How much cancer is directly related to the food we eat and environmental pollution?

[Herman Munster]

I'd say more than any government agency or corporation or politican will ever admit. All this consumption is killing us slowly one day at a time!

[NMDemDist2]

1. my guess is about 99.4 %

if you include the nuclear space junk that comes down every year and the depleted uranium shell testing and the dust from White Sands blowing across the prairie heartland I think you'll have covered most of it

[whistle]

2. That is what I think also

[youngdem]

22. NO WAY it is that high.

Shit, just considering the fact that a virus (HPV) causes the vast majority of most cervical cancers alone (and cervical cancer being among the most common cancers) would show the percentage to be much lower.

Viruses cause A LOT of cancers. A WHOLE LOT. And we are discovering all the time that viruses are responsible for chronic diseases in which there was little indication of a viral culprit, as was the case when the Australian scientist discovered that a stomach bug caused most ulcers.

HIV also causes THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of cancers each year, and so do many other immune diseases.

Environmental contamination certainly causes a great many cancers, but lifestyle choices (drinking, smoking, eating shit for food) and viruses are a HUGE, HUGE component of many, many cancers.

[graywarrior]

3. OMG, read Michio Kushi.

[KittyWampus]

14. miso soup

it's supposed to constrict blood vessels to tumors.

:)

[graywarrior]

24. Michio approve.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Probably Fairly Little

Life expectancy has gone up by 30 years in the last century, and continues to go up by an astonishing 4 months each year. So people are getting cancer (and heart disease) much, much later than they used to.

We're actually doing something right - but nobody really knows what it is.

[sandnsea]

6. oh for the love of god

Are you ever on the right side of anything, er, the correct side?

Cancer rates are going UP.

The reason life expectancy has increased is antibiotics, surgeries and medicine. We absolutely know why people are living longer. I can't even friggin' believe you said we don't know what we're doing right. Good grief.

[MannyGoldstein]

11. You're Not Nice. And Mistaken, I Think.

An individual's odds of getting and dying from cancer, at a given age, are generally dropping, e.g., http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/tables/2003/03hus054.pdf.

You may think you know why people continue to live longer and longer - you may even know the answer. But a lot of smart people have tried to figure it out, and have not been able to. Antibiotics have been around for 60 years - they are not continuing to increase life expectancy - they increased it 60 years ago, but would not cause a further increase. Very little that is done in medicine has a significant effect on life expectancy - do a little research.

[mudesi]

17. You're confusing length of life with quality of life

Sure, while people are living longer, they are living longer with sickness. Even though in the specific case of cancer, you can show that the odds of getting it and dying from it are dropping (and this is mainly due to advances in treatment), other disease rates such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, are increasing.

Most people live their lives with treatment, and are never actually cured. This is true for cancer, also. Mrs. Edwards will never be cured of her cancer, but she will live a longer life with it.

I believe that using life expectancy as a measure of overall health of a society is highly dubious and misleading.

[MannyGoldstein]

20. I Don't Think So.

Sorry, what you are saying is simply not what the statistics seem to say.

At any given age, fewer people are getting cancer. People get it later, and then probably live longer with it - but there's some controversy on many cancers as to whether victims live longer, or it's simply discovered earlier so they seem to live longer.

[sandnsea]

26. Oh please

Surgeries? Chemo? Statins? A whole host of things are increasing life expectancy and we full well know what they are.

As to cancer - you gave a ten year study, not a 60 year study. Go back and compare to a time when we weren't using a flood of chemicals. We know why cancer rates of the last ten years are decreasing, people have quit smoking and we've eliminated some toxins. We also know why the odds of dying from cancer has dropped, early detection and better treatment.

Again, if you want to post stupid shit go to a stupid board.

[youngdem]

13. rates for most common types of cancer are going down, not up

[MannyGoldstein]

16. Thank You, Mr. Dem

At least some people actually look at evidence!

[sandnsea]

25. Since the 30's?

No, they're going up.

