Why it seems that cancer is so much prevalent nowadays than in the old ages? Is that due to our habits?
In: Biology
* we are way better at diagnosing cancer, in the past many cancers deaths were categorized as natural causes
* in the past, people died of other disease or from injuries before they could get cancer, today they live long enough to die of cancer instead
* cancer is not a single disease, it is a huge class of disease, saying a lot of people die of cancer is likely saying a lot die of infection, rather than breaking it down to specific diseases
1) We are better at finding cancer so the stats increase.
2) We live longer and the older we are the higher the risk of cancer. About 2/3 of the increase risk come from this.
3) The last third increase in risk come from specific habits of modern lives like higher rate of red processed meat in our diet, obesity, etc.
[https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-cancer-rates-increasing/](https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-cancer-rates-increasing/)
We are also living longer. A lot of us that used to die prematurely through diseases which are now preventable/treatable/curable live long enough to develop cancer.
*edit : corrected ‘ for develop ‘ to ‘ to develop’
>Is that due to our habits?
Indirectly, yes, absolutely, that’s the primary reason why cancer is more prevalent.
Our habits allow us to live much longer, on average, which not only gives far more chances for cancer to occur but also makes that cancer far more likely to develop to become a problem before something else kills us.
This effect is then amplified by our ability to both diagnose and treat cancer, meaning that the people that get it spend *far* more time knowing they have it, on average, which makes it seem even more prevalent.
This effect is then again amplified even further by our habits like “using the internet to share what’s happening in our lives”.
Oh yeah and finally the whole discovering the new world and tobacco and industrial farming has led to some habits that have directly increased the prevalence of cancer by a few percent over the last few centuries, but by comparison that’s barely a blip.
On top of better diagnostics we also improved healthcare and safety overall so that many more urgent sickness became rare. So people that now die of cancer in their 70s might have died in an accident or a virus in their 30s back before
It’s partly because we are drastically better at recognizing it.
It’s party because we’re exposed to more things that may cause cancer.
the biggest thing, by far, is just that we have better diagnostic tools nowadays. 100 years ago if an old person died, that was just what happened. They did not necessarily even try to figure out the what the exact cause was. and unless the cancer was something particularly obvious causing huge growth visible outside of the body, they probably would never come anywhere near to any sort of diagnosis.
I think its identified more now. Also, people used to die if some fairly simple things at an earlier age than now. Once those diseases were conquered, we usually live to an older age, when cancer finally becomes the biggest threat
It is said that everyone will have their cancer, if they live to see it and not die before. Nowadays, much more people live to see their cancer, rather than die young in a war, of a famine, plague or whatnot.
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