
Cancer is not just 'bad luck' but down to environment, study suggests - Perados
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35111449
======
Udo
Every student entering a bio field who learns what cancer is and how it works
_already knows_ that this is a disease shaped by many factors. Fundamentally,
the problem of fighting cancer is the problem of fighting a set of
evolutionary mechanisms that are trying to kill you. The popular press always
insists on boiling everything down to one easy-to-understand factor, that's
how we get those ridiculous and recurring exclamations about cancer that have
to be thrown out next week.

There is no single thing you can do as an individual that gets you off the
hook for cancer. You can try reducing your probabilities based on the results
of studies, but in most respects that's a way more complicated endeavor than
what the media portrays it as. Even regular prophylactic screening is not as
good a tool as it instinctively seems. Many studies don't give you the
complete picture at all, so it rarely makes sense to change your life based on
the latest breathlessly exaggerated finding blared at you by the press.

~~~
williamjennings
I read the headline and wondered:

"Since when is 'Bad Luck' anything other than a euphemism for the
physiological stress which is symptomatic of poverty?"

Clever science journalists note that nearly everything outside of the organism
can be generically labeled as the _environment_.

__As a reply to DanBC:__

>normal random mutation

This phrase does not mean anything in terms of molecular biology or genetics.
It is equivalent to "Bad Luck", or "mutation triggered by something". The
phrase is inappropriate because it equates point mutations, insertion
mutations and deletion mutations.

As a rule, when thou wants to say the modifier "normal random"; thou should
instead say "normally distributed", and then make sure that is worth
mentioning in that field of science.

~~~
DanBC
In this specific case: "bad luck" was being used to talk about normal random
mutation, as opposed to a genetic predisposition or a mutation triggered by
something you ate or drank or smoked or otherwse exposed yourself.

It's unfortunate that the original researchers used that phrase; and the the
reporters did a terrible job of explaining it; and that the reporting of this
newer study uses similar language.

------
DanBC
Some people are misunderstanding what this report means by "bad luck", which
isn't surprising because this BBC report is lousy, and it follows on from a
different paper that said something different and that was also poorly
reported.

This older report suggested that two thirds of cancer was because of random
mutation, rather than genetic predisposition or lifestyle.

Here's an example of the confusing way that older study was reported:
[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/02/two-thirds-
ad...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/02/two-thirds-adult-
cancers-bad-luck)

> Two-thirds of adult cancers, say the researchers from the Johns Hopkins
> Kimmel Cancer Center in the United States, are caused by random mutation in
> the tissue cells during the ordinary process of stem cell division. In the
> other third, our genetic inheritance and lifestyles are the main factors.

> The scientists have created a mathematical model which, they say, shows it
> is wrong to assume that there are such things as “good genes” that may
> prevent us getting cancer even though we smoke, drink heavily and carry
> excessive weight.

This new study disputes that, and says that normal random mutation only
accounts for 10% to 30% of cancer, and the rest is because of lifestyle or
genetic predisposition.

From a public health point of view that's pretty important. Stop smoking, and
control how much alcohol you drink, continue to be important public health
messages to reduce the incidence of cancer.

~~~
KhalilK
>Stop smoking, and control how much alcohol you drink, continue to be
important public health messages to reduce the incidence of cancer.

That obviously depends on the type of cancer. Smokers are way more likely to
get lung cancer but for other types of cancer with high mortality rates
(prostate, breast, myeloma, lymphoma etc) there is no single attributable
'exposure' that is known to be the cause.

~~~
teach
I would disagree that there's no "exposure" component for many of those other
cancers.

* Eating red meat

* Eating processed meat

* Drinking 3+ glasses of milk daily

* Inadequate levels of vitamin D

These are all well-known to the nutrition community to increase cancer risk.

~~~
JshWright
Science in the "nutrition community" is really not very good (this isn't
surprising... it's hard to control what people eat (even willing study
participants), and even harder to blind anyone involved). Nutrition research
is almost entirely based on cohort studies, which are certainly valuable in
helping our understanding, but are not great at rigorously proving anything.
This isn't a slight on the field of nutrition research, it's just a really
hard problem to solve. Much harder than many people tend to think...

I think it's overstating it a bit so say those things are "well-known". There
are some indications that those things may result in slight increases of risk
for certain types of cancer.

