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Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

harvardmagazine.com

81–90 of 107 posts

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#81
post #47

Hypothesis: it's socially more acceptable for men to not care for their body as much as women do, eat worse, drink more soda and beer, etc. leading overall to more sugar(y) foods and more inflammation?

Social conditioning and less general sensitivity, more like.

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#82

So is the second X chromosome in women supposed to be an exact copy of the first or do they differ? That's fascinating to me all by itself, and more so that some genes in the dupe can reinforce the first even though the rest of the chromosome is suppressed. EDIT: Ah, wikipedia explains that the two X chromosomes in a standard-issue woman come from the mother and paternal grandmother, and then ... "Early in embryonic…

It's worth pointing out that since Barr body deactivation occurs later in development, some female cells have one of the X chromosomes active, while other cells have the other one active.

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a conservative strategy -change from one generation to another will likely be moderated/averaged by the influence of the second X chromosome for female offspring. Alternatively, single copy governed traits (as in males) mean greater ability to adapt (at a higher mortality rate) and those successful remaining males can propagate their single X chromosome (new and improved, thank you) to their daughters. It's a co…

Hmm. Are you saying that men's imputing of adaptations to their one X chromosome is somehow more concentrated/effectual than the adaptations a woman imputes to her 2 X chromosomes? What is the mechanism and how did you draw that conclusion? Because she only passes one along? It seems to me that chiefly the non-suppressed X chromosome in females would see action by its workings and thus accumulate adaptations.

Females have both X chromosomes active, but only one copy per cell due to Barr body deactivation. Some female cells have one copy active, others utilize the other copy.

This scheme can lessen certain X-linked genetic disorders in women since not all cells will be affected.

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#84
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication is womens' immune system is more trigger happy, which would make cancer in women less common.

My first thought was that the opposite was true. The immune system attacks healthy cells, increasing inflammation, thus stress. Thereby lowering the normal immune system and allowing cancer cells to flourish. Unless you're talking about all-encompassing diseases (I can't think of any off the top of my head). Otherwise, I don't think Celiac/MS/Diabetes is fighting any cancers.

The problem is if your immune system is too permissive it's leaving around damaged DNA lines that can later become even more damaged in a cancer kind of way.

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#85
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breast cancer was not an order of magnitude more common than prostate cancer: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.21332/full#c...

Prostate cancer isn't as big of an issue fatality-wise. Right now breast cancer has a disproportionate amount of money spent on it, but I don't think comparing it to prostate cancer is fair.

My father died from metastasized prostate cancer. It kills many men each year. If you want to spread "fake news" try another site.

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#86
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In (3), are you describing what I've sometimes heard called tetrachromat? Is that now confidently considered extant? Last I'd heard, it was an exciting, but only slightly substantiated, theory, but I'd love to see more about it!

Yes, I think you are right. I thought I remember it being heterochromat, but looking online all references seem to be to tetrachromat. In terms of evidence, I think prevalence is there, but there were some papers where they actually tested color perception differences (at least from wikipedia).

Heterochromia iridum is the condition of having two irises of different colors, you may have blurred the name of that condition with tetrachromacy.

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#87

More money is spent on preventing cancer in women in treatment, research, and preventive medicine. Google the history of the brca gene, research and tests around it. Its quite amazing.I hope all cancer research gets the pipeline it got.

If this is talking about a prostate vs breath cancer dichotomy. The reason is prostate cancer kills much older men than breast cancer kills women. Women in their 40s routinely die of breast cancer but that's pretty rare for a man in his 40s to die of prostate cancer. So saving a man's live fron prostate cancer means he dies at 75 instead of 70 and but saving a women's from breast cancer means she dies at 65 instead o…

I'm sorry to say, but that's false for a number of reasons,

Most doctors don't even recommend breast screening for the under 50. That's not young!

See Figure 1 here to confirm that.

https://canceraustralia.gov.au/affected-cancer/cancer-types/...

Compare this with prostate cancer. Note, the rates at 50 look much lower than breast cancer, but that's only because the increase in later years is MUCH higher than breast cancer,

https://prostate-cancer.canceraustralia.gov.au/statistics

While I can't put a finger on it, I've been advised that breast cancer funding is 6x higher than any other cancer funding. That's unjustifiable, but you won't see the MSM comment on that!

Breast cancer is the 4th biggest killer, yet, it gets the lions share of publicity and funding. Age has nothing to do with it. Check the top 3 and you will see they don't only affect old people.

If it counts for anything, my boss is a health practitioner. She has often ridiculed prostate cancer patients as whiners (but so do many news outlets).

You are not alone in your incorrect beliefs toward prostate cancer. It comes from a barrage of false news in the MSM. That shouldn't be a shock to anybody.

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#88

They have more iron in their bodies.

There is reasonably good evidence that excess iron is a risk factor in heart disease, which may be at least part of the reason that pre-menopausal women have less risk than men and post-menopausal women. But there doesn't appear to be a clear link to cancer.

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prostate cancer isn't as big of an issue fatality-wise. Right now breast cancer has a disproportionate amount of money spent on it, but I don't think comparing it to prostate cancer is fair.

Prostate cancer isn't as big of an issue fatality-wise. Are you sure? It looks like they're both about 21 deaths per 100,000 people: https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/breast.html

Prostate cancer is noticeably higher and has been for a long time.

Try

https://prostate-cancer.canceraustralia.gov.au/statistics

And

https://canceraustralia.gov.au/affected-cancer/cancer-types/...

Similar figures in the UK too. The MSM have pushed breast cancer heavily for as long as I can remember.

Despite male homelessness being around 80%, the MSM downplays this too, in the same way male cancer is heavily downplayed by MSM. That's been the case for at least 30 years (source: ABS).

Re: Why Is Cancer More Common in Men?

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to me that it can only accumulate errors and mutations. Except some of those mutations can be useful – some deadly, but some could be selected for as one's environment/niche shifts. That's evolution and selection in a nutshell. Not all mutations are bad and not all bad mutations are always bad.

Yes, truly over the long haul, the fittest survive - helpful mutations account for all survival thus far. I just envy what I interpret as an intragenerational bolstering of genetic traits that females have, assuming the EXITS thing is truly what's going on. They don't have to wait a generation to perhaps select out the bad, they get to do it on the fly.

Ah, but how do you define helpful? Sickle cell (as cited up-thread) is a selected-for mutation.
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