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1 in 8 cancer cases worldwide are caused by infections, study finds

295 points · 158 comments · colinprince

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toasty228 · 1790687453 · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.oatext.com/which-environment-makes-cancer.php" rel="nofollow">https://www.oatext.com/which-environment-makes-cancer.php
Always a good read, most cancers are environmental, and most of these are caused by obesity, bad diet and smoking/drinking, fix these four things in your life and you reduce your chances of getting cancer by 50%+
1. lanfeust6 · 1790689761 · focus · HN ↗
  What's interesting is how low alcohol ranks compared to obesity and diet. It makes the recent moral panic following loose interpretations of the Lancet study seem hypocritical, if not misguided. If anything deserves a "may cause cancer" sticker, it's nitrate-ridden processed meat.
  1. purpleflame1257 · 1790691092 · focus · HN ↗
    Recent demographic shifts have given rise to a vocally anti-alcohol contingent in large parts of the Western world. There's substantial motivated reasoning.
    graemep · 1790691336 · focus · HN ↗
    Its not demographics, its American cultural influence.
    mbreese · 1790692310 · focus · HN ↗
    In the US, there is a large demographic shift on alcohol drinking. What I've seen is not an explicitly vocal anti-alcohol stance. But younger generations just aren't as interested in it. At the very least what they consume is different.
    My personal theory is that they are scared of ending up on the Internet when they don't have control.
    graemep · 1790692772 · focus · HN ↗
    I do not know the US well enough to comment, but the US has always been a lot more anti-alcohol than (almost anywhere in) Europe.
    mbreese · 1790693701 · focus · HN ↗
    What I'm talking about is slightly different than that.
    This is more like alcohol apathy - not drinking, but also not explicitly anti-alcohol. That the more generational shift in Gen Z that I've seen. But, those sentiments can certainly change over time.
    graemep · 1790693902 · focus · HN ↗
    What I have noticed in the UK is:
    1. health concerns mean moderate drinkers drink less, but heavy drinkers have not changed their habits 2. young people seem to go more to extremes: either drink a lot or be teetotal.
    skissane · 1790699909 · focus · HN ↗
    A common consequence of taking GLP-1 receptor agonists is losing interest in alcohol.
    Now, I agree that’s not the only factor — there’s something else going on reducing alcohol consumption even in people who’ve never taken GLP-1RAs — but when you have >10% of the population taking them, that’s another significant factor contributing to falling drinking rates.
    frmersdog · 1790703640 · focus · HN ↗
    People are broke. They can't afford the bottle or the place you go to to drink a glass. Or the Uber back/costs associated with a DUI. There's no reason to waste any of that money when you can just stay home and goon.
    Of course, there are still people who go out and have a good time, or who grab a bottle on the way home from work. But as with most things these days, there's been a socioeconomic bifurcation that has split the fertile consumerist middle into haves and (mostly) have-nots. And the have-nots aren't bothering.
    SoftTalker · 1790704291 · focus · HN ↗
    That's my theory too. When I was in college (late 1980s) the bars had dime beers. It was bottom-end lager and served in an 8 oz cup but still, going to the bars for a night could be done cheaply. Now a drink is $10 and you pay a cover charge even if there isn't a band performing.
    throwaway_7274 · 1790695510 · focus · HN ↗
    Which recent demographic shifts?
  2. ryan_n · 1790691641 · focus · HN ↗
    Nitrate ridden processed meat already has a “may cause cancer” sticker on it (unless you mean a literal sticker warning when you buy meat from stores?):
    <a href="https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/diet_alcohol/red_meat" rel="nofollow">https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/diet_alcohol/re...
    <a href="https://publications.iarc.who.int/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Identification-Of-Carcinogenic-Hazards-To-Humans/Red-Meat-And-Processed-Meat-2018" rel="nofollow">https://publications.iarc.who.int/Book-And-Report-Series/Iar...
    esperent · 1790692784 · focus · HN ↗
    > Nitrate ridden processed meat already has a “may cause cancer” sticker on it
    Not in any country I've ever been in. Do you mean in the US?
    shiandow · 1790695735 · focus · HN ↗
    > unless you mean a literal sticker warning when you buy meat from stores?
