[Closed] So half of us will get cancer

[quote=ti_pin_man ]
In bygone era's people didn't die from cancer, well maybe some did but surely not those kind of numbers we see these days, Because few made it to an age where cancer would be fatal. Typically they died of other things first.

live long enough and you'll get cancer.

So surely we should be spending money on understanding what in modern life is causing it in the first place? Sure, finding a cure would be great but working out the cause should be as important no?

We already know lots of what causes cancers, we are just addicted the the things that do and sold them by corporations who don't want to give up making a living...

^ that (scotroutes)

+ (I reckon) we eat processed food with all sorts of chemical crap in it, which wasn't as prevalent any in days gone by

Old age is causing it. Compulsory culling at 70 would massively reduce cancer incidence, and quite possibly five-year survival rates too... 🙂

Moar fatties is also partly to blame, too, so perhaps we should cull the morbidly obese too just to be on the safe side.

Anyone for utopian good health?

[img] [/img]

All sorts of causes but maybe we'll never know how multiple causal factors increase your risk of cancer.
Diet, sunlight, drinking, smoking, pollution, exposure to carcinogenic chemicals and agents..
It's like a cocktail of death..

[quote=martinhutch ]Old age is causing it. Compulsory culling at 70 would massively reduce cancer incidence, and quite possibly five-year survival rates too...
Moar fatties is also partly to blame, too, so perhaps we should cull the morbidly obese too just to be on the safe side.
If we eat the bodies we could cut down on intensive farming too.

If we eat the bodies we could cut down on intensive farming too.

Bit too much saturated fat in them corpses for me. Render them down and use as biofuel, perhaps.

Or bio-fuel

If you have a hard drive in a PC that is running constantly, copying files backwards and forwards day and night then eventually errors start to creep in even if there is some fairly clever error handling.

So with that metaphor in mind I think cancer has a certain inevitability about it. Though obviously it doesn't help if the "hard drive" is being bombarded by radiation, fat and smoke!

There was someone on Radio 4 this am saying that the '50% of us will get cancer' thing is misleading.

What the stats show is that there is a 50% [i]risk[/i] of any one of us getting cancer during our lives.

It even says in the article that lifestyle choices can change this to a 30% risk.

So surely we should be spending money on understanding what in modern life is causing it in the first place? Sure, finding a cure would be great but working out the cause should be as important no?

Surely we shouldn't be so suckered in by the marketing around cancer as it's not the biggest killer in the UK? How is heart disease not as vile an enemy as cancer??

No, we won't "beat" it - it's perfectly natural and we've all got to go some way. But... if we can prevent cancer then what next? Everyone will die of something else instead.

Dell hard drives must be the equivalent of those genetically predisposed to aggressive and incurable tumours.

It was my understanding that nothing we do actually 'causes' cancer, however there are many things that increase the risk of developing it.

Mutated cells are formed naturally in the body during cell division, these aren't necessarily cancerous but mutations upon mutations can lead to different types of cancer.

Best way I heard it described is that if you imaging a bucket full of raffle tickets, most are clear but a few have various cancers on them, every year take a ticket, the more things you do or are exposed to add to the numbets of tickets with a cancer. Live long enough you'll eventually hit a ticket with a prize, or if you are unlucky you'll hit one early, or have a genetic predispostion, or live a life of vice whislt snorting asbestos, you'll increase your probability massively, but you may still dodge it all and die of something else.

I agree with all the above, but my immediate cynical reaction was to check the source of the report.

Lynda Bellingham summed it up when she suggested we had got too squeamish about the fact that we will all die and need to relearn how to come to terms with it.

Old age is causing it. Compulsory culling at 70

Thought you got your turn at Carrousel when you turned 30...
The sandmen won't want to go chasing 70 year olds, where's the fun it that?

If we eat the bodies we could cut down on intensive farming too.

Way ahead of you...
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50% of us are at risk of expressing a mutation typical of a pre-cancer state....

....a lot different to 50% of us will die of cancer

We all have a 100% chance of dying.

[i]So surely we should be spending money on understanding what in modern life is causing it in the first place? Sure, finding a cure would be great but working out the cause should be as important no? [/i]

Living longer as others have said.

Both my parents have had cancer, Mum in her 40's with breast cancer. Op and no further problems (now late 70's). Dad has had numerous issues/ops etc and is living/dying with cancer now (mid 80's).

Yep in past days people died of death, we didn't diagnose why, same as the increase in a lot of conditions is probably due to looking for it and diagnosis rather than an increase in occurrence.

Yep in past days people died of death

What were these natural causes people used to die of?

And how many people actually died of supernatural causes?

