

Most cancers are caused by bad luck not genes or lifestyle, say scientists - Turukawa
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11320497/Most-cancers-are-caused-by-bad-luck-not-genes-or-lifestyle-say-scientists.html

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goblin89
(Not strictly a response to the article, just something I’ve been wondering
for a while now.)

> They found that the more cells need to divide to stay healthy, the more
> likely cancer is to develop.

So basically to improve our chances of staying cancer-free we ought to make
such dietary and lifestyle choices that preserve the existing cells, reducing
the need for their division?

And I suppose learning about genetic and environmental factors that correlate
with higher chances of cancer in certain organs, and researching choices
affecting cell division rate in those particular organs, can give additional
significant advantage.

Is it that simple?

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Normati
No because we can't control cell reproduction to any significant degree
compared to what happens automatically. If you're careful not to cut your skin
and cause extra cell reproducing as it heals, you're still shedding your
entire skin surface every few days due to natural growth and death anyway.

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Normati
It seems to be counting types of cancer (by their location in the body) rather
than incidence. This makes it potentially meaningless. Those 9 cancers caused
by lifestyle, might also be the 9 most common or most deadly ones.

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benaiah
From what I can tell, they were counting incidence, and relating it to the
rate of cell division of that particular tissue. This strong correlation
allowed them to rule out outside influence (not just lifestyle, also genetics
and other environmental factors) as being statistically significant to the
incidence of those cancers. Only a couple cancers (the article specifically
notes lung cancer and certain skin cancers), had statistically significant
deviations from what the rate of division would suggest.

The chart at the top is a bit disingenuous - you can't really say that those
cancers are "caused" by outside influences, but it does indicate that they
actually play a role in a statistically significant number of cases, as
opposed to the other cancers, which are due largely to random chance (if the
study's results are correct). There are probably still a large number of lung
cancer cases, for example, caused by bad luck.

Regardless of the conclusions regarding the environmentally influenced
cancers, the impact on our understanding of other cancers, which include very
common and deadly ones such as pancreatic and colon cancer, is still immense
and important.

Disclaimer: IANA doctor or statistician

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droopyEyelids
I'm not sure how an oversimplified popular science article is relevant to HN

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randlet
_All_ cancers are a result of bad luck. Genes and lifestyle only shift the
odds.

