegetables are not the super food that they are made out to be, and red meat isn't a carcinogen, It's the opposite. Good quality red meat is one of the superfoods and vegetables must be carefully chosen/cooked to negate their bad effect.
Nhaa, I don't think so. Glyphosate residue are not a real concern for me.
Other things that are way higher on my list, that are considered "natural":
Sun exposure
Radeon gas
Alcohol and tobacco consumption
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21716201/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2304485/
This not means that a correct and healty lifestyle is not going to reduce the risk, but it's not the only factor.
Running long distances regularly isn't healthy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6U728AZnV0
Multiple studies have found a U-shaped curve of CAC scores as a function of regular running distance/intensity:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6543495/
Conclusion
A significantly higher rate of coronary artery calcification existed in long-term marathon, ultramarathon, and extreme runners than in submarathon runners. Marathoners and ultramarathoners also had a higher incidence of calcification, as well as higher average plaque burden, as compared to a standard database. Marathoners and ultramarathoners also had above-average coronary calcium scores as compared to a national database.
Other forms of endurance exercise (swimming, cycling) have similar effects if taken to excess . Sprinting short distances is great, and walking seems to have no upperbound on how much you can safely do of it (the Hadza do it all day and have childlike levels of LDL and minimal CAC).
They often die of cardiovascular disease when young. And it's just a genetic defect.
My family on the other hand, generally normal bloodwork, normal BMI/fitness levels, and everyone dies of heart disease fairly young. At least it's one way to avoid cancer.
It seems people are really sure that exercising a lot and not eating meat or whatever is the healthiest thing one can do, for weight and health reasons... But evidence says the complete opposite, most of the time.
People are so fascinated about the idea that exercise and certain foods are so good, that they don't even bother to check the studies and the evidence, they just know it's true for some reason. It doesn't matter that everyone you know is going to a gym or running (a million more times than, say, 50 years ago) and yet the populations are only getting more obese by the minute. Or how athletes are dying young and have many health issues everywhere... Or that indigenous people don't even hunt or do nothing at all for a week (between each hunting trip), and yet they are so thin and don't have cancer.
In other words, no one really knows yet if running several kilometers every day is good for you, or if it's actually killing you. And no one knows yet what exactly is "to eat correctly", though I'm pretty sure all the stuff we've read in those paid studies made in the last 100 years are just absolute garbage.
I know someone going through cancer treatment right now. They got some bad news a few weeks ago. Now they are taking two weeks off. They are very private about their issues, so I wasn’t sure what was happening. This article made me realize they are going through chemo and what that means. I hope it helps me be more accommodating.
Your conclusion doesn't follow your premise. It's at best a speculation.
Do you think only billionaires in India get diagnosed with cancer, and the remaining cases go undiagnosed?
Both billionaires and non-billionares in India get diagnosed with cancer at an early stage. Sure, plenty go undiagnosed as well, and there are plenty of late diagnosis as well.
(The final outcome in the end is a different question though).
Thanks that explains it. I was wondering how many people in India could afford regular health checkups and preventative care.
Our bodies are super complex and there is huge variability between individuals. We label certain foods with specific as good and bad, but we know that there is large individual variability in the glycemic response to the same foods. So how can we know if we are eating healthy? I think future of health will need to be more individualized - I need to figure out what is healthy for me, and it's likely to be different for you.
I know there are a wide range of products that try to help with this from DNA testing to glucose monitoring. A lot isn't really viable for the masses due to various factors like price, more research needed, etc. But it makes sense to me that if we better understand our individual bodies and take action that we can reduce (but probably not eliminate) certain risks - like cancer, dementia, etc.
If anything, you'd expect cancer of the muscle, myosarcoma, to be involved with muscle growth, which thankfully is really rare. Possibly because muscle growth is mostly a matter of hypertrophy of the muscle fibers, not the growth of more muscle cells.
I'd be surprised if the very real health benefits of staying active didn't way outweigh the possibly increased risk of cancer due to increased cell activity.
overabundance of protein could certainly be at play.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6611156/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91dVi6W6N4
David sinclair has a bunch of great material on the subject. On his own youtube channel, in talks with others.