I've not read the article but things to consider are:-

Death is a certainty, all of us will die.
People dying prematurely of cancer is more concerning than people dying around normal life expectancy.
Some people die of cancer, some people die with cancer. If I remember prostate cancer rarely kills people but is quite common. Things like bowel cancer are normally fatal?
Not all cancer is fatal - my little sister had leukemia as a child and recovered, my wife had a teratoma removed a few years ago

There is another side to this, in that if you get cancer, then your best ever chance of not dying from it is now (rather than years ago)

From a Pharma company perspective, cancers are the last big diseases to make treatments for - this is complicated by their sometimes low incidence (thankfully) giving the large drug costs headlines we read occasionally.

There is a huge amount of research being done by companies and charities on cancer prevention / cure and things are getting better.

Some people die of cancer, some people die with cancer. If I remember prostate cancer rarely kills people but is quite common.

What was that? Sorry? Cancer? Where?

Mmmm, Jenny.

iainc - Member
Some people die of cancer, some people die with cancer. If I remember prostate cancer rarely kills people but is quite common.
as a 49 yr old who has recently had treatment for Prostate Cancer this is spot on. The surgeon explained to me that something like 90% of us blokes will die with prostate cancer, but only 10% will die of it. I sure hope I'm not in the latter group Many more cancers are being picked up at early stages than they were historically and this is pushing up the stats behind this 50% headline.

As a fellow rider keeps pointing out, the likelihood of developing prostate cancer in men over 50 is 55%; he's over 50 and every time he stops for a pee, we comment on the state of his prostate, hence his reply that once we hit 50 we're more likely to get prostate cancer than not. But as above when my grandfather died he had prostate cancer, but it was the emphysema that killed him. oh happy days.

Let me guess, the headline figure was bandied about by the Cancer charity 'sponsoring' the research? More donations anyone?

^^^^^ let's hope your one of the 50% of the lucky ones then, eh ... 🙄

Well, I was going to post about hearing something about people being more likely to cured, than die, of cancer, but doesn't seem right as I've just had an email informing me of the death of a friend and colleague who had been fighting cancer for the last 4 years and seemed to be on the mend (his original diagnosis was swine flu...) he was 36.

Shit.

flicker - Member

It was my understanding that nothing we do actually 'causes' cancer, however there are many things that increase the risk of developing it.

going out in the sun causes the formation of thymidine dimers in DNA which in turn causes mutations which in turn causes cancer. The body either kills cancers cells or the cells commit suicide. If these are knocked out then the cancer cells are allowed to grow

This BBC news article is quite alarming. Estimates of half of us getting cancer at some point are amazing to me. That's a lot.

You have got to die from something, and the fact is that these days modern medicine keeps you from dieing from things you should be dieing from, that its almost impossible not to get a 'cancer' of some sort.

Sorry, not read any of the posts but did stare at Jenny Agatar for a good 5 minutes.....

American Werewolf anyone?

mmmmm shower scene

Exactly...

<pedant>

that picture's from Logan's Run. hmm, icy scene

</pedant>

some cancers are treatable more often than others. sometimes the bastards pop up elsewhere after you thought you'd got them all. like whack-a-mole.

My BIL was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2013. September 2014 we buried him 🙁

My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2014. She's had surgery and the chemotherapy, and has now started the radiotherapy. After that it's medication for the rest of her life. Which will hopefully be a very long time, she's only 46.

hopefully that puts me in the 49% not at risk, but we all know statistics and damned lies don't work like that 😉

*shouting* RENEW RENEW RENEW !!

So surely we should be spending money on understanding what in modern life is causing it in the first place? Sure, finding a cure would be great but working out the cause should be as important no?

We have mostly, but the answers that we have found means that there is no foreseeable 'cure' to cancer in the short-medium term future.

And this is why

It also explains why chromosomally unstable tumors may initially be more sensitive to treatment drugs, but paradoxically more commonly acquire drug resistance. From a molecular mechanistic point of view, targeting cancer is a simple principle. From an evolutionary point of view, which more faithfully follows real world situations, the consequences of targeting are not predictable

It throws our previous "mutation" theory of carcinogenesis on it's head, as an undergrad I designed my own little project to investigate this (much to the amusement of my old school cancer biology professor) before it was cool.

mmmmm shower scene

Still beautiful now 🙂

It throws our previous "mutation" theory of carcinogenesis on it's head, as an undergrad I designed my own little project to investigate this (much to the amusement of my old school cancer biology professor) before it was cool

cancers are not just caused by mutated genes, but also caused epigenetic changes though the change in methylation state of promoters plus histone & chromatin changes.

cancers are not just caused by mutated genes, but also caused epigenetic changes though the change in methylation state of promoters plus histone & chromatin changes.

