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Another interesting fact is if you look at US deaths, fewer die between the age of 60 and 80 than before and after. Seems like if you can make it to sixty you'll die of old age or some random cancer.
It's very difficult to say if this is good news or not. Is it not possible that people are actually dying from other things that have actually increased since 1991 that occur before cancer? In other words, couldn't the other illnesses that occur before cancer explain this decrease if those have been increasing?
So what cause of death went up? Edit. To answer my own question it seems to be the very vague "All other causes" [1]. 1. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db88.htm
It's very difficult to say if this is good news or not. Is it not possible that people are actually dying from other things that have actually increased since 1991 that occur before cancer? In other words, couldn't the other illnesses that occur before cancer explain this decrease if those have been increasing?
It's a fair point to raise. I answer that since lifespans have increased, there isn't anything that is killing people before cancer often enough to account for the drop in cancer deaths.
Either way, we are living longer though.
So are people getting cancer more or less that they were in 1991?
I hate to be this way, but as horrible as cancer is, the modes of death behind it are not to be ... advertised. My mother in law went to Alzheimers. Wouldn't wish that on anyone. As Hank Williams said, "I'll never get out of this world alive".
This is because of effective treatment. I was dx'ed with "fatal" cancer just over 10 years ago... Modern medicine FTW.
I doubt it has anything to do with treatment. On average we've been able to add a whopping four months to longevity since the '70s, and even that's questionable since we have better diagnostic equipment. You were really, really lucky. A drop in cancer deaths is probably related to two things: a drop in smoking, and an increase in obesity that's killing people before they can get cancer.
So are people getting cancer more or less that they were in 1991?
"For those years, deaths from cancer also decreased by 1.8 percent among men and fell by 1.4 percent among women." I hate to be this way, but as horrible as cancer is, the modes of death behind it are not to be ... advertised. My mother in law went to Alzheimers. Wouldn't wish that on anyone. As Hank Williams said, "I'll never get out of this world alive".
EDIT: Found this exert after going through the whole Cancer Institute pdf: " The overall rate of cancer cases (incidence) remained stable for women between 2007 and 2011, but declined by 1.8 percent per year for men.
Men experienced relatively rapid declines in cases of colon cancer (3.6 percent per year), lung cancer (3 percent per year) and prostate cancer (2.1 percent per year) during that period, the report found.
But there's been no change in incidence rates for breast cancer. And the report found that certain cancers are even on the rise. For example, thyroid cancer cases increased an average 4.5 percent per year between 2007 and 2011, and liver cancer cases have increased by more than 3 percent.
The increase in liver cancer cases is largely due to hepatitis C infection, mainly through intravenous drug use and sharing needles in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Jemal said.
The rise in thyroid cancer cases cannot be easily explained, Jemal said. Some suspect the condition may be now overdiagnosed due to the overuse of imaging scans and ultrasound, he said, but there's also been an increase in the size of cancerous lesions found.
"For thyroid, it's very difficult to explain what's occurring," he said"