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A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

nytimes.com

31–40 of 152 posts

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#32
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lines do seem to correlate. In the case of stomach cancer, I'm wondering if there's a similar correlation between the decline in chewing tobacco and the decline in stomach cancer. Chew is full of fiberglass and other stuff, and if you swallow any of the juice you're swallowing that stuff. It's impossible to clear it all from your mouth after you finish chewing, too.

When smokers give up smoking they start to clear their lungs. They cough up phlegm. many people swallow that, not spit it out. That increases risk of mouth, throat, stomach, bladder, and penis cancer. Tobacco is already pretty harmful. > Chew is full of fiberglass No, it isn't.

Why don't active smokers cough up phlegm?

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#34

What about widespread use of painkillers? Aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen have become common place over this period. Calming the body's immune response might have a beneficial effect on overall health.

cancer is caused by swelling, thus anything that reduces it will reduce cancer incidents.

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#35
post #10

This is weird: >Until the late 1930s, stomach cancer was >the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths in the >United States.

I found a chart showing the prevalence of multiple forms of cancer over time: http://i52.tinypic.com/r9euci.jpg .

Wooow! That's lot of lung cancer deaths, counterintuitively coupled with air pollution elimination.

I wonder how this correlates not with tobacco smoking, but especially with smoking of factory-made cigarettes? Because as I understand those contain virtually no tobacco and you end up smoking garden fertilizer-soaked paper.

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#36
post #31

Interesting about the stomach cancer. Makes me wonder if we should be careful about limiting antibiotic usage too far? Perhaps everyone should take a course every five years or so?

What does one have to do with the other?

From the article: "Until the late 1930s, stomach cancer was the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Now just 1.8 percent of American cancer deaths are the result of it. No one really knows why the disease has faded — perhaps it is because people stopped eating so much food that was preserved by smoking or salting. Or maybe it was because so many people took antibiotics that H. pylori, the bacteria that can cause stomach cancer, have been squelched."

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#37
post #34

What about widespread use of painkillers? Aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen have become common place over this period. Calming the body's immune response might have a beneficial effect on overall health.

cancer is caused by swelling, thus anything that reduces it will reduce cancer incidents.

Cancer is caused by swelling?

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#39
post #10

This is weird: >Until the late 1930s, stomach cancer was >the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths in the >United States.

I found a chart showing the prevalence of multiple forms of cancer over time: http://i52.tinypic.com/r9euci.jpg .

Weird. Why would lung cancer go the opposite direction as smoking prevalence? I understand the dynamic of "cancer only kills people who outlive every other cause of death", but for the discorrelation to be that strong?
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