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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

#401

Post by Broken_Hippo »

paulcole wrote: post #325
codetiger wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it change anything in the article?

I don’t see many articles about a homeless guy with cancer making the front page of HN. You’re right it doesn’t change the article, but knowing the context helps us understand how we ended up reading it. And then helps us question the truth of the article.

If they are in the US, the homeless guy is more likely to simply die instead of being able to get treatment. The homeless guy couldn't have gotten a preventative scan to catch it, after all, and even if he felt it, what would he do about it?

Poverty - or lack thereof - changes the story itself because not everywhere cares about its people.

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

#402

Post by EL_Loco »

giantg2 wrote: post #320
EL_Loco wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You're right, there's probably more at play. Exposure to chemicals, pesticides in food, less time outside, more sedentary lifestyle, less sun exposure, more processed food. I was just saying that one car = one engine producing exhaust from fossil fuels (EVs a little less).

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

#403

Post by micromacrofoot »

It's all about risk, and a lot of risk factors are still somewhat unknown. I think about cancer like rolling dice, we all roll by the nature of existing.

A smoker might be rolling a 6-sided die with cancer on one side.

An athlete is still rolling a die with cancer on one side, but it's more likely a 100-sided die.

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

#404

Post by giantg2 »

Gatsky wrote: post #392
giantg2 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The effect is weak. The ubiquity of HPV infection should show a stronger association if it were important. It could contribute to a subset of prostate cancers, but this has not been proven beyond correlation. There are other issues - HPV related cancers like cervical cancer or head and neck cancer show an age related peak and decline, whereas prostate cancer incidence continues to rise with age. But the HPV vaccine i…

True, it's interesting that it doesn't peak. Is that initial onset, or simply occurance?

I ask that because prostate cancer has a very positive long term survival rate but also recurs in almost a third of cases. I wonder if the peak in other cancers is because long term survival is lower, or lomg term survival is also high but recurrence is lower.

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

#406

Post by Noumenon72 »

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…

I don't see the joke -- is this entire post untrue then?

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

#407

Post by frazbin »

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…

Came here to say this. Any lovely old chemical fabs in her little slice of Bengaluru I wonder?

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

#408

Post by ncmncm »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #385
giantg2 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and what is contributing to obesity? Are there environmental factors affecting androgenic functions? Is it all just people being sedentary over eaters? Or something else?

This blog spent a bunch of time trying to answer that question, and specifically to figure out which environmental factors might be causing the effect. They looked at lithium, PFAS, antibiotic contamination and a few other candidates. This is definitely not peer-reviewed research so please don't take it too seriously, but I came away convinced that there is more going on here than "people suddenly started eating too…

We already know the key contributor: we eat enormously more sugar now than our parents did, and enormously less saturated fat.

Now that we know, with certainty, what a disastrous choice this was, it will take time to switch back. Most people are still convinced saturated fat is the bugaboo it has been painted as, and that sugar is A-OK, and government policy is still overwhelmingly directed that way.

What can be done with half the US maize crop (of what is left over after 1/3 has been diverted to make into alcohol to add to gasoline, enriching Archer Daniels Midland at taxpayer expense) when it is no longer enzymatically converted to sugar is an open question. Does the world want that much maize?

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

#409

Post by knicholes »

latexr wrote: post #372
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…

> Being on this planet for a limited time period makes it more important to make the right choices, because we have only one life. The thought may be freeing to you, but many others become paralysed by it, obsessing about “the right choices” at every moment. An alternate view: it is because we only have one limited life that our choices don’t matter. We and everyone our choices touch will die, and nothing will have m…

I agree. Living by a greedy algorithm (living each moment like it is your last) might leave one with no retirement funds in case one doesn't die early.

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

#410

Post by numo16 »

jorvi wrote: post #163
gambiting wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an interesting difference between the way countries approach this btw. In US, sedation is standard and used in 90%+ of colonoscopies. In UK sedation is rarely used unless specifically requested by the patient, you usually get some gas and air instead. It's not even due to cost, it's just that sedation for colonoscopy is generally unnecessary, it's an uncomfortable but not particularily painful procedure.

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.

It depends on the situation. I had all of mine out this past weekend (in the US) and, because they were fully grown in, all they had to do was some local anaesthetic (about 8 shots around various parts of the mouth), wait 15 minutes, and loosen/pull them all. Total procedure was less than 30 minute and no painkillers prescribed after the fact.
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