This is so confusing for me, with the sense of helplessness, so she saying small change to diet or physical activity, and that she was healthiest person in world but still got sick, so what is the point than ?!
I mean you can do everything and still get sick, and some people drink, smoke eat junk food and never get sick, so what gives?
I mean more or less it looks like lottery with different probabilities, you can do all good and still pull unlucky card, or you do all bad and you still have health lucky card.
I guess, for me most depressing is how little we know about the cancer and things that causing it...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6611156/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91dVi6W6N4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg6tvKxS9FE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RMUFOvcUB8
People think they're healthy bc they're doing what fitness gurus or "smart sounding" pro-PUFA types like you see a round here on HackerNews all the time, say.
Want to prevent cancer?
Fast on a regular basis.
Eat Nrf-2 activators (cruciferous veggies) , drink green tea, make tumeric a staple, a diet heavy in fruits and veggies should be the staple of your diet.
And keep inflmattory omega6s low in your diet.
But the biggest thing is fasting to keep mtor/igf-1 unactivated
Short takeaway: we cannot influence everything about us, but we can influence activity and diet, and it does have a measurable impact on our health.
Some routes are worse than others of course: the worst are the ones over the North Pole (Europe-Alaska or Europe-Japan/Korea/Beijing) where the Earth's protecting magnetic field is weaker. I've been told that one such flight provides a dosage about equivalent to that of a CT-scan. Imagine doing that every day.
Sometimes life just kicks you in the nuts. Literally in my case :-)
Did you perform monthly self-exams? My doctor gets onto me for not doing them, but everything on those lumpy bastards feels like cancer. I don’t know what I am doing. I suppose if I’d felt a few pair that did have issues, I would know what to look for, but short of going on Craigslist, that’s not going to happen.
Anyhow, I sincerely hope your issue is just an “oh yeah. that happened” that you tell whippersnappers about when in your 80s.
OP mentioned (and I didn't check) that 2/3 of incidents are non-controllable, and not that we can't control 2/3 of causes, that's completely different. I'm going to naïvely assume that it's much harder to have a clean slate (no meat, no pollution etc., healthy lifestyle etc.) than to live in carcinogenic to some degree environment.
As a thought exercise I'm assuming (completely sucked out of the finger) numbers in which 95% of population lives in carcinogenic environment and 5% has a clean slate. 2/3 cases being uncontrolled in such heavily swayed population would pretty much make any control pointless. If I remember correctly there's a method for calculating this, but I long forgot it. For comparison regarding chance perception "casino always wins" relates to a 1-5% house edge on games, and here we're talking about potential 33.3%.
Current knowledge is that human body consist of dozens trillions of cells which regenerate on variable rate (some couple days, some couple years). There's quite a lot of times where chance can go sideways and spawn something you don't want.
Those numbers are completely offtopic and without any base whatsoever (and once again, I didn't verify OPs claims). Spiraled on numbers :)
So yes, if you stop smoking you can have a significant impact on your chances of getting cancer.
I suspect that she'll do fine, but she's quite young, to have gotten it. When you are young, they tend to treat it quite aggressively.
I live on Long Island, NY (AKA "Cancer Central"). Before I moved up here, I had never known anyone that has had cancer.
The last 30 years (since moving up here), I have had at least one friend/acquaintance a year, that has dealt with some form of cancer. Most have survived; a few have not. I have one chap that just got done with the "Uncle Fester" routine. It looks like he'll be OK. I know of at least three other women that are dealing with breast cancer, right now.
Long Island is a big fat Superfund site. It became an industrial site during WWII, and pretty much had no environmental controls. I suspect that continued for a long time, afterwards.
The plus side, is that we have the best cancer treatment centers in the world, here.
It's actually also about regularly stressing your body with things like cold/hot exposure (using natural elements/seasons), for example a pragmatic daily fitness (for example commuting with a bike) instead of a more 'artificial' fitness in a gym, an organic diet foraged yourself (with enough knowledge of course) instead of bought from shops, getting sometimes sick and recovering, reinforcing immunity
>a pragmatic daily fitness (for example commuting with a bike) instead of a more 'artificial' fitness
For example this just seems random. Driving a bike is not even more natural (were there bikes in the EEA) and if anything will just expose you to more polluted air, and increase your risk of dying by a car crash compared to gym alternatives. This doesn't mean biking is bad compared to not doing anything but that's not the claim here.