    What else could it possibly mean?
    ryan_n · 1790695884 · focus · HN ↗
    I thought they meant it figuratively I guess.. I don’t know in hindsight maybe that’s dumb?
    shiandow · 1790696276 · focus · HN ↗
    I guess I see how you could read it like that, but no I'm pretty sure this was meant literally.
    lanfeust6 · 1790699007 · focus · HN ↗
    correct, and I mentioned it because cancer warnings are explicitly now on the table for policymakers in the West related to alcohol, iirc
  3. tarentel · 1790692319 · focus · HN ↗
    I like to drink. With that being said, there are a lot of downsides to alcohol other than an increased risk of cancer. Also, alcohol can lead to obesity and a bad diet. Is it ever healthy to drink? I do not know. I am going to do it anyway though.
    esperent · 1790692977 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    estetlinus · 1790698000 · focus · HN ↗
    Its all fun and games until you get cancer. I had cancer (and a few drinks) myself, it sucked. Can you ever be certain it was caused by an unhealthy lifestyle? No. Probability and causality is weird tbh.
    epihelix · 1790694511 · focus · HN ↗
    > Is it ever healthy to drink?
    No. But drinking every now and then makes so little difference it's not a huge concern. Drinking a lot, though -- that's more problematic.
    Like most of my friends around my age, I've cut out almost all alcohol in the last few years. None of us miss it. But it's still nice to drink occasionally, and I'm not going to stop entirely.
    lanfeust6 · 1790698845 · focus · HN ↗
    Of course. It's just that cancer as a key risk factor has grown in salience.
  4. ak_111 · 1790694320 · focus · HN ↗
    Is there really a moral panic? Apart from a few viral Twitter posts, I don't see a major sobriety push by my colleagues.
    Profits of main alcohol suppliers has certainly taken a hit over the last 5 years but this is arguably far more because of rise of remote working, inflation (drinking at pubs have become much more costly than before) and people in general just addicted to their phone rather than going out (similar to the impact on almost all social activities no just going to pubs)
    lanfeust6 · 1790698898 · focus · HN ↗
    It's been covered everywhere in social media, including HN. Try the search function
  5. legulere · 1790793887 · focus · HN ↗
    How sure we are that something causes cancer and how often it causes cancer are not the same. Those WHO classifications are about the former. Usually the two are pretty much entwined, because you can more easily find larger effects. The effect of meats is a counterexample though: because it causes specific types of cancers that are otherwise rare you can be pretty sure it causes cancer even though the effect is not as big as e.g. smoking.
2. mapontosevenths · 1790691962 · focus · HN ↗
  I don't think that anything you said is wrong, but I also think it's important to note that on a long enough timeline your odds of getting cancer are 100% regardless of the way you live.Most people just don't live that long.
  The things you mention here make it happen sooner, but no amount of healthy living lowers your risk to zero and I think that's important to note when you say things like "cancer is caused by".
  Cancer is caused by math. This stuff just steepens the slope.
  1. scottLobster · 1790692535 · focus · HN ↗
    Cool, let's make that timeline a step function with the risk of cancer being effectively zero until 200 years of life and cure cancer.
  2. jurgenburgen · 1790692639 · focus · HN ↗
    > I don't think that anything you said is wrong, but I also think it's important to note that on a long enough timeline your odds of getting cancer are 100% regardless of the way you live.Most people just don't live that long.
    “Most people just don’t live that long” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. If you have a healthy lifestyle you would need to live for multiple centuries to reach 100% likelihood.
    copperx · 1790693694 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    epihelix · 1790693865 · focus · HN ↗
    > If you have a healthy lifestyle you would need to live for multiple centuries to reach 100% likelihood.
    Well, 100% likelihood is a bit silly, but the point of the person you were responding to is true -- we will all eventually die of something, and if it's not heart disease or dementia, it will almost certainly be cancer.
