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U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#81

Post by seanmcdirmid »

tee_0 wrote: post #77

Cancer rates have exploded since 1970. I told this to someone and they arrogantly corrected me. But I just looked it up right there and they had confused death rates with cancer rates. Thanks be to god for smartphones. Diabetes, obesity, cancer, depression rates all exploded in unison starting around 1970. Why does everyone ignore the massive implications of this? It means there’s something we’re doing that is killin…

Could it be that people started living long enough to develop these problems, or that the problems were just previously undercounted? There are a lot of fairly boring theories that are more likely than anything extravagant.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#82

Post by zw7 »

tee_0 wrote: post #77

Cancer rates have exploded since 1970. I told this to someone and they arrogantly corrected me. But I just looked it up right there and they had confused death rates with cancer rates. Thanks be to god for smartphones. Diabetes, obesity, cancer, depression rates all exploded in unison starting around 1970. Why does everyone ignore the massive implications of this? It means there’s something we’re doing that is killin…

Cancer rates skyrocketed because we started screening for cancer. It's that simple.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#83

Post by [deleted] »

jghn wrote: post #68
kodah wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prostate cancer is one that men should be especially familiar with. My dad was diagnosed years ago after his PCP ignored escalating PSA levels. Although he's a "survivor" of Stage 4 his life is a shell of what it was, and has expressed a number of times he wishes he was dead. When I spoke to the oncologist after his diagnosis I remember this adage specifically: "If you did an autopsy on every man that dies over 40, y…

You're misinterpreting the "when not if" adage. For prostate cancer it's generally used as an example of how there are cancers you die of and cancers you die with. Many prostate cancers are so nonaggressive that men will die with them and never know they were there. And that's the problem. If you did a test and saw something & then immediately eradicated that prostate cancer, what if it was going to be one of the one…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#84

Post by tee_0 »

zw7 wrote: post #82
tee_0 wrote: post #77

Cancer rates have exploded since 1970. I told this to someone and they arrogantly corrected me. But I just looked it up right there and they had confused death rates with cancer rates. Thanks be to god for smartphones. Diabetes, obesity, cancer, depression rates all exploded in unison starting around 1970. Why does everyone ignore the massive implications of this? It means there’s something we’re doing that is killin…

Cancer rates skyrocketed because we started screening for cancer. It's that simple.

And obesity skyrocketed because nobody knew the difference between a fat person and a skinny person before 1970? We knew what cancer was before 1970. We certainly knew what diabetes was. The simple fact is that people started getting sicker in the 70s.

For a very long time people have been going to the doctor when they feel sick. Oliver Cromwell consulted with doctors and was convinced that he was very ill. Later on we understand that he had bipolar disorder. When people feel sick they consult doctors and have been doing this for hundreds of years. An illness like diabetes presents very specific symptoms and doctors have been aware of diabetes for a very long time. The same is true for many kinds of cancer. And even mental illnesses as I have pointed out were recognized as medical ailments by people for hundreds of years. It wasn’t that we suddenly started diagnosing these things.

Also, there are communities of people who do not develop heart disease or insulin resistance or depression or cancer. The common thread between every community like this is that they live outside of the modern world and do not eat modern foods. They live in an old way. This is well documented. Yet another insane data point that people somehow ignore. There are literally people out there who basically do not get cancer heart disease or diabetes and nobody seems to think it’s important to get to the bottom of this, people like you who leave snide comments and contribute nothing. A worthless parasite.

So there are communities that live in the old way and do not get any of these diseases. We see that these diseases exploded for us around 1970. It couldn’t be more obvious.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#85

Post by abawany »

grandiego wrote: post #62
kodah wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prostate cancer is one that men should be especially familiar with. My dad was diagnosed years ago after his PCP ignored escalating PSA levels. Although he's a "survivor" of Stage 4 his life is a shell of what it was, and has expressed a number of times he wishes he was dead. When I spoke to the oncologist after his diagnosis I remember this adage specifically: "If you did an autopsy on every man that dies over 40, y…

> Be your own advocate and research the things your doctor tells you I share your concern but I think there is no definitive advise about how to prevent these horrible outcomes (besides the usual "do regular exercise", "lower sugar consumption", "avoid stress", etc.) Did you find anything more concrete?