The poster made an argument that indicates a span of many decades, from a time when we died young to the current time when we live much longer. If you take that same span of time and compare cancer rates, they went way way up. Some cancers are going down now, due to a decrease in smoking and some other air quality factors. But they're still up from a time when we didn't use so many chemicals.

And to say we don't know why we're living longer. That is so stupid on its face that there just isn't anything else to call it.

[sandnsea]

5. Health & Environment Conference

Annual National Exposure Report studies that sort of thing. Also, Teresa Heinz has sponsored the Conference on Women's Health & the Environment since 1996, one of the first to draw attention to toxins and health. It is something we've got to pay more attention to. Also, RFK, Jr. speaks on this all the time and calls it another taxpayer business subsidy because WE end up paying the health care costs caused by the corporate polluters.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?p=70

[Xipe Totec]

7. All of it. 100%

If you don't eat, you starve to death and avoid cancer.

Tumors need nourishment to grow. No food, no growth.

Therefore, eating is the principal cause of all cancers.

[Mrspeeker]

8. ahh isn't aluminum part of every health diet?

well maybe if your a robot.

The FDA(fucking don't ask -> whats in this shit) is doing a great job

[southerncrone]

9. I believe the majority of cancer is caused by those 2 items.

Luckily, I grew up b/4 there were too many food additives, we grew a garden.
However, growing up in Chattanooga, TN which was one of the most polluted cities in the 60's & 70's probably offset the healthy diet.

Preservatives, food additives & dyes, microwaves, GMO seeds, pesticides, antibiotics & growth hormones fed to our consumable animals are all poisoning us. We probably consume more poisons than nutritous food every day.

However, our food supply has been so high-jacked, it is very difficult to find healthy food. The only option is to grow it yourself & raise your own livestock for slaughter. Many "organic" foods are not really organic, because the laws have been laxed.

Back to the 1800's might actually be progress!
We live in a very strange world today.

[blues90]

10. It is pretty distrubing

It appears everything that billows out of a stack or spills out of a pipe , sprayed or pumped into the air and water and soaks into the soil is some sort of poison . It all ends up in all life at one point in time .

I hear people are living longer but what sort of life this involves who the hell knows , who do they factor into this statistic .

Perhaps humans are evolving to tolerate the toxins like insects do who knows . I do know many people of the boomer generation die in their mid to late 50's from some form of cancer or other disease .

Here in LA, CA they have built McD's right on the same spot of land that for years was home to a gas station so you have to wonder what the result of this has over time .

I sort of live each day with a thought in my mind that sooner or later some build up of a combination of manmade toxins will develope into a tumor .

[kestrel91316]

12. Most of it, IMHO. Secondhand smoke, for instance, kills cats.

Tar gets on their coats and they lick it and get renal and intestinal lymphoma.

Probably ALL SORTS OF TOXIC CRAP in our food and they probably know about it, too.

What did Bush say? Money trumps peace? It appears to trump life, too.

[KittyWampus]

15. That and stress.

[TZ]

18. also take into account chronic "malignancies"

So I have a rare but chronic blood disorder which is classified as a "malignancy". Its not true cancer though even though some refer to it as "pre-leukemia". I am 30 years younger than the average patient. Disorders like mine (myeloproliferative disorders) are linked to exposure to chemicals like benzene. Many are found in farms, golf courses, although I think I was exposed in a lab myself. While these blood disorders are considered "rare", they are being diagnosed more and more often. I think if things like this were factored in environmental contamination would be extremely visible.

[SoCalDem]

19. NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW..

that's what makes it so terrible..

What's in our air/water/food is something we will never really know..and the fact that we are all exposed to MANY compounds in everyday life lets the ones "responsible" off the hook..

the organisms with strong immune systems and the ability to adapt to the chemical insults of "modern life" will prosper.. the rest..not so much..

[Shine]

21. And not only the outside environment, but our internal state, as well

imo, it's all connected: Body, Mind, Spirit

[chelsea0011]

23. What is the history of cancer anyway. Is this always been a disease

throughout history but is a recent name diagnosis or was this a disease that seemed to explode in the 50's? I've never been clear about cancer.