    The question shouldn't be "will I get cancer?"; it should be, "how long do I want to live a happy, healthy, active, independent lifestyle for?" If you exercise, eat a healthy diet, don't become overweight and keep your blood pressure low, you'll maximise your changes for living well, for as long as possible.
    lunchbucket · 1790694778 · focus · HN ↗
    The risk is compounding, so no, centuries is not on the table without fully swapping bodies.
  3. toasty228 · 1790693309 · focus · HN ↗
    It's also important to note that getting a random cancer at 80+ sucks orders of magnitude less than going out at 45 from colon or throat cancer in every measurable metrics you can come up.
    devmor · 1790694924 · focus · HN ↗
    I would heavily disagree with this - it depends entirely on the cancer you get. If it's something slow growing that would take a decade plus to kill you, sure - just trying to treat it would be worse than letting it ride.
    But my father died of cancer nearing age 80, (most likely mesothelioma, though we didn't do heavy tests as it was discovered late), and it was incredibly painful and miserable for him. He had fast growing tumors in his ribs, forcing bone to spike out and hit his lungs, the tumors that grew in his lungs caused constant pneumonia and kept leaving him unable to get enough oxygen to his brain to communicate for hours at a time.
    toasty228 · 1790695079 · focus · HN ↗
    Would he have had a better time at 45 not seing you growing and missing 35 years of life?
    I'm not saying it's good to get cancer when you're old, I'm just saying if you had the choice no one would chose to get it earlier.
    devmor · 1790700071 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure, but like - no one wants to die like that. It's horrible. He was begging us to let him die at the end.
    BizarroLand · 1790707185 · focus · HN ↗
    I feel your pain, I really do, but I think you missed the point. In almost any metric, if you have to die, it is better to die after having lived a full life than it is to die young.
    devmor · 1790707950 · focus · HN ↗
    I used to believe this without a shadow of a doubt, but without the choice to go out on your own accord, I don't know if I do any more after what I saw.
    AdrianB1 · 1790712605 · focus · HN ↗
    Why don't you have the choice?
    kelseyfrog · 1790707366 · focus · HN ↗
    I plan on getting cancer in the next 5 years so I can get it in my mid 40s instead of during my 80s.
    ahelwer · 1790697087 · focus · HN ↗
    Unfortunately a lot of us will die in comparable ways if we are lucky enough to get that old. My grandmother was healthy & mentally with it until stroking out in her garden one day at the age of 90. That is the best any of us can hope for and the reality will be almost certainly far more painful and prolonged.
    devmor · 1790700004 · focus · HN ↗
    No, I don't think most people die in excruciating pain.
    overtone1000 · 1790701481 · focus · HN ↗
    It depends on mechanism, but many cancer patients do deal with a great deal of pain, especially near the end of the disease process. I am sorry for your experience. It is not uncommon.
    HoldOnAMinute · 1790703639 · focus · HN ↗
    It is inhumane that we don't offer every possible option to those who are suffering.
    overtone1000 · 1790705121 · focus · HN ↗
    It is unfortunately a complicated situation that often doesn't have a perfect solution. Without trying to cover every possibl nuance, I'll just say that many end-stage patients have pain so refractory that sufficient doses of pain medication are effectively lethal. This is usually offered, but obviously not everyone accepts.
    The truly sad cases are those in which the patient no longer has decision-making capacity and it falls on a family member to make such decisions. When you aren't the one experiencing the pain, it's much harder to weigh that decision rationally. This is why so many providers push patients to establish legal documentation of their end-of-life wishes.
    jobs_throwaway · 1790698077 · focus · HN ↗
    That sounds far better than dying at 45 unless you have an extraordinarily unpleasant life in the interim
    devmor · 1790699982 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think I want to die in excruciating pain and confusion at any age, personally.
    alpinisme · 1790700348 · focus · HN ↗
    I think the original point was that cancer 80+ is better than cancer at 45, so you should still try to avoid habits that make it more likely earlier, even if the chances remain 100% at sufficient time scales
    jobs_throwaway · 1790707468 · focus · HN ↗
    Of course not. But if you are given the choice of it at 45 or 80, which are you taking?
