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Was cancer less likely in a pre-industrial world?

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

#131

Post by mcguire »

adolph wrote: post #55
7952 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think evolution plays a part in why older people are more prone. A debilitating illness in your teens is likely to stop you reproducing and is more likely to vanish. But a genetic trait for cancer later in life can get past on.

There must be some evolutionary fitting function that mutations serve that have prevented them from being selected out.

Not entirely on point here, but you should look at that the other way around: mutations are retained unless they cause adverse consequences that result in them being selected out.

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

#132

Post by tuatoru »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #114
nemo44x wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing how precarious being born is. I think I read that about 200 years ago around 40% of people didn’t make it past 5 years old or something like that. Antibiotics have helped a lot in modern times, especially for mothers giving birth.

I personally would have 100% died at least once without antibiotics. Probably several times. My top three favorite human accomplishments of all time are: 1. printing press 2. vaccines 3. antibiotics And the order of the last two is debatable.

I would make the last two consequences of the microbe theory of infectious disease, which also led to sanitary water supplies and waste disposal.

Why is the theory an accomplishment? Hooke's and van Leeuwenhoek's first observations of micro-organisms in water drops were treated as a meaningless curiosity for about 150 years, and essentially ignored.

Finally it was realised that here was an alternative to prevailing ideas about infectious disease that had great explanatory power. The war of ideas lasted until the early twentieth century, when the last doctors clinging to the "miasma" theory and its ilk finally gave up.

The theory made vaccines and antibiotics conceptually possible.

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

#133

Post by mcguire »

deep-root wrote: post #90
szundi wrote: post #82

People didn’t live long enough to have cancer back then.

It's a bit of a myth that humans have only had long life in modern times. This is partially due to the calculated "life expectancy" of many eras including infant mortality where perhaps 30% of the population died at age 0. If a quarter or half of your population is dying at age 0, then another quarter or half must likely be living into their 70s for the mean age to end up 35.

The total life expectancy of a white male infant in 1850 in the US was 38; at age 10, 58; at age 20, 60. White female, 40, 57, and 60. In 2011, the male expectancies were 76, 77, and 77; female, 81, 82, and 82. (https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expecta...)

Life expectancy of children and young adults has increased significantly in addition to the reduction in infant mortality.

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

#134

Post by refurb »

throwaway12319 wrote: post #79
bryanmgreen wrote: post #60

Probably a dumb question, but I’ve wondered if plastic has anything to do with cancer in the modern era? Mostly everything we consume these days has been touched by a form of plastic.

There's very extensive documentation on the carcinogenic effect of microplastic and atmospheric particulate. It's not a debated issue: it's well known.

What? This is absolutely not true. You realize we implant plastic medical devices into people, right? And those have gone through clinical testing?

The best I’ve seen is increase inflammation due to small plastic particles.

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

#135

Post by [deleted] »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #83
CoryAlexMartin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are our telomeres long enough to allow for the development of cancer, or is it necessary for the system to be overridden, thus allowing cells to replicate indefinitely? My layman's understanding was that benign moles were benign, and not cancerous, because the telomere system was functioning normally and limiting growth. Am I wrong?

Moles don't stop growing primarily because of telomere length but because the human genome has effective methods of controlling cancer. You get cancer something like 4 times a day but the cells are terminated. (It is possible telomeres play some part in this, but I have never seen it proposed.) What you are likely trying to broach is the question "do organisms evolve to die?" the answer to which is "yes." This was or…

[deleted]

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

#136

Post by doggodaddo78 »

I would suspect bodily stressors like fasting reduce the chances of cancers taking hold because those cells are usually less resilient than normal cells (like the principles of chemotherapy). Having abundant food I would suspect is what gives most cancers a comfortable body to develop in.

Also, modern proliferation of toxic chemicals.

Furthermore, people living longer are inevitably going to go by either cardiovascular issues/stroke, pneumonia, or cancer.

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

#137

Post by wearywanderer »

sonograph wrote: post #3

Tangent topic; I have often wondered if back pain was less likely in the past? How did they manage without chiropractors?

All of the answers you've received seem rather unsatisfactory. Here is my take on it: Chiropracy is a complex nonsensical system of commercializing a simple principle: cracking your back feels nice. What did people do before chiropractors? They cracked their own backs. I can crack my spine from my tailbone up to my skull. From this, I experience temporary relief from general back discomfort (which is the most chiropractors are capable of.)

To the commenters calling it quackery; you're never going to convince somebody who experiences relief from cracking their back that their experience of relief is fraudulent crackery. Subjectively, it's as real as it gets. Skeptics handicap themselves with this sort of over the top rhetoric.

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

#138

Post by Spooky23 »

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?

There were plenty of old people. Life expectancy was skewed by childhood death and urban poor and wasn’t as grim as we think. (Most people lived outside of urban areas)

One big thing to consider is how would an 18th century person know they had leukemia? Cancers that don’t have a physical manifestation were probably classified as some other mysterious malady.

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

#139

Post by PudgePacket »

reader_mode wrote: post #125
CyanBird wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is a cute hypothesis, but I don't believe it is fully functional, how would this explain megafauna? An I am not talking of moose, but of ice age gigantic mammals, which were just gigantic

They are extinct, so supporting his hypothesis ? It's not like evolution is a design process in which something gets "traded off" - random shit happens, something sticks.

> They are extinct, so supporting his hypothesis

Or they were hunted to death by organised groups of early humans.

Wales are probably only surviving because their environment is so foreign to humans.

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

#140

Post by arkh »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #83
CoryAlexMartin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are our telomeres long enough to allow for the development of cancer, or is it necessary for the system to be overridden, thus allowing cells to replicate indefinitely? My layman's understanding was that benign moles were benign, and not cancerous, because the telomere system was functioning normally and limiting growth. Am I wrong?

Moles don't stop growing primarily because of telomere length but because the human genome has effective methods of controlling cancer. You get cancer something like 4 times a day but the cells are terminated. (It is possible telomeres play some part in this, but I have never seen it proposed.) What you are likely trying to broach is the question "do organisms evolve to die?" the answer to which is "yes." This was or…

Imagine humans who can't die from old age: how many would choose to do anything dangerous?

Would you risk your life crossing a road? Working on a construction site?

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