Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world? • Hacker News Board

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#41

Post by nkozyra » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

hanniabu wrote: post #25

Sebb767 wrote: post #12

One thing which I always thought of, but which the article doesn't mention, is age. Especially older people seem more prone to cancer, so in my mind a lower life expectancy will naturally lead to a lower cancer rate, as people die before cancer "is able to get them". Or am I missing something?

This is a common misconception. Life expectancy hasn't changed much. It's children dying that bright down the average in earlier years. If you lived to your 20s your life expectancy was pretty much the same as it is now.

In Victorian England (1840) if you made it to adulthood (20) your life expectancy was ~ 60.

It's 82 today.

The effects are not as dramatic as when infant mortality is included but our life expectancy has absolutely increased.

It's a compelling theory, too, because the average age of a cancer is 66 today. But it really addresses the idea of cancer being less prevalent than less likely.

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#42

Post by hirundo » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

cmiller1 wrote: post #33

hirundo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother is a chiropractor who mostly agrees with you. He thinks that most chiropractors do about as much harm as good, or more. Of course, he believes otherwise about his own particular school of chiropractic, the Gonstead Technique. As a long time beneficiary of that method I've come to agree with him. It has helped me quite a bit, and the long list of his vastly improved patients (many or most who are refugees f…

I've done some research on this and it seems there is some evidence that what chiropractors do, Spinal Manipulation Therapy, is effective when combined with traditional medicine and physical therapy at reducing chronic back pain (and can help some people manage it with reduced pain management medication which is a plus!) However if a chiropractor tells you they can fix your stomach or headaches or anxiety by cracking…

Strong disagree with regard to headaches. I've had immediate relief from debilitating headache pain after an adjustment.

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#43

Post by _0w8t » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

Sebb767 wrote: post #12

One thing which I always thought of, but which the article doesn't mention, is age. Especially older people seem more prone to cancer, so in my mind a lower life expectancy will naturally lead to a lower cancer rate, as people die before cancer "is able to get them". Or am I missing something?

Also, even if the low average life expectancy was due to excessive mortality among children with chances to live up to 70 once one reached 40 not much different than today, it still does not imply that cancer rates were lower.

It could be very well that it is those people who would die as newborn or children without modern medicine and access to clean water have bigger chances of getting cancer with age.

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#44

Post by phonypc » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

arnejenssen wrote: post #23

The modern age has possibly removed some carcinogens like inhaling smoke from (bon)fires, mycotoxins from spoilt food, nutritional illiteracy and unsanitary conditions. But the modern age has introduced a lot of new ones like tobacco, food additives, sugar, gluten, radiation, asbestos, industrial processing of food, pesticides, sedentary lifestyle.

Calling a lot of these things carcinogens is a little odd. It's not synonymous with harmful, and even harm isn't obvious for all of these. Food additives and processing in general? Gluten for people who tolerate it?

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#45

Post by abz10 » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

cmiller1 wrote: post #33

hirundo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother is a chiropractor who mostly agrees with you. He thinks that most chiropractors do about as much harm as good, or more. Of course, he believes otherwise about his own particular school of chiropractic, the Gonstead Technique. As a long time beneficiary of that method I've come to agree with him. It has helped me quite a bit, and the long list of his vastly improved patients (many or most who are refugees f…

I've done some research on this and it seems there is some evidence that what chiropractors do, Spinal Manipulation Therapy, is effective when combined with traditional medicine and physical therapy at reducing chronic back pain (and can help some people manage it with reduced pain management medication which is a plus!) However if a chiropractor tells you they can fix your stomach or headaches or anxiety by cracking…

I have hEDS hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (so does possibly 2% of the population.) The vast majority don’t who have it don’t know it. My stomach issues and headaches are caused by joint problems with a likely vagus nerve link. It’s entirely possible that the kind of people the go to chiropractors could benefit in this way.

They may be on to something without knowing exactly what.

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#46

Post by abz10 » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #42

cmiller1 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done some research on this and it seems there is some evidence that what chiropractors do, Spinal Manipulation Therapy, is effective when combined with traditional medicine and physical therapy at reducing chronic back pain (and can help some people manage it with reduced pain management medication which is a plus!) However if a chiropractor tells you they can fix your stomach or headaches or anxiety by cracking…

Strong disagree with regard to headaches. I've had immediate relief from debilitating headache pain after an adjustment.

Have to ask, are you weirdly flexible?

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#47

Post by hirundo » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

abz10 wrote: post #46

hirundo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree with regard to headaches. I've had immediate relief from debilitating headache pain after an adjustment.

Have to ask, are you weirdly flexible?

No.

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#48

Post by throw0101a » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

Perhaps of some interest is the book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer:

> The book weaves together Mukherjee's experiences as a hematology/oncology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital as well as the history of cancer treatment and research.[3][5] Mukherjee gives the history of cancer from its first identification 4,600 years ago by the Egyptian physician Imhotep. The Greeks had no understanding of cells, but they were familiar with hydraulics. Hippocrates thus considered illness to be an imbalance of four cardinal fluids: blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm. Galen applied this idea to cancer, believing it to be an imbalance of black bile. In 440 BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus recorded the first breast tumor excision of Atossa, the queen of Persia and the daughter of Cyrus, by a Greek slave named Democedes. The procedure was believed to have been successful temporarily. Galen's theory was later challenged by the work of Andreas Vaselius and Matthew Baille, whose dissections of human bodies failed to reveal black bile.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_of_All_Maladies

PBS made it into a documentary:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_(film)

* https://www.pbs.org/show/story-cancer-emperor-all-maladies/

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#49

Post by _0w8t » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

linspace wrote: post #27

hanniabu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common misconception. Life expectancy hasn't changed much. It's children dying that bright down the average in earlier years. If you lived to your 20s your life expectancy was pretty much the same as it is now.

I have heard this multiple times and I would love some citations because although most of the reduction in life expectancy may come from death at child birth, for obvious mathematical reasons, I cannot believe wars, famine and disease don't account for anything

[1] shows pretty convincingly that probability of a dearth due to violence or war has not changed during the last 2000 years. What we perceive as peace is a consequence of extremely violent WWII and to lesser extent WWI that killed vastly more people even after accounting for population increase than wars in the 19th century.

[1] - https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violence.pdf

Re: Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

#50

Post by throw0101a » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #39

magneticnorth wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco was unknown in Europe until Europeans were introduced to it by native Americans. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tobacco

Wow. That’s mind-blowing. I knew it was a huge economic driver in the early American colonies, but I always imagined it pre-dated [in Europe] the colonization. Thank you for my TIL!

Other things that changed post-1492: potatoes, maize (corn), tomatoes, cocoa (chocolate), vanilla are probably most predominant across the Atlantic.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange

Bunch of stuff happening in the Pacific as well, e.g., chilli peppers (capsicum):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chili_pepper#Distribution_to_A...

Good book:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1493:_Uncovering_the_New_World...