Sometimes it means asking for tests that the doctor ignores or is reluctant to order. I go to a university-run clinic and often deal with trainee doctors with my regular GP present and I have had to get into arguments with them on whether I need a given test for this year's checkup even with the test showing deviated results the prior year. I was stunned at the audacity of the trainee in question as I often go to the annual checkup not in a combative frame of mind but this dismissal of my concerns rubbed me the wrong way. I was able to prevail but I shudder to think of the damage this budding physician will wreak on their future patients with this off-handed arrogance - I hope they will get better with time and age.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#86

Post by refurb »

tee_0 wrote: post #77

Cancer rates have exploded since 1970. I told this to someone and they arrogantly corrected me. But I just looked it up right there and they had confused death rates with cancer rates. Thanks be to god for smartphones. Diabetes, obesity, cancer, depression rates all exploded in unison starting around 1970. Why does everyone ignore the massive implications of this? It means there’s something we’re doing that is killin…

They have?

https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac...

Looks like they went from 400 to 500 then back to 450 since 1975. It's trending down.

And you'd need to correct for age distribution to make sure it's not just the population having older people and thus higher chance of cancer in a given year.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#87

Post by refurb »

docdendrite wrote: post #13
myroon5 wrote: post #5

More vaccines seems like one of the most straightforward future mitigations since viruses like Hepatitis/HPV/mono/HIV/herpes/etc cause almost a fifth of cancer cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncovirus

That is a dubious claim. While links between HPV and cervical cancer are quite strong and well-defined, the associations with the other viruses you cite are only correlative. Also, Hep C, HIV and herpes have no vaccine, so unclear what your statement is referring to anyway? What has contributed to a drop in cancer mortality would be advances in treatment (like targeted therapies and immunoncology), better image/blood…

Talk about confidently incorrect.

The link between hepatitis and liver cancer is rock solid, to the point chronic hepatitis is the leading risk of liver cancer.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#88

Post by nebulousnights »

tee_0 wrote: post #84
zw7 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancer rates skyrocketed because we started screening for cancer. It's that simple.

And obesity skyrocketed because nobody knew the difference between a fat person and a skinny person before 1970? We knew what cancer was before 1970. We certainly knew what diabetes was. The simple fact is that people started getting sicker in the 70s. For a very long time people have been going to the doctor when they feel sick. Oliver Cromwell consulted with doctors and was convinced that he was very ill. Later on…

Thank you for your comment. I studied anthropology, an imperfect field, but one thing was obvious right away and it is that point you are making here. Please keep telling people.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#89

Post by tee_0 »

refurb wrote: post #86
tee_0 wrote: post #77

Cancer rates have exploded since 1970. I told this to someone and they arrogantly corrected me. But I just looked it up right there and they had confused death rates with cancer rates. Thanks be to god for smartphones. Diabetes, obesity, cancer, depression rates all exploded in unison starting around 1970. Why does everyone ignore the massive implications of this? It means there’s something we’re doing that is killin…

They have? https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac... Looks like they went from 400 to 500 then back to 450 since 1975. It's trending down. And you'd need to correct for age distribution to make sure it's not just the population having older people and thus higher chance of cancer in a given year.

What part of this document contradicts what I’ve said? The only chart that doesn’t start at 75 is cancer deaths, not incidence.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#90

Post by refurb »

tee_0 wrote: post #89
refurb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have? https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac... Looks like they went from 400 to 500 then back to 450 since 1975. It's trending down. And you'd need to correct for age distribution to make sure it's not just the population having older people and thus higher chance of cancer in a given year.

What part of this document contradicts what I’ve said? The only chart that doesn’t start at 75 is cancer deaths, not incidence.

You said it "skyrocketed" since 1970. Unless it skyrocketed from '70 to '74 (which I doubt), the trend is not up, it's up then back down.
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