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I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

seema.page

301–310 of 523 posts

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#301
post #279

First of all, I'm sorry to learn the author got cancer; I wish her all the best and continued strength. Many contributors have already made good suggestions how to reduce the risk of getting cancer, or how to deal with it; but I found most posts quite _technical_. Speaking in general terms, cancer is not a disease like a common cold. The human body sooner or later is bound to decay, which pretty much starts once one…

Life is like poker, not chess. You can make the best choices and often you will still lose.

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#302
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is related to irregular sleep schedule. Also more exposure to uv radiation while flying.

The sleep disruption is a good thought. I would also think the exposure to jet exhaust. For me, that smell evokes a nostalgia for picking up grandparents at the airport. It is probably hazardous to work at an airport and breathe it all the time.

See "fume events"

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#303
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some cancers, like prostate cancer, don't have any proven environmental or lifestyle risk factors. Prostate cancer is associated with contracting STD's: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15988645/ Conclusions: This meta-analysis provides evidence of a higher rate of prostate cancer in men with a history of an exposure to gonorrhea, HPV, or any STD.

This evidence is preliminary and the odds ratios are small. Also, consider the very high prevalence of prostate cancer - it is implausible that STDs are a major or important cause.

According to the CDC the majority of sexually active adults in the US will get HPV at some point in their lives.

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#304
post #292

This is one of the things where it matters more how healthy/unpolluted your environment is . I'd dare to say that a not-so-phisically-active moderate-smoker living in a less polluted environment has way lower cancer risk than a bio-vegan athlete buddhist monk living in a polluted industrial hellhole. I'd wish we lived in a world where we could actually address chemical, air-particulate +/- microplastics pollution ser…

It would be nice if we did, but while this would likely lower cancer slightly, I dont think it would come anywhere close to eliminating it. I think cancer is mostly a tradeoff for auto immune diseases and adaptation speed. A immune system good enough to prevent them, would also kill most all, and prevent any deviation from its template. This is particularly likely for the kinds of cancers which hit before 40. In gene…

> the loss of information which comes with damaging the biosphere is incomprehensible

I totally agree on this. This is why it saddens me that in the current set of overlapping information wars we're living in, "biodiversity loss" was also weaponized and used like another red herring to distract people in many fights.

Take pesticides and herbicides for example - it's 100% percent clear that they are a huge cause of biodiversity loss. But practically all the opponents of pesticides are also against artificial fertilizers and against GMOs that when used properly actually have a much lower impact on wildlife, and in many areas of the world they are absolutely necessary to prevent famine. (Also, why aren't we actively developing GMOs that work with less pesticides and herbicides instead of the current abominable idea of developing plants resistent to higher doses of these chemicals? It's like we have a tool but we're using it all wrong to screw ourselves with it... maybe we need to have more state-funded GMO research instead of having it all in private sector with skewed incentives.)

Now, when people are made to choose between "full bio agriculture" (no pesticides at all AND no artificial fertilizers) and "classical agriculture", it's obvious the odds are stacked against full-bio, and any discussion on better limiting and regulating use of pesticides is avoided. Also, nobody even raises the issue that going full-bio would mean lower yields, ergo larger swaths of lands would need to be used for agriculture, so less land for wildlife and potentially more loss of biodiversity.

And when people argue against hydro lowering biodiversity, we rarely discuss how its alternatives would also impact biodiversity probably even more.

To make it clear, I'm not against focusing on biodiversity, I'm against it's current "weaponization" and use as a red-herring together with climate-change in a "mixed eco-activist save-the-planet-from-humans + CO2 is the devil" discourse that prevents any meaningful and results oriented discussion...

> Fortunately, nuclear is a perfectly good alternative.

Then let's solve the political and economical problems that make it unfeasible in most places. Let's build 100% non-military nuclear programs that are safe + cost-effective.

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#305
post #286
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I think about cancer: Each and every one of us is playing Russian roulette daily with a revolver with a giant drum with tens of thousands of empty slots and a single bullet. And some people load more bullets in the drum by smoking, drinking, getting sunburned, other risky behavior or just losing the genetic lottery. At the end of the day, the outcome is still random. You'll still come across chain smokers tha…

It's never random. All is just a process of causes and conditions, albeit a very complex one. We just can't track all the variables.

At the root of medicine is biochemistry, and at the root of chemistry is quantum physics: the formation and breaking of chemical bonds is at core random events shaped by probabilities. We can only say how likely events are, not which ones will happen when.

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#306
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are not really exposed to the elements while up there. How much aluminium and airplane interior does it take to replace 10.000m of atmosphere?

According to the CDC, a west-east coast flight is about 0.035 mSv per passenger. The average annual exposure per person in the US would be about 3.3 mSv (without medical radiation from xrays and such)[0], mostly from natural background radiation. There are high regional differences[1], could be as low as 1 mSv or as high as 20 mSv. Human made factors play a role as well, e.g. coal burning (e.g. in power plants) will…

> Didn't find a good number for India, where the article author lives.

Kerala in India is among the places with the highest natural radioactivity: https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jess/095/03/0397-0407

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#307
post #268

Seems relecant to put here. Intermittent fasting has been proven to significantly lower the risk of breast cancer in particular. There was a landmark study less than 2 years ago that hit the top page of HN. "Intermittent fasting once a week for 4 seeks cuts risk of breast cancer by ~40% " The jury is still deliberating whether it also lowers the risk of other forms of cancer. Hopefullt it does!

also non-meat diet like vegetarian or Mediterranean diet is proven better for health.

95% down the page we have one of the most important ways to reduce cancer after smoking...

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#308
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad to see you being downvoted like this, but I wanted to know the same thing you asked. It seems people are really sure that exercising a lot and not eating meat or whatever is the healthiest thing one can do, for weight and health reasons... But evidence says the complete opposite, most of the time. People are so fascinated about the idea that exercise and certain foods are so good, that they don't even bother to c…

> And no one knows yet what exactly is "to eat correctly" https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you...

Yeah, thanks for that link. That's exactly the kind of garbage I was talking about.

They just take information out of (food-industry-sponsored) horrible studies, or just repeat the same old stuff they've been repeating since those first studies were published. That page even has the obligatory "stay active" in a "what to eat" recommendation. Five-star stuff.

No wonder we've all become obese since these studies and articles started to pop up...

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#309
post #49

Seema is the wife of the founder of one of the biggest online stock brokerage firm called Zerodha.

Her husband is a billionaire and she has access to some of the best healthcare out there. Not that many people from India get a mamogram on a regular basis. So her husband's wealth must have helped her with the screening that helped her to diagnose breast cancer at an early stage.

Her husband being a billionaire is besides the point.

Your conclusion doesn't follow your premise. It's at best a speculation.

Do you think only billionaires in India get diagnosed with cancer, and the remaining cases go undiagnosed?

Both billionaires and non-billionares in India get diagnosed with cancer at an early stage. Sure, plenty go undiagnosed as well, and there are plenty of late diagnosis as well.

(The final outcome in the end is a different question though).

Re: I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer

#310
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any research papers linking microplastics in fish with certain cancers, and how/why is microplastic in fish is more harmful than... All other microplastic we i gest?

there is tons of reasearch about this, one of them is https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81499-8

That paper doesn't address the question being asked: are microplastics in fish a particular cancer risk?
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