    devmor · 1790707751 · focus · HN ↗
    If I had to die like what I saw, to live to 80? I'd take quickly at 45, I think.
    jobs_throwaway · 1790709838 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    dolebirchwood · 1790711804 · focus · HN ↗
    What an absolutely obnoxious way to respond to someone who was willing to share his experience about a subject as personal and painful as losing his father to cancer.
    jobs_throwaway · 1790779970 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think it's obnoxious at all to point out that forgoing nearly half your lifespan in order to avoid a painful death implies that you don't value your life much
    drfloyd51 · 1790713407 · focus · HN ↗
    Fortunately this is a false choice.
    I think 78 and fine is better than 45 and 80 in pain.
    But in this country we are so adverse to giving someone agency over how their life ends.
    Because it’s not good Business.
    sfn42 · 1790769766 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't understand what you think this conversation is about. It's not "die quick and painless at 45 or excruciatingly painfully at 80" it's just 45 or 80. Nobody said anything about excruciating pain except you.
    Do you think your dad would prefer to die exactly the same way at 45 instead? No? Great, conversation over.
    seizethecheese · 1790715378 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    robotresearcher · 1790872606 · focus · HN ↗
    That’s awful, I’m sorry he suffered that way.
    The same disease at 45 would mean he left teenage kids fatherless, and perhaps a mid-life spouse needing to support them, rather than middle aged adults and a spouse with a few years to go. He also would have missed out on all the experience of 35 years of mid and late life.
    That’s the sense in which late life cancer is ‘not as bad’ as early and mid-life cancer.
    The cancer sucks the same. The opportunity costs are very different.
  4. yubblegum · 1790696107 · focus · HN ↗
    > it's important to note that on a long enough timeline your odds of getting cancer are 100% regardless of the way you live. Most people just don't live that long.
    Hmm, that actually parses for me as "it is not important to note" since the 100% assertion doesn't apply to most of us as we won't live that long.
    What applies to most of us is that certain behaviors can dramatically increase your chances of getting cancer.
  5. pstuart · 1790699292 · focus · HN ↗
    This is guaranteed for men. You'll either die from or with prostate cancer if you make it that far.
  6. devin · 1790699914 · focus · HN ↗
    I hear you, but I also think it is this kind of attitude that leads a lot of otherwise intelligent people to not even try. I've talked to people who listened to the Maintenance Phase episode on the complexities of calories in/calories out take the information as an excuse for not even attempting to try to improve their weight problem.
    yesco · 1790708196 · focus · HN ↗
    I think this is one of those areas where the translation from research to the public ends up too precise on the details, beyond the cognitive load most people are willing to commit to it day to day.
    In the same spirit of upāya from Buddhism, I like to compress this type of topic into a simpler model, even if imperfect.
    Here's how I model cancer, and how I judge whether something is likely to give me cancer, without trying (and failing) to memorize a million risk factors individually:
    You are a collective of cooperating cells. When cells rebel, the order that holds your body together collapses, and you get cancer. Cells generally don't want to rebel. They're content as long as they get their energy, their paycheck.
    But what about activities that cause frequent cell death? A sunburn, smoke in your lungs, alcohol in your bloodstream, radiation (essentially atomic shrapnel flying through your tissue). Anything that causes inflammation, especially chronically. When cells die before their expiration date, the survivors have to keep dividing to replace them, and they start to get pretty mad about it. Maybe even rebellious.
    With every round of division, they are in essence "evolving" away from their cooperative nature to cope with a hostile environment. A cell doesn't care whether the collective lives or dies, and it doesn't have the capacity to reason about that in the first place.
    So the question becomes: are you keeping your cells safe? Are your activities hurting them? If they're not happy, they'll rebel, and you'll die.
    This is where the model earns its keep. Take obesity. It's on every risk list, but excess fat isn't what makes cells rebel. The real culprits are the conditions obesity creates: chronic inflammation, more cells that need to be maintained and replaced, a body that is generally harder to live in.
