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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

#291
post #92

As usual correlation don't imply causation. My uncle was a professional national level runner, he was the healtier person that I know: he ran several kilometers every day, ate correctly, no drinking, no smoking, sleep at least 8 hours/day, etc. He died from cardiovascular problems. This not means that a correct and healty lifestyle is not going to reduce the risk, but it's not the only factor.

I am sorry for your loss. But I am curious what "ate correctly" meant for him. Would you be kind enough to provide some details?

No excess, no junk food, very few red meat (couple of day at week) and processed food, lot of fish and healty fat, no alchool.

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

#292

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…

It would be nice if we did, but while this would likely lower cancer slightly, I dont think it would come anywhere close to eliminating it. I think cancer is mostly a tradeoff for auto immune diseases and adaptation speed. A immune system good enough to prevent them, would also kill most all, and prevent any deviation from its template. This is particularly likely for the kinds of cancers which hit before 40.

In general, I think both the op, and this post vastly underestimates how little people actions affect the probability of cancer. Sure you can lower them slightly, but I have never seen anything indicating you can drop the odds of cancer more than 10% by clean living and pristine environments. Highly specific issues like very high radiation does concretely increase the odd's, but its barely noticeable outside of old school radiology nurses, or nuclear accidents. Things like a heavy tobacco habit does increase the odds substantially and significantly above baseline, but most people who smoke daily for a few years are still far more likely to die of something else. We can also infer that microplastics is less carcinogenous than tobacco due to its prevalence and negligible increase in cancer. Not saying its safe, just worth remembering that most cancer is better through of as bad luck, and very unlikely to be the persons fault. Basically cancer isnt anything you can expect that healthy habits, healthy food, or pristine environments could have fixed.

In the astonishingly rich biosphere there are exceptions to everything though, impossibly improbable things which had eons to occur. Concretely, we have yet to design a single antibiotic, geneditor or new trait, instead we find them. I care very little about the downsides for humans caused by pollution and global warming, but the loss of information which comes with damaging the biosphere is incomprehensible. In other words, I'm all for fixing both, but not at the expense of the biosphere. Fortunately, nuclear is a perfectly good alternative.

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not defending totalitarianism, but capitalist democracy really does a piss poor job at controlling negative externalities, to the point that I’m not really convinced it’s a good system of governance anymore.

Tax the externalities. Capitalism is fully compatible with using the price system to express preferences on externalities.

Ok, so instead of “force companies to allow remote work” it’s “tax companies that don’t allow remote work a bajillion dollars a microsecond”. What’s the practical difference there?

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

#294
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The effect sizes of carcinogenic (or potentially carcinogenic) environmental risk factors are small compared to the very high baseline risk of getting cancer over the long lifetimes we are blessed with. Some cancers, like prostate cancer, don't have any proven environmental or lifestyle risk factors. Consider smoking - the exposure of the lungs to cigarette smoke is very high and very consistent compared to almost al…

>Some cancers, like prostate cancer, don't have any proven environmental or lifestyle risk factors. Prostate cancer is associated with contracting STD's: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15988645/ Conclusions: This meta-analysis provides evidence of a higher rate of prostate cancer in men with a history of an exposure to gonorrhea, HPV, or any STD.

This evidence is preliminary and the odds ratios are small. Also, consider the very high prevalence of prostate cancer - it is implausible that STDs are a major or important cause.

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

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are really interesting maps, but I'm missing a few important data points. For the cancer one, I feel like it's misleading. E.g. Russia and Central Africa might be low in cancer because of their low life expectancy, and Central Africa additionally because of its majority black population (which I assume to be less prone to skin cancer). As a white person, I believe it would be a mistake to move to Central Africa…

> the more egalitarian societies and health care systems As someone from Romania, I believe that is true. But since joining the EU, we've also seen changes in food laws, which have a large impact on health. For example, recently it became mandatory to label citrus fruit when it was treated with preservatives, to know whether the peel is edible. People used to consume the peel regardless; now more people are aware. Th…

Your last paragraph goes off the rails a bit, the diacetyl in ordinary butter is no better for your lungs than its synthetic equivalent. If there's a difference it's the amount of exposure, not whether the identical molecule comes from in vitro synthesis rather than in vivo.

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

#297
post #254

> I have been getting a full-body health check-up done regularly for many years. I’m curious how this works in other countries, because in mine doctors don’t really do “full body checkups”. You’d might get a few specific tests if you knew what to ask for, but doctors really do not do any kind of regular comprehensive exams sufficient to detect early cancer like this. If you insisted, you’re likely to just be treated…

They have them (at least, in NY). It's a real thing.

Rich folks tend to get them. I know some rich people that get them.

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

#298
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…

> Make the best of every minute you have, and live it as if it were your last

It'd be a rather drab outlook to life if browsing Hacker News were indeed something I'd be contented with being my end.

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

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax the externalities. Capitalism is fully compatible with using the price system to express preferences on externalities.

Ok, so instead of “force companies to allow remote work” it’s “tax companies that don’t allow remote work a bajillion dollars a microsecond”. What’s the practical difference there?

There’s no intellectually defensible way to price the externalities off remote work at a bajillion dollars a microsecond. On some level you have to trust someone somewhere to do a good job. Taxes are tools to help that, not a substitute for it.

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

#300
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are not really exposed to the elements while up there. How much aluminium and airplane interior does it take to replace 10.000m of atmosphere?

According to the CDC, a west-east coast flight is about 0.035 mSv per passenger. The average annual exposure per person in the US would be about 3.3 mSv (without medical radiation from xrays and such)[0], mostly from natural background radiation. There are high regional differences[1], could be as low as 1 mSv or as high as 20 mSv. Human made factors play a role as well, e.g. coal burning (e.g. in power plants) will…

Thanks! I had no idea flying meant higher radiation.
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