There is nothing one can do to avoid disease eventually.
Some people start getting sick in their 80s, some die healthy & peacefully in their sleep in their 90s and some get cancer being <10 years old.
You can move where this cancer is rare.
https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#the-prevalence-of-cancer-a...
Or better yet, optimize for a total healthy lifespan, not just against cancer:
https://ourworldindata.org/burden-of-disease#the-global-dist...
I think I read somewhere that we are not supposed to eat this much and should feel the hunger.
Can this be a reason?
I’m curious how this works in other countries, because in mine doctors don’t really do “full body checkups”. You’d might get a few specific tests if you knew what to ask for, but doctors really do not do any kind of regular comprehensive exams sufficient to detect early cancer like this. If you insisted, you’re likely to just be treated like a hypochondriac unfortunately.
Rich folks tend to get them. I know some rich people that get them.
What always amazes me is the surprise of people who think that they can never get hit, because they have done everything 'right'.
Just like people who don't realize how lucky they were to have been born in a certain place at a certain time.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajco.12661
https://www.firstpost.com/health/breast-cancer-in-india-is-u...
Intermittent fasting has been proven to significantly lower the risk of breast cancer in particular. There was a landmark study less than 2 years ago that hit the top page of HN.
"Intermittent fasting once a week for 4 seeks cuts risk of breast cancer by ~40% "
The jury is still deliberating whether it also lowers the risk of other forms of cancer.
Hopefullt it does!
Also, the environment does a huge toll - you can have the healthiest lifestyle in Los Angeles, but you still inhale one of the most polluted air. Also, you drive a new car, which intoxicates you, and reverses your lifestyle efforts manyfold!
Many consider eating kale to be healthy... and they drink kale juice, eat raw kale, not realizing how goitrogenic kale actually is.
So, when I hear "I live a healthy lifestyle", I really interpret it usually as "I suffer from orthorexia".
That said, some people do get unlucky and get it early, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of yourself. Living a healthier lifestyle reduces your risk not just of cancer, but other health concerns as well, and also improves your recovery times when you do get sick. But make no mistake, even if humans lived 1000 years and had no other illnesses, Cancer could still happen. Just the free radicals in the oxygen you breath is enough given enough time
Hopefully we'll learn more about the underlying genetics and have better risk assessment tests in the future to catch these earlier.
And it is not about funding healthcare (which is what politicians talk about in their speeches), but about funding medical research, which is a different matter altogether. A country can have universal healthcare and zero medical research, for example. Then again, I think that this distinction would be lost on most people.
She seems in physically great shape but has this been attained by eating food all day, not giving the body time to rest. Would time restricted eating have helped?
All bodies are different, but having tried various diets over the years , fasting or time restricted eating seems to give me the best benefits, I look at lot younger than my age(45).
I see a lot of long distance athletes in my own country(Ireland) the same age as myself that look aged, is this because of the copious amounts of high carb food that they eat to sustain their energy. Also have seen a lot of cases of heart attacks recently in these so called fit people. Sorry a bit blunt there
- you are living in a country (or place in your country) with enviroment that it increases the % cancer. I don't talk about the human or no-natural things, I am talking about the natural things such as radon gas from granite...
- some cancers are from a tiny bug in the code our DNA (sometimes the code bug is from a infection of virus)
And at the moment you can check all the things (the science are working to find or clear more of them...but it is the far future or near) that they begins a cancer.
Genetics has had me have high blood pressure since I was 25, left handed, prostate, lung cancer in family.
I put effort into low salt diets, exercise, monitoring, some small drugs, yet I know a lot of people who are significantly less healthy will outlive me. From time to time - I feel the pang of bitterness at that notion.
It is 100% recognized, my overall disposition in life is _extremely_ privileged. It's still a feeling nonetheless.
https://ourworldindata.org/burden-of-disease#the-global-dist...