I'm sorry, but what has this got to do with Jenny in the shower?

cancers are not just caused by mutated genes, but also caused epigenetic changes though the change in methylation state of promoters plus histone & chromatin changes.

That's maybe a little to much random detail for this thread.

Tom_W1987 - Member

That's maybe a little to much random detail for this thread.

its not random detail

its not random detail

For laymen, it is. The standard Knudson hypothesis is nice and easy for non-biologists to get their heads around.

For me and you, epigentics is much more relevant and even then it still makes a lot of Biologists heads implode in on themselves. I guess trying to explain chromosomal instability and it's role in cancer is a bit beyond a lot of laymen as well though.

and the paper you linked to was lol

and the paper you linked to was lol

😛

That's the thing with cancer though, people expect definite answers to causes and definitive cures. People quite often ask why we haven't found a cure yet, I was simply trying to point out there may never be a cure. It's hard explaining the latest breakthroughs to the public as there are no easy answers and I also can't be bothered to try . If people are interested they can read that paper and have a rummage around wiki.

I'm glad it's not my job to interact with the public in regards to scientific matters.

I've had it twice in my 20's, don't see what all the fuss is about (joke).

Statistically it means a few of you should be safer thanks to me

Please go an buy a copy of Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science to see how the media and vested interest groups manipulate statistics and science. Alternatively go to to wikipedia and look up epidemiological transition to better understand this effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiological_transition

Please go an buy a copy of Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science to see how the media and vested interest groups manipulate statistics and science. Alternatively go to to wikipedia and look up epidemiological transition to better understand this effect

What does Ben Goldacres "Bad Science" have to do with this discussion?

Please, please don't tell me you think that cancer could be cured but that there's some global conspiracy meaning that vested interests stop that from happening.

Oh god no! Just meant that we shouldn't take media headlines at face value, we should actually look at what is being reported and try to understand the data. Headlines such as this will worry many people and allow vested interest groups (usually a financial interest) to exploit this worry, whereas an appreciation of the data (in this case the effect of an ageing population on geriatric disease incidence) can allow people to make informed decisions based upon more than a soundbite

Nearly everyone i know who has died in the last 10 years, its either been cancer or a heart attack, some where patients recieving treatment and some just died after being diagnosed but to far gone for any meaningful intervention, if in doubt get checked out.

As lots of people have said here 50% of us will get cancer is mainly due to the longer lifespans we now have. Plus it depends on your definition of cancer and finally we are getting better at detecting cancer via molecular diagnostics. Not really "news" but it will fill CRUKs coffers a bit more.

I am struggling a bit with the statistics. If the main cause of the increased incidence of cancer is higher life expectancy, then surely the 50% figure is constantly changing and therefore not relevant to anybody.

Typically, the life expectancy of someone who is 60 now, is different to someone who is 30 now, and is different again to a newborn now.

Its not all down to increased risk, much of it is increased detection and early detection, before other illnesses take hold. These factors play a big part in the 50% number.

Prostate cancer is misleading 70-80% of men have it at autopsy but most are asymptomatic

The most routine test is for prostate specific antigen, and its a very poor test for malignant cancer

Its routinely used in american health insurance required check-ups, and throws up loads of false positives, which are immediately jumped on by the healthcare providers and insurance companies then put up premiums making people uninsurable , problem is that the prostate cancer would've never become malignant in most cases so people go thru completely unecssary and very unpleasant cancer therapy

Cue rent a hack Daniel Hannan and prize muppet Glen Beck, using prostate cancer in the Obamacare debate as an example of terrible survival rates comparing US to the UK completely ignoring the huge difference in the numbers diagnosed

Anyway cancer is really over 200 diseases with different prognoses and treatments its a freaking nightmare!

Do you lot reckon the pharmaceutical companies really want to find a cure or find a remedy that keeps cancer symptoms at bay so they can keep selling the remedy. loads of money in that. actually for all illnesses

What Fallsoffalot? As said above cancer is a group of diseases that are not all the same. I'd say if they found something that cured one and kept the symptoms at bay then they would release both. As much as it's popular to brand big pharma as bastards of the highest order they are also human beings and a lot of good scientists in there.

hmmm Yes your probably right its just a thought i had years ago.
but cant help thinking how much money is involved

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/gag-money-rejected/200366.article

I work in publicly funded cancer research and am certain big pharma is not sitting on a cure for 'cancer', if only because they are greedy gits and if they could announce a cure they would, if only to watch their share price go thru the roof !

