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

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

#311

Post by giantg2 »

jll29 wrote: 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…

"eventually will wipe any individual out."

Sure, eventually. It's one thing if people are getting cancer or having heart attacks later in life. It's a little concerning when a fairly large number of younger people are afflicted. The rate of cancer has risen about 30% for young people since the seventies. So it seems that there's something wrong in our environment or lifestyles that could be increasing risk. That's very concerning in my opinion.

https://www.healthcentral.com/article/cancer-rates-rising-in...

And on the subject of dying from a heart attack in one's 20s. That's "significant", but 1 in 100,000 is pretty rare. Some could be congenital or obesity related, but the majority in that age group is due to substance abuse. That's a factor people can control, and thus not as scary to most people.

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

#312

Post by codeflow2202 »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #204

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…

This. I live in Belgium coming from Italy and it's scary how many people I know gets cancer here. Like someone i know every few months gets it (and I'm not talking about just old people. A couple guys i know got it in their 20s). And it's all people relatively healthy.

Compare that to Italy where nobody I know does any effort to be healthy, eats lots of red meat (we do like our pork meat but it's all local stuff), smoke, veggies just a small side dish, no sport at all and they still live longer, healthier lives.

The few people i know who got cancer there, were well over their 60s (and all of them eventually survived). I'm talking about the region Umbria which is pretty pristine and barely industrialized.

This made me realize that the best thing you can do for your health is just picking the right place to live.

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

#313

Post by gambiting »

samatman wrote: post #282
jorvi wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US loves to sedate. You guys get absolutely blasted when you have your wisdom teeth removed. In most of Europe you get strong pill painkillers for the first few days and then it’s paracetamol.

I don't know if you're expressing a common misconception here, but a lot of Americans also think general anaesthetic is widely used for wisdom teeth removal, and it isn't. What is widely used is deep sedation, a combination of ketamine and benzos which keeps the patient calm and, the nice part, prevents any memories of the event from forming. It's maybe an extra hour of recovery, same-day procedure in either case. Po…

You really got me there, was halfway through writing an angry reply when I read the last sentence.

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

#314

Post by giantg2 »

Gatsky wrote: post #272
catchclose8919 wrote: post #204

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…

The effect sizes of carcinogenic (or potentially carcinogenic) environmental risk factors are small compared to the very high baseline risk of getting cancer over the long lifetimes we are blessed with. Some cancers, like prostate cancer, don't have any proven environmental or lifestyle risk factors. Consider smoking - the exposure of the lungs to cigarette smoke is very high and very consistent compared to almost al…

"cancers like leukaemia or pancreatic cancer couldn't even be reliably diagnosed 100 years ago,"

That's only partially true. They could still do an autopsy to figure it out. Maybe less common.

Either way, cancer rates in you people have increased 30% since the 70s. And that's considering that smoking rates have decreased during that time.

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

#315

Post by giantg2 »

Gatsky wrote: post #294
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #276

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.

HPV is extremely common, usually asymptomatic, and already known to contribute to other reproductive cancers. Why is it "implausible"? It seems this study at least shows it is plausible.

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

#316

Post by giantg2 »

dqpb wrote: post #270
faeyanpiraat wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a CO2 sensor, and found that the CO2 levels rise to unhealthy levels in like half an hour in my room without opening my window. Since then I only sleep with a window slightly open, and open it periodically during the day. I also run an air purifier all the time, but I cannot yet measure it's efficacy, because a particle counter is like 2-3× more expensive than a CO2 sensor, so I haven't invested in it yet.

If you have central heating / AC, running it in fan mode also helps a lot in reducing CO2 in a room.

Yep, I leave the fan on all the time to circulate air in the house. The levels seem to range from 450-550ppm. I was surprised at how low that is considering this is a newer house.

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

#317

Post by bsenftner »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #204

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…

This goes back to my pet theory that Humans do Not Scale: because we treat others as anonymous, the entire pork producing industry feeds waste plastics to their pork, and this is considered ordinary behavior.

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/plastic-pig-feed-tiktok/ (not the only source, this video and issue has gone viral)

This is why we can't have nice things or a nice life: everyone treats the anonymous other as disposable. That makes everyone disposable, and our society a degenerate hellhole.

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

#318

Post by WinterMount223 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #151
rob74 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One other major factor people also overlook is genetics - not that you can do anything about it, but if you have cases of cancer in your family, you should probably be extra careful. Plus the obvious things like fair-skinned people needing to be more careful about skin cancer etc.

Pretty much everyone has some cancer in their family. Cancer is really common. You won't always know there was cancer, though: How often do you hear about Grandpa's prostate or that mole your cousin had removed?

That’s always shared among the family. Don’t know where you are from.

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

#319

Post by indigochill »

gameswithgo wrote: post #301
jll29 wrote: 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.

Spun another way, in poker, although you're dealt an unplayable hand most of the time, the key to success is (a) patiently not playing bad hands and (b) recognizing the good hands and capitalizing on them correctly.

That said, no matter how well you play, the game does end eventually. I like to think that, like poker, despite the variance, you have some degree of influence on how well the game ends.

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

#320

Post by giantg2 »

EL_Loco wrote: post #267
rplnt wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a polluted industrial hellhole Doesn't have to be industrial. Just any city full of cars will do.

You're right. Each car is like one mini factory spewing out its exhaust into the air.

But those mini factories have gotten much cleaner over the years, yet we still see a 30% increase in young adult cancers over 1970s levels. So while it's a potential contributor, it seems there could be more at play.

Edit: why downvote?

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