My dad is a Vietnam vet in his 70s who drinks, smokes, and has way too much coffee. And he's fought 2 tours in Vietnam, 3 bouts of cancer, and a whole other host of issues.
Some people can't be killed. Others get cancer in their 20s. You do the best that you can and try not to beat yourself up if you get an unlucky draw.
I know it depends on age, gender, other risk factors, and how much money you have to pay for “optional” testing.
A smoker might be rolling a 6-sided die with cancer on one side.
An athlete is still rolling a die with cancer on one side, but it's more likely a 100-sided die.
It's cost me thousands over the years if you add it all up but it might have just saved my life.
If like me, you live near the ozone hole get a mole map. It could save your life.
Sometimes I feel mortality and health issues are a good reality check for the super rich who think their money can buy everything in the capitalist world.
Cancer is often random, just like how it was random that she married a guy who went on to become a billionaire. You can't have everything in life.
You can atleast buy the treatment, if you are poor you will usually just die a painful death.
How valid is this? And what exactly is "spotting it early"? Stage one?
I think genetics/randomness/accidents/homicide/genocide/suicide etc are 95% the cause of mortality. Drugs/booze/smoking/obesity are much smaller than people think.
I don't think the article really qualifies her status as a healthy lifestyle individual. I'm sure she may think she leads a very healthy lifestyle but there are a lot of misconceptions out there, when it comes to health. What exacerbates it is, once people learn that some things are not healthy, they switch to alternatives without understanding that the alternatives their going to are just as bad.
I know I'm going to get downvoted severly for what I'm going to post, but the truth must come out. These are all things which people generally believe are healthy but there is ample evidence out there and talk to nutritionistal scientists and they'll tell you, the following are not necessarily healthy:
- eating dairy and meat (both of these can be quite carcinogenic, lots of research proves this) - even fat free dairy, even fat free meat -> check out the china study, it's quite comprehensive and enlightening, study the blue zones
- excercising, running more than 20 miles per week is actually detrimental to your health (surprising i know)
- eating more than 2 meals a day
- the list of foods that market themselves as healthy but are not, is extremely long: certain cereals, to granola bars, etc
- non dairy creamers - sorry, but these things are loaded with partially hydrogenated oils, aka trans fats. trans fats are so bad, they've been made illegal but companies can get away with putting them in products by printing 0g of trans fat on the label becuase they're allowed to round down from 0.5g to 0. You might not think that's a big deal but they make the serving size super small, so 0.5 easily becomes 1 to 2g. even 2g of trans fat is enough to make a health difference.
- high protein diet can speed up MTOR production, IGF-1 levels and increase cancer risk. research has shown it's only the over 65 yr crowd that really need high protein diets for good health because their IGF-1 levels are already to low.
- Oils are NOT good for you, EVEEEN if their canola oil, extra virgin olive oil. All those mediterarean diets that show better health outcomes, do so "inspite of olive oil", not because of it. Scientists have observed the impact of olive oil up close, and they will tell you, you're endothelial cells which line your arteries do NOT like Olive oil or any other kind of oil running through your system.
- Not to mention, most people vastly underestimate their junk food intake because it's density is so much greater. I mean, if you eat 1/4 of your plate with cookies, your diet isn't 25% junk. it's actually more like 90% because cookies 12 times more calorie dense than vegetables and fruits.
- A salad with ranch dressing on it, you'd think would be healthy but look: the 2 TBS of ranch are 240 cals and the salad is like 20 cals, so your meal is mostly just oil and sugar. And yes, it's the calorie which is the unit of account: nutrition researchers use it, and your stomach uses it to determine your fullness (satiety is yet another completely misunderstood concept )
- It is VERY EASY to underestimate the amount of saturated fat you're consuming. The WHO recommends no more than 5% of your diet from Saturated fats which is about 11g. it's not commonly known but super provable from the USDA's own database, that saturated fats are present even in healthy foods but it's the right amount. even, in your rolled oats, and your spinach and your veggies there's some saturated fat, but it's not much. but you're already getting 5g a day just from the super healthy foods, so it's very easy to go over that 11g limit.