    Weight loss is on the list because it's the easiest way to fix those conditions, not because thinness is protective in itself. Once you see that, you don't need the list. Anything that makes your cells' lives harder, day after day, is raising your odds, whether or not anyone has published a paper on it yet.
    The math is real, but a model like this tells you which variables you actually control.
    sizzle · 1790747953 · focus · HN ↗
    So make GLP1 free for the masses if it eliminates obesity mortality rate
    mapontosevenths · 1790710668 · focus · HN ↗
    > Couldn't your odds of developing a cancer be sloped to effectively zero if the odds are such that you are very likely to die of something else?
    Are you sure that people should try? Will they live longer, or happier lives if they do?
    From 1900 to 1950 the average US life expectancy went from about 47 to roughly 68. Penicillin and sanitation did most of that.
    From 1950 through present day we added another 10 years. What most folks don't realize is that:
    - 70% of those gains, or 7 out of the 10 extra years, came from cardiovascular health. Mostly because we got better at surviving heart attacks, and people smoked less.
    - 19% came from infant mortaility gains (2 of the remaining 3 years of gain).
    - 11% came from EVERYTHING ELSE that people did to become "healthier." So 1 year.
    The US spends $5.3 trillion per year on healthcare, give or take. That's about $15.5k per capita every year. It's roughly 20% of the total GDP of the United States. That's 2 out of every 10 productive dollars going towards healthcare.
    In exchange for 20% of every hour you work for your entire adult life you get 1 extra year at the end of your life.
    In exchange for constantly worrying, exercising, staying up to date, eating right, etc you buy yourself one year more of life, and it's not even going to be a GOOD year. It's going to be one more year of being 80+ years old with everything hurting and constant medical needs.
    Is it really worth 20% of the money you make every year for you entire life to live one extra, shitty, year?
    I just don't think people have done the math on this one.
    skrtskrt · 1790711407 · focus · HN ↗
    Not only is this utilitarian nonsense, the "math" here is full logical nonsense.
    It shocks me how anyone could string this pile words together and think they sound like anything at all.
    > "2 out of every 10 productive dollars"
    As if those dollars have anything to do with the time people work, or that they would get those dollars and time back by not caring about health.
    As if the tiny portion of those dollars that actually gets spent on patient healthcare isn't dominated by end of life care.
    The US healthcare system spend is so far divorced from whatever idea of "productive dollars" anyone has when it's 60-80% admin cost. The US should not even be mentioned in any conversation about the ROI of health spend.
    mapontosevenths · 1790713376 · focus · HN ↗
    > The US should not even be mentioned in any conversation about the ROI of health spend.
    I would agree with at least this part, if I didn't live here. I'm reminded of the MRI post from a few days back. I think the stat was that Boston had more MRI's than all of Canada combined.
    How much healthier are people the United States than Canada - for all that extra spend? I'm fairly certain the number is negative.
    willhslade · 1790765085 · focus · HN ↗
    Massachusets has more MRIs than Canada.
    mapontosevenths · 1790798844 · focus · HN ↗
    Thank you.
    throwaway2037 · 1790817808 · focus · HN ↗
    Wild, I looked it up. It is true. LLM tells me:
    > Canada has a total of 432 MRI machines according to the latest official national survey. > Per capita: An average of 10.8 units per million people, which is well below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 19.4.
    And Massachusetts (specifically Boston and Cambridge) has an insanely high concentration due to multiple medical schools and several very large hospital systems.
    Real question and no trolling to Canada: How does Canada have such good healthcare, but so few MRIs? My point: Canada is certainly rich enough to buy and operate more. Do they not need them? Does the US just have way too many? (That is my guess.)
    willhslade · 1790866684 · focus · HN ↗
    A few things. 1) Canada is not as wealthy, per capita, as the USA. Per Google: > The GDP per capita in the United States is roughly $94,400 USD, compared to Canada's roughly $60,300 USD (as of 2026 estimates), creating a significant and widening economic gap.
