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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

#501

Post by makeset »

refurb wrote: post #253
lormayna wrote: post #77

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.

There is a condition called familial hypercholesterolemia. People who eat normal, balanced diets have LDLs levels in the 1000's (normal is less than 100). You can take a blood sample and watch the fat float to the top like cream in fresh milk. They often die of cardiovascular disease when young. And it's just a genetic defect.

FH does not seem all that well understood. It runs in my spouse's family, multiple clinical/genetic diagnoses, but no history of cardiovascular disease. Doctors haven't been convinced whether intervening with statins is necessarily justified, especially in the face of any side effects.

My family on the other hand, generally normal bloodwork, normal BMI/fitness levels, and everyone dies of heart disease fairly young. At least it's one way to avoid cancer.

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

#502

Post by makeset »

meheleventyone wrote: post #192
no1lives4ever wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The former captain of the Indian cricket team, Sourav Ganguly, recently suffered a heart attack while he was exercising. He was lucky that he was able to get prompt medical attention and recovered. But he was a fit professional athlete who was used to exercise from a young age and even he suffered from cardiac problems.

I had a heart attack last year whilst swimming and at only 39 despite swimming five times a week and having no obvious underlying issues. It feels profoundly unfair!

So sorry to hear that. Did you experience any warning signs before, like mild chest pains, palpitations, or shortness of breath, that day or in the weeks prior? Also, were you pushing yourself on that day compared to other days of your week, or did it just come out of nowhere at an average pace day?

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

#503

Post by heleninboodler »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #236
heleninboodler wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is very high if you get one every year.

So, don't do that, unless you have enough risk factors to justify it. Get it done once every 10 years as per the recommendation.

You realize the context of my question was that I was responding to someone who actually does get one done every year, right? And that I acknowledged that the risk-reward calculation changes quite a bit depending on what risk factors you have? I don't know what point you're trying to make, unless you think I'm just wrong to be asking this person in a special circumstance how he thinks about the risk. For example, perhaps there are extra precautions that I don't know about that can be taken for someone for whom yearly scopes are important.

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

#504

Post by heleninboodler »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #226
saurik wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be one thing if you were to have done that math to show "the risk of colon cancer is so high that this decision is worth it"--and to be clear: maybe it is!--but the idea that you simply don't find a 1% chance of a complication to be a big deal as the absolute number looks small to you (as opposed to making some relative comparison to the rate of preventable cancer) horrifies me... and, for your sake, I hope…

You have roughly a 4% chance of developing colorectal cancer in your lifetime: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/about/key-... Amazingly, the American Cancer Society had already done that calculation when they made their recommendation to get scoped once every 10 years.

... which might lead one to ask "do you worry about the risk of complications?" when hearing about someone who gets the scope 10x as often as recommended. The answer may be "well, even if the risk of complications is 10x, my risk of getting a disease the scope will catch still far outweighs it, so it's worth it. Or it may be "yeah, that is a concern, but it's mitigated somewhat by xyz factor." And both of those are interesting answers. Why the hostility to this conversation?

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

#505

Post by meheleventyone »

makeset wrote: post #502
meheleventyone wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a heart attack last year whilst swimming and at only 39 despite swimming five times a week and having no obvious underlying issues. It feels profoundly unfair!

So sorry to hear that. Did you experience any warning signs before, like mild chest pains, palpitations, or shortness of breath, that day or in the weeks prior? Also, were you pushing yourself on that day compared to other days of your week, or did it just come out of nowhere at an average pace day?

I had chest pain a few days before and was getting over a cold but otherwise no.

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

#506

Post by Valakas_ »

lormayna wrote: post #291
danuker wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Definition of "junk food" also varies a lot. For example, many people have no idea that white bread has a higher glycemic index than sugar itself. So except for the very limited nutritional value of it, it's actually worse than just eating spoons full of sugar. So it passes the definition of "junk food", because hey it's not processed, and it's done in a bakery, traditional right? (not saying it's your case - in general) even though it's as junkier as it gets.

It's possible some people do actually eat healthy and still get very unlucky. But I bet a lot of what many consider healthy isn't. Also, we don't know what we don't know. People didn't know about lead poisoning was a problem until they did. I wonder how many unhealhty stuff we do/consume that passes totally invisible in front of our eyes. The type of things future generations will look back and say "no wonder those people were dying so young of cardiovascular diseases and cancer they were doing X! And get this, they even thought it was healthy/they didn't even know about it!"

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

#507

Post by arvinsim »

BizarroLand wrote: post #456
ddfx00 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- micro plastic everywhere, water, food, ground. Majority of American women breastfeed their children with their own milk containing plastic - cancerous substances from cars exhaustion, cigarettes and such going inside people every day of their lives - toxic and cancerous chemicals used for processing foods and drinks we are breathing, drinking, eating and staying in contact with cancerous substances 24/h day. I'm su…

New information is coming out that seems to imply that the content of the fats we eat have effects on the body. Unsaturated fats seem to be obesogenic and interfere with the body's satiation mechanism, increasing the amount of white fat and decreasing the amount of brown fat (which is more metabolically active and may be the kind of fat that is lost first when people start dieting, which would explain part of the yo-…

> Once the body hits a tipping point with excess white body fat, the fat becomes a sort of parasite which gets preferential treatment in consuming calories and nutritional resources out of the bloodstream, starving the organs while the body is bathing in an abundance of calories and nutrition.

Also read that fat cells don't really get destroyed, just get deflated. It really does act like a parasite.

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

#508

Post by arvinsim »

themaninthedark wrote: post #463
throwrugtime wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People talk about 'natural resources' and about how we're overpopulated all the time, but don't often want to go into real specifics. My guess is the repressed desire for death and depopulation came first, and the narrative later. English-speaking culture is steeped in Christianity (even modern 'wokeism' is just another, more radical iteration of calvinism), and Christianity is a doomsday cult; we're fascinated by do…

That doesn't jive with most of my experiences. The Christian narrative I see is be fruitful and multiply, nature will provide. The people that I do see promoting this sort of population limit theory are new age hippies, vegans and the like. Recently seems very popular with more college educated folk. 'How can you think about having kids when you know how bad it is for the environment'

I agree. Christians seem to be fine making babies.

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

#509

Post by arvinsim »

anonymouse94759 wrote: post #487
jll29 wrote: 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…

> for we need to make space for the next generation (only adding people to planet earth would not be sustainable, as resources are scarce - imagine nobody would ever die). Being on this planet for a limited time period makes it more important to make the right choices, because we have only one life. Fertility rates are declining globally, even in Sub-Saharan Africa: https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-fert…

Since we live in a time of relative peace and technology, people often forget that population correlates to military might.

I am pretty sure that once society decays enough that people start thinking of making war again, expect a population boom to happen.

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

#510

Post by arvinsim »

fooblessmooo wrote: post #494
jll29 wrote: 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. I’m against this advice because aside from the usual objections like practicality, it’s fundamentally based on fear of missing out and not having lived a good life. It’s a kind of striving and all striving leads to suffering. If you want to spend your afternoon navel gazing or looking at fish in the pond, that’s the true thing you should d…

Seems like the antithesis of hustle culture which is being pushed hard today.

Although it seems to be that there is starting to be backlash on that.

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