The best bet here: don't listen to one source of information. There are literally thousands of experts on diet, health, and nutrition, no one of them is totally correct. Find what you can tolerate, what you can stick to; eat mostly plants, and not too much.
> Nithin starts off his day with coffee just before his workout, and then has oats and whey protein. Then for his breakfast he has egg whites and vegetables with the water of a tender coconut. Around noon, he has a glass of fruit juice along with the fiber in it, without straining it. For his lunch, he usually has some dal and some quinoa as he switched from rice to quinoa a while back because his gut feels much better with that. In the evening, he snacks on some healthy cheese and crackers. Dinner for him is usually non-vegetarian, and since he loves fish, it's mostly fish and some vegetables.
https://www.mensxp.com/health/celebrity-fitness/99836-zerodh...
Honestly, seems pretty good and they’re clearly in good shape.
Results were that it was stage 3 c as I had 4 lymph nodes affected. The first step was surgery and about 12”/30cm of my colon was removed right where it meets the small intestine. This was the most difficult surgery I have been through and happens during the delta surge last summer. That means I couldn’t have visitors for the week I was in recovery.
Next up was surgery for a port after 3 weeks of healing. That went in my right shoulder near my collar bone with an iv line to my jugular. Once that healed started the chemo…
I didn’t take to chemo very well at first and I had a severe reaction to one of the drugs and landed in the hospital again for a few days. They could not figure out what was really happening but I basically had severe chest pain and jaw pain. They suspected heart/cardio problems and did a cardiac cath which came back normal thankfully. The fix was to reduce the dose of that particular drug by half. As time wore on the other drug in the cocktail started causing neuropathy in my fingers, feet and teeth/gums. Picture your finger tips always asleep. That can last for up 2 years but in some cases is permanent.
Now that I’m on the other side of the diagnosis and treatment I still have the post treatment scan. Typically colon cancer makes its was up to the lungs and brain if left unchecked. I get that scan mid April. To me that is the scariest part. I think it would be a huge gut punch to find out that it spread even after surgery and chemo.
As for life post treatment there are adjustments I have had to make: While I used to like spicy food my colon has decided that spice is a laxative now and usually sends me to the restroom within 2 hours. I have to plan my coffee intake with meetings. I have some days when things seem normal and the others when I’m going to the rest room 4-6 times per day.
In my 30s I was in marathon shape until I severely broke my foot at 38. I have slowly gotten out of shape since. I think this was a bit of a lifestyle reminder for me so the plan is get back in shape and check my diet.
I have quit alcohol for treatment so I’m going on about 9 months with no drinking. I don’t know if I will continue abstaining or not. I am certain that had I not had that infection I wouldn’t have gotten a colonoscopy. I think that’s the takeaway for me. Get your colons checked folks. Age 40 is the new recommendation my doc has mentioned.
Maybe cancer is way to common and keeps being formed in the human body... but also the body gets rid of it by itself. This is why most people who have cancer never find out about it.
The few people who are always going for "regular screenings" are the only ones who find out about it and get "treatment" when it was completely unnecessary.
Here's another alternate explanation:
Maybe what is marketed as "healthy" by the food industry by funding scientific research and selecting results favorable to them is not really healthy.
But not everyone is so lucky. Some cancers may kill you in a few months even with the best treatment currently available.
And there are a big chunk of cases were a good early diagnosis is the difference between dying in one or two years or dying in ten or twenty years, or perhaps more.
RCT with two groups of (similar demographic) people. Everyone is given a full body checkup for finding cancer. Half of them are treated for any cancer found and the other half are left as is.
Check the longevity and status of cancer in both groups.
For example, I know one of the treatments for arthritis is Humira, a monoclonal antibody that suppresses TNF-A (tumor necrosis alpha). It could be the immune system suppresses TNF and this causes the perfect environment for cancers to remain latent.
There should be markers for a “pre-cancer” chronic condition. In multiple myeloma (what my father had) there is a clinical definition of “smoldering” myeloma which I understand to be a pre-cancerous condition. There ought to be more of those