why does it seem as though cancer is becoming more and more common?
In: Biology
Because we’re curing other things.
Cancers (excluding Leukemia and lymphoma – both of which primarily are childhood diseases) are the result of a lifetime of your body making little mistakes when making new cells. One mistake won’t result in cancer – but enough will; and while your body can kill well over 99% of those mistake cells, every once in a while those rogue cells sneak out and cause cancer.
However, that all takes time – a lot of it. Adult cancers basically don’t show up until you are in your 40s; and the risk of them increase as you get older. For most of human history, most humans died before they could die of cancer.
But… Humans are living longer. The things that used to kill us isn’t any more. Which means a lot of people are living long enough to get – and to potentially die of – cancer. Which means more people are getting cancer.
But there’s more. Not only are we getting better at not dying to other causes – we’re also living longer with cancer. Which means people who would have died of cancer aren’t.
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