    2) Canadian healthcare spends less per capita. Per Google: > The United States spends roughly double per capita on healthcare compared to Canada. Cost Comparison Per Capita • United States: Approximately $14,885 USD per person. • Canada: Approximately $7,301 USD per person (varies by estimates, with public-only spending around $5,000 USD). • Percentage of GDP: The U.S. spends about 17.2% of its GDP on healthcare, while Canada spends about 11.3%.
    3) The USA believes in diagnostic testing at a higher level than Canada. Per Google: > Utilization and Intensity: The U.S. tends to utilize higher volumes of intensive diagnostic testing and specialized medical interventions.
    4) Related: hospitals are private in the USA, and they buy MRI machines to bill for high-margin diagnostic tests. As you noted, the Boston CMA is a world leader in healthcare and education, and thus has a higher concentration of MRI machines.
    5) Canadian healthcare simply is not as sophisticated as the health care in the USA. There have been multiple episodes of high profile / wealthier Canadians going to the US to skip waiting for treatment and getting procedures that are just not available in Canada at the present time.
    So it's great, it's saved my life a couple times, but it's not a 1-1 drop in for American healthcare. Every system has trade offs, that's the lesson of engineering.
    robotresearcher · 1790872226 · focus · HN ↗
    Yet Canadian life expectancy is higher than American.
    throwaway2037 · 1791128719 · focus · HN ↗
    I am not wholly convinced by your reply. If Canadian medical staff are paid proportionally less that US medical staff, then difference in PPP matters little.
    > Canadian healthcare spends less per capita.
    Due to FX rates and PPP, probably Japan spends the least in G7, yet their public healthcare system is globally outstanding. It has superb quality in the largest cities and surrounding areas (Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo), on par with UK's NHS, which the global "gold standard" for cost effectiveness. The key: Don't let medical staff income get out of control. Ignoring truly exceptional medical staff (brain surgeons, etc.), most people in medicine should earn slightly more than middle class. If you can maintain it, then you can really control medical costs. The US is wildly out of control if compared to G7 (and close relatives, like Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Korea, etc.).
    oarfish · 1790711544 · focus · HN ↗
    Well at least exercising will actually add life to your years and not just years to your life.
    mapontosevenths · 1790713045 · focus · HN ↗
    This I can get behind. Quality of life is worth something. Is it worth 20% of the GDP? No, but it's not where we spend those healthcare dollars anyhow. We spend them on trying to extend the lifespan by one miserable year via end of life care, mostly.
    nezi · 1790712114 · focus · HN ↗
    There are a lot of medical problems that can make life miserable that won't kill you that are excluded from your simple objective of "how many years am I breathing."
    devin · 1790712373 · focus · HN ↗
    So is this what you tell yourself to justify sitting in your chair eating doritos and mountain dew while blasting cigs and chugging beers?
    What are you even talking about?
    mapontosevenths · 1790713978 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm saying two things:
    1) Worrying about your health is mostly useless and probably won't move the needle much unless you have obvious problems.
    2) The United States spends 20% of it's GDP to accomplish nothing. That 1 year of life expectancy gain is probably within the margin of error. Certainly modern healthcare can help at the individual level, but the society is so sick that any gains are washed away by the noise and it's we spend a truly enormous amount of money to get nowhere.
    Our worry costs us a fortune, and generally just doesn't work.
    devin · 1790716340 · focus · HN ↗
    "unless you have obvious problems" is doing a _ton_ of work. Most people _do_ have _obvious_ problems. Their weight, their cholesterol, their alcohol use, and on and on.
    Saying "if you're healthy you shouldn't worry about your health" is a meaningless thing to say. The point is that most people _do_ have obvious room for some kind of health improvement, and as other commenters have pointed out, if it's not in the clear "this will help me live an additional N years" way, then very likely it is in the "this will make my life suck less as I age" way. Eg; Being able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting deeply winded.
    bad_haircut72 · 1790755850 · focus · HN ↗
    On your deathbed will you look back and say "I wish I had gotten more treadