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Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

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Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#91

Post by poxrud »

kaba0 wrote: post #82
Fezzik wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is known issue, at least of late. There was a recent article posted here (can’t find it right now on mobile) about how that New Car Smell is caused, to some degree, by known carcinogens.

Well, what isn’t a carcinogen? That word gets thrown around way too much — most food items we regularly eat contains several carcinogens, but besides increasing the statistical chance of cancer they are not imminently dangerous without further clarification on the metric of the effect.

Yep, I recently found out that drinking very hot tea or coffee can be carcinogenic. This is the only way that I like to drink these beverages.

Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#92

Post by rlt »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #29

If we're going to throw out random theories for the cause like diet and pollution, what about all the volatile chemicals off-gassing from freshly manufactured goods?

Getting an air quality monitor was enlightening and terrifying. My child’s room (which unfortunately doesn’t have great ventilation) would sometimes hit 4000 ppb VOCs, which I tracked down to some of her stuffed animals…

Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#93

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #29

If we're going to throw out random theories for the cause like diet and pollution, what about all the volatile chemicals off-gassing from freshly manufactured goods?

Or long-term side-effects of medication, food-trends, or lack of exercise?

Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#94

Post by [deleted] »

upsidesinclude wrote: post #23
sweetheart wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bad science... > I say this for experience... > It checks out for me... Glad you've managed to avoid the pesky allure of bad science with your anecdotal approach!

Are you trying to make the counter point that sugar and highly processed foods are healthy? There's lots of good science and history (! I guess that's just a bunch of anecdotes though) which demonstrates their ill effects. Sometimes, a fact has been asserted widely enough that we stop requiring sources, even at HN

[deleted]

Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#95

Post by kyleyeats »

lebuffon wrote: post #8

I say this as often as I can. We have a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer with ~83% efficacy. Following the "bread-crumbs" seems like a good strategy to me. We have this little beasty in wild. Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1, but no vaccine. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/human-t-lym... We have correlation with cancer with other viruses. Hep C for example. How many more clues do we need to exp…

People will never accept this theory because it means having more sex is giving us more cancer. Instead they'll say our diet is worse (it isn't) and that we're exposed to worse chemicals (we're not) than 70 years ago. We're definitely having more sex but that's not allowed to be a theory. It's like theorizing that cars are killing flying bug populations-- it's just a non-starter. Come up with something else.

Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#96

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

swayvil wrote: post #39
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #29

If we're going to throw out random theories for the cause like diet and pollution, what about all the volatile chemicals off-gassing from freshly manufactured goods?

[flagged]

Impossible. It is safe and effective.

Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#97

Post by irrational »

I feel like there has been a great increase in mental health issues: anxiety, depression, etc., especially among youth. I don’t recall these being major issues from when I was a youth in the late 80s and early 90s. I’m told that I’m wrong and people just didn’t talk about it so I wasn’t aware of it. But even amongst close family members and friends it wasn’t a thing. Now, I’ve seen some claim it is the post 9/11 world or social media, but I have to wonder if there is some chemical we are exposed to more that might be causing mental disorders in addition to early onset cancers.

Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#98

Post by ectopod »

kaba0 wrote: post #78
Jill_the_Pill wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wonder about exposure in youth to nuclear weapons testing fallout. That might show an identifiable spatial or temporal pattern, maybe falling off in more recent years and clustered among downwinders worldwide.

I don’t know, radiation is very easy to measure, has a very well-understood effect (the previous century was pretty much about getting to learn every interaction of radiation and the human body), and I don’t think that those fallouts even measurably increase radiation level compared to the usual background one. In short, radiation either has an immediate, very apparent and deadly effect, or a simple stochastic one th…

It's not the environmental radiation that's the problem, it's ingested isotopes. See e.g. strontium and leukaemia.

Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#99

Post by [deleted] »

p886 wrote: post #18
lambdaba wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result of misguidance from health professionals, big food & big pharma marketing. Not acknowledging that health is largely a result of lifestyle choices, and that pharmaceuticals are mostly ineffective and often harmful. And now for the specifics: - lies/bad science about meat (particularly red meat) being unhealthy - lies/bad science about cholesterol & saturated fat being unhealthy - not attacking sugar and pro…

plus: high-PUFA oils (seed / vegetable oils) being labelled as "heart-healthy"

[deleted]

Re: Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic?

#100

Post by dominotw »

lambdaba wrote: post #15
notamy wrote: post #9

The most disturbing part, to me, is this: > The early-onset cancer epidemic might be one manifestation of increasing trends in the development of many chronic diseases in young and future generations. Why are chronic diseases trending upwards? Is it the obvious things (pollution, microplastics, obesity, massive drain on mental health from the modern lifestyle, etc.), or is there something else going on?

The result of misguidance from health professionals, big food & big pharma marketing. Not acknowledging that health is largely a result of lifestyle choices, and that pharmaceuticals are mostly ineffective and often harmful. And now for the specifics: - lies/bad science about meat (particularly red meat) being unhealthy - lies/bad science about cholesterol & saturated fat being unhealthy - not attacking sugar and pro…

I think there is no way to directly link 'lifestyle choices' and chronic diseases. All we have is intuition like yours. There is always going to be aggressive push-back from people who will get you on lack of data linking those two.

I agree about 'big pharma marketing.' part spreading misinformation that all these can be 'treated' with drugs that even educated fall for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32744412

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