~~~
teach
My wife has a PhD in nutrition, so I don't think it's overstating things at
all. We're well-aware of how nutrition studies are done and their limitations,
but these are clear results shown in study after study for years.

I would seriously question the credentials of any PhD nutrition researcher at
a decent university that disputed any of those factors.

------
KhalilK
Yes it is down to the environment but right now we don't know what these
environmental exposures are. I've always considered "chance" and "luck" in
science to simply be a placeholder for the unknown.

~~~
dmichulke
I fully agree, random today means one of the following _very_ different
things:

\- we know with certainty that it follows a <xy> distribution and there is no
way we could know more

\- we don't know enough so it appears random to us.

If I were forced to bet on one of these, I'd say it's always the latter except
in the case of Heisenberg uncertainty.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle)

------
miseg
From my understanding, the article means the "environment in which your body
finds itself in" rather than "you're living in an environment and that's all
the matters".

What I mean is that much of your "environment" is what you, your body, puts in
itself and does to itself. (In other words, eat well and exercise to give your
body a good "environment".)

~~~
akerro
>"environment in which your body finds itself in

Yes, you are what you eat. If you eat cancerous substances once per week, you
put yourself in risk zone. It's what you eat, drink and breath with build your
body cells, you give them weak building material and treat them poorly, they
are weak and can be attacked easier. Already decades ago some scientists said
that cancer is environmental and you decided whether you got it or not. Eat
healthy, not processed meat, fresh vegetables (not frozen), drink clean water.

The same rule applies to other illnesses like alzheimer, it's something "new".
First alzheimer was described in modern history, while thousands of others
illnesses were described and diagnosed even 3000 years ago by Egiptians.

~~~
danielschonfeld
I think both of you have over simplified a much more complex eco system. It's
not a winners vs losers. Yes, sure, eat shit die faster but that's not what an
environmental vs bad gene pool comes to teach us.

If cancer was an absolute case of being born to the bad gene pool we'd have to
tackle the problem in how do we advance our genes to be more error resistive.

Being that it's more of an environmental, the problem suddenly change to how
do we as a whole bring up our environment several levels up to a more
healthier region.

You can et the healthiest stuff there is, it still won't help you when the can
lining is full of BPA. You can excursive every day and it won't help you if
the weights contain materials you breathe which disrupt cellular functions.
You can eat the most nutritious fish and vegetables and you're still going to
be hit by the cancerous materials they've been brought up in.

Adopting the attitude you do, does nothing to better everybody. Only creates
yet another us vs them partition in an already well divided society.

~~~
miseg
Great point.

For me it means there are separate implications:

1\. What you can do to help your body day to day (and longer term about where
you live, for example) 2\. What society and policy makers can do to improve
the environment as a whole

~~~
miseg
I would like to know why there are down-votes :)

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dominotw
As a kid growing up in India I always thought of cancer as some western
disease. I only knew one person who had cancer.

Now I know tons of people who have died from cancer or are battling it.
Perhaps it was under diagnosed but I some blame it on "westernization" .

~~~
Udo
> _Perhaps it was under diagnosed but I some blame it on "westernization" ._

Scientifically, this does not hold water, because cancer is such a fundamental
disease group that is inherent in the machinery of cells. There are two main
factors at play in the apparent rise of cases. One is, as you said, cancers
were generally not diagnosed before modern medicine arrived on the scene. The
second is: people have to die _of something_ , so when life expectancy goes up
cancer rates skyrocket. People who would have died of infection ten years ago
will now die of cancer in ten years from now.

------
ramanamit1234
I've reduced my alchohol consumption. I did not drink as much as the NHS(UK)
article warned.

[http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/preventing-cancer/Pages/diet-
and-...](http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/preventing-cancer/Pages/diet-and-
cancer.aspx)

My family does not drink much or smoke. Most of us are in a good weight
category, except for me. My challenge is to reduce the weight.