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/gag-money-rejected/200366.article

That kind of stuff doesn't happen often, as invariably word gets out and universities suffer damage to their reputations. Also, academic scientists have their own reputations on the line so are unlikely to want to get involved with academic fraud. It can and does ruin careers.

hmmm Yes your probably right its just a thought i had years ago.
but cant help thinking how much money is involved

Okay, for the laymen here, there will never be a magic bullet cure for cancer no matter how much or how little money is involved. Cancer is to complicated and is effectively always evolving. Maybe in 50 years, nano-engineering or surgical advances will take off in such a way that we could eradicate 100 percent of cancer cells from the body.... until that time, there's never going to be a pharmacological treatment that cures cancer.

kimbers - my cynical nature tells me that why push one drug as a cure when you can push 10 cos, you know, you need this one to mask the side effects of that one and repeat.

/cynicism off.

my cynical nature tells me that why push one drug as a cure when you can push 10 cos, you know, you need this one to mask the side effects of that one and repeat.

kimbers - my cynical nature tells me that why push one drug as a cure when you can push 10 cos, you know, you need this one to mask the side effects of that one and repeat

I'm a bit tipsy but...

Because every cancer is markedly different and constantly evolves, rendering one drug that was once exceptionally effective totally ineffective 6 months later. Not to mention that any treatment given quite often just ends up selecting the few drug resistant cancer cells found in the tumor for further expansion, whilst killing off the rest, even before the cancer cells genome rearranges itself.

As I've said, academics who aren't involved with big money could tell you that there is currently no hope for a magic bullet. You could throw the entire budget of the US military at cancer research and you wouldn't walk away with a cure.

Any company that produces some amazeballs treatment for most types of cancer, would find themselves with a monopoly overnight and would be able to eclipse just about every other company on the planet in terms of revenue.

CG your cynical nature is in overdrive there !

Drug companies certainly have been guilty of putting profit before ethics, sadly governments aren't willing to invest the kind of money it takes to develop drugs themselves

Fortunately there are 1000s of dedicated researchers and medics and even pharma employees ! who spend their careers studying cancer and improving treatments
As evidenced by the huge leaps in survival rates for some cancers in the last few decades
Often the pay is crap, the hours are long and the work is stressful, if you aren't engaged and passionate about research you don't do the job

Often the pay is crap

+1

Ok lets pretend pharma's have a magic bullit and the 50% of us who gets cancer gets one dose of the magic bullit. cured.
And lets pretend pharma's have a remedy that keeps symtoms at bay and the 50% need to take the remedy for the rest of their life.
the extra money would be mind boggling.
Not saying this happens just what could happen when the suits get involved 😈

shall we pretend there are fairies and dragons too?

The "Lets Pretend" scenario is so far from reality that it's not relevant.

I thought the story was something like the drugs are there and waiting to be produced, they talk of the costs and the big players end up saying 'thanks, but no thanks'..leaving all the research and development a big waste of time and money, so they've given up as they spend so much money only for this to happen over and over? Then there's the other stories of drugs (cures?) needed ready and waiting but there's far too much money to lose in all the current drugs that are being used for treatment, so it's not likely to go ahead. Or have I been reading too much crap from mirror.co.uk? :O)

Possibly any reading of the mirror is a mistake but I'm not quite sure what you mean.
Is it that you think there are working drugs ready to be made but not being made? Or stuff that has got to a point and development has stopped for a number of reasons, cost may only be a very small part of it.

The big issue is all of this costs money, things hit the market and the drug company has a limited time when they have the exclusive license to that drug. After that anyone can make it by following a recipe. The cost of the drug development needs to be recouped from the period that it is commercially viable plus the costs of all the ones that didn't work. Problem then comes that health providers won't pay the higher prices for the drugs, due to benefit and budget reasons. They also know that the drug will be available in a generic form down the line.

So it comes down to who should fund it all after that, the risk taker gets the reward, if there is no reward then the risk is too great.

Martinxyz, if you can provide a single reliable source for any of that guff, I'll eat a whole bottle of Viagra 😉

odd how there are 3 pages of posts on here yet only a couple of cancer 'victims and survivors' have posted up. You would think they would have the better insight into the reality of all of this, having first hand experience...

Maybe because this is really a discussion about statistics, rather than an "how I live with cancer thread" . That would need it's own thread, then I could add something useful 🙂

Do you lot reckon the pharmaceutical companies really want to find a cure

No. Because the individuals themselves, the big bosses, and their family and loved ones may also get cancer. So they would also want to be cured.

crewlie - Member
Maybe because this is really a discussion about statistics, rather than an "how I live with cancer thread" . That would need it's own thread, then I could add something useful 😀

😛