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Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

nytimes.com

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Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#111

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

colordrops wrote: post #37
nancyminusone wrote: post #16

Every time you look up something related to Radon, it's always cited as "the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking" I wonder if that's really true. Radon is a big deal where I live. Most homes have a radon mitigation system which is a 20-watt fan that goes over your sump pump hole, and runs continuously to a vent on the roof.

I bought a house in the hills of Los Angeles and we tested for radon. Turned out it was very high, and LA is one of the few places in California that has high radon. We got it mitigated, and it wasn't that expensive. I talked to neighbors and real estate agents, and no one wanted to know anything about it. I was shocked. Everyone is pulling the wool over their own eyes here.

Much of LA has some of the worst air in the country, so I think it selects for people who don't care about being poisoned by their environment.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#112

Post by Waterluvian »

dgfitz wrote: post #110
zamadatix wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that depends how old you are when you install it and how long you plan to live but ~$7 per month is not at all an unrealistic electricity usage estimate for the system. 7*12*35 = $2,940. Edit: E.g. the numbers from this site suggest, for 15 out of the 16 listed fan models, the lifetime electricity cost is likely to be significantly larger than the install cost unless you are already much older at the time you…

This point always amuses me. Thats like, 1 starbucks coffee a month, or 1 trip to a fast food place a month, or one extra thing at the grocery store a month, or half a movie ticket a month, or half a streaming service a month, or less than half an LLM subscription a month, I could go on for a while. For the cost, preventing cancer seems like it's a wise investment. I say this as a cancer survivor.

But it doesn’t prevent cancer. It lowers the risk of a specific kind of cancer by some amount. Is it $650 worth? That’s what I’m stuck on. People just go by vibe and say things like “it’s a good investment” but that’s just coming from I don’t know where.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#114

Post by lukeschlather »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #41
John23832 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wok cooking is done at really high temp, which releases gases that are not present in moderate/low temp cooking. Woks trends asian, cooking trends towards women.

I don't think most people are actually doing really high temp wok cooking at home regardless of ethnic background. My impression is that, while woks are more common for home cooking in china (not chinese americans, mind you), even there home cooking is usually not done at the high temperatures that restaurants use.

It doesn't have to be super-high-temp wok cooking. Just using a wok and a normal residential gas stove is not great for you. Even at home stove temps stir frying can throw up a fair amount of oil aerosols. And it potentially means standing over the stove with the gas going on high, even if it's not going to get as hot as a restaurant wok. The gas is bad for you, the aerosols are probably bad for you. It's plausible Asian-Americans use this sort of cooking method more often than non-Asians.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#115

Post by jychang »

zamadatix wrote: post #96
Waterluvian wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficult thing for me is that while I believe radon can cause lung cancer, I think products are often sold based on fear. “Second leading cause” doesn’t really mean anything in isolation, does it? What slice of my mortality pie was radon before and after spending $5000? Could I spend $5000 to cut a bigger slice out of it in another way, like eating better or hiring a grizzly bear to make me exercise more often?…

For 93% of people the only cost is the $15 test kit to verify "yep, don't need to even think about it". For the other 7% that then need to really do a cost-benefit the data is out there but you do need to go through your specific circumstances to get a meaningful number. The risk levels vary vastly (orders of magnitudes) between both the radon level and your life choices/situation, so it's relatively meaningless to s…

Yeah, this is the correct heuristic.

Spend $15 or $100 for one or two measurements, *then* worry about cost to mitigate.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#116

Post by maxbond »

zamadatix wrote: post #100
bradlys wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These fans are not using $3000 in electricity over their lifetime.

I guess that depends how old you are when you install it and how long you plan to live but ~$7 per month is not at all an unrealistic electricity usage estimate for the system. 7*12*35 = $2,940. Edit: E.g. the numbers from this site suggest, for 15 out of the 16 listed fan models, the lifetime electricity cost is likely to be significantly larger than the install cost unless you are already much older at the time you…

The present value of $7 in 35 years is $1.45, assuming a risk free rate of 4.5%. Paying $2940 over 35 years is much more affordable than paying $2940 up front. If the goal is to be rational about risk, let's right-size the numbers. Otherwise our figures will be misleading.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#117

Post by ellisv »

nancyminusone wrote: post #16

Every time you look up something related to Radon, it's always cited as "the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking" I wonder if that's really true. Radon is a big deal where I live. Most homes have a radon mitigation system which is a 20-watt fan that goes over your sump pump hole, and runs continuously to a vent on the roof.

An estimated 38% of homes in my county have elevated radon levels.

We tested for radon when we bought our house and found the levels to be very high.

Fortunately the builders had installed a passive mitigation system so all we had to do was install a fan.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#118

Post by maxbond »

Waterluvian wrote: post #112
dgfitz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This point always amuses me. Thats like, 1 starbucks coffee a month, or 1 trip to a fast food place a month, or one extra thing at the grocery store a month, or half a movie ticket a month, or half a streaming service a month, or less than half an LLM subscription a month, I could go on for a while. For the cost, preventing cancer seems like it's a wise investment. I say this as a cancer survivor.

But it doesn’t prevent cancer. It lowers the risk of a specific kind of cancer by some amount. Is it $650 worth? That’s what I’m stuck on. People just go by vibe and say things like “it’s a good investment” but that’s just coming from I don’t know where.

How much does it really have to prevent one of the most painful and expensive forms of cancer, not just for you but also your family, to justify $7/mo? Not very much, in my book.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#119

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

calf wrote: post #79
phkahler wrote: post #17

Are lung cancer rates up? Obviously eliminating or reducing the primary cause will lead to larger percentages of the other causes among cases.

Except reducing the first cause does nothing about whether air pollution is a nontrivial factor. And nonsmoker cancers are a nontrivial proportion since they account for 10-25 percent of lung cancer worldwide, please just read the article. Besides the base rate fallacy there is the fallacy of assuming only the biggest factor is what matters, when other factors are nontrivial weights already. Another fallacy is the fa…

I do wonder if non-smokers are segregated based on second hand exposure: have a parent/spouse who smokes. Casino employees may have to spend a full shift bathed in smoke.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#120

Post by YZF »

barbazoo wrote: post #98
irrational wrote: post #80

The second leading cause of lung cancer is radon. My high schooler came home and said her science teacher said everyone should do a radon test. I scoffed, but humored her by getting a kit from Home Depot and sending it away to a lab. The results came back very high. So I purchased an electronic radon monitor and it showed almost the exact same results. Well, crap. I installed a radon mitigation system and now the num…

Folks, check out your local library, ours has radon test devices.

Same (Canada).
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