Cancer 'doesn't occur naturally'

[chaggle]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...ent-world.html

Researchers looking at almost a thousand mummies from ancient Egypt and South America found only a handful suffered from cancer when now it accounts for nearly one in three deaths.
The findings suggest that it is modern lifestyles and pollution levels caused by industry that are the main cause of the disease and that it is not a naturally occurring condition.

"But in ancient times, it was extremely rare. There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle.
"Cancer appears to be a modern disease created by modern life."

Is that right? What about the Sun? Radon gas? Viruses?

[bindeweede]

Steven Novella has commented on the research.

Further it should be noted that this study is showing a lack of evidence, which is an inherently weak form of evidence on which to base conclusions. It is evidence, and as I said it may be saying something interesting, but much more thought and research will be needed to figure out exactly what.

Given all this, extrapolating from this mummy study to the conclusion that cancer is a result of modern society is scientifically absurd. But of course that is the dramatic conclusion that the media is going with in their endless effort (or so it seems) to confuse the public on all matters scientific.

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2402#more-2402

[DrS]

How the dickens can they say "But in ancient times, it was extremely rare. "? I'd like to see some evidence for that statement! Looking at mummies restricts the evidence to where they're found, and to the social strata where mummification was an option. I don't know that the evidence for the ancient world allows any definite conclusion to be formed about cancer incidence rates.

[panama]

Pretty sure I've read articles suggesting that the reason that cancers have become a major threat in modern times is that we have longer lives due to better medicine and better diet. Cancers tend to appear in middle and later life. If you already died of TB your mummified corpse won't show evidence of the cancer that would have killed you in ten years time. Basic datum that these researchers should take into account: what was the average age of these ancient mummies?

[chaggle]

The article has been dissected by many.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture...-made-illness/

Be that as it may, there are one or two places when the researchers’ excitement at their findings have led them to make straightforwardly inaccurate statements. Prof Davids said: “There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer.” Now that is, of course, not the case. Ultraviolet light from the sun can cause cancer; background radiation from the Earth can cause cancer; viruses and bacteria can cause cancer. Perfectly “natural” chemicals can cause cancer (natural does not equal good, people).

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk....nd-misleading/

We were concerned to see headlines in the media today claiming that scientists say cancer is ‘purely man-made’. This is not only scientifically incorrect, but misleading to the public and cancer patients

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ern-world.html

Almost all the mummies and skeletons were of people who died before the age of 50. "Ageing is one of the major causes of cancer," says Schüz. He dismissed as "weak" the authors' argument that they could find evidence for other diseases of ageing, such as arthritis and hardening of the arteries, and that cancer should therefore have shown up too. "In men today, 90 per cent of cancers occur after 50," he says. "So if you examined the bodies of 1000 modern men who died before 50, you wouldn't find many cancers either."

I find it disappointing that a science article is so obviously wrong.

[davidrodway]

I'm not a vet, but wild animals get cancer , dont they ?(but not sharks, apparently, which, interestingly, have also stopped evolving, so I'm told)

[skbuncks]

I'm not a vet, but wild animals get cancer , dont they ?(but not sharks, apparently, which, interestingly, have also stopped evolving, so I'm told)

Evolution doesn't stop...

skb

[Croydon Bob]

I'm not a vet, but wild animals get cancer , dont they ?(but not sharks, apparently, which, interestingly, have also stopped evolving, so I'm told)

Some get cancer more than others. Pets such as cats and dogs are high on the list which suggests a connection between modern lifestyle and cancer, but doesn't rule out age being the only factor.

As skb says, evolution doesn't stop, it appears to have slowed down in sharks because they have been so well adapted to their environment for the last couple of hundred million years that mutations are not generally beneficial. Change their environment and they'll adapt like any other species, or die out. There are larger and smaller species of sharks, adapted for tearing fish apart or the filtering of plankton, so they have been evolving a bit. And they'll have been going through loads of random DNA changes, just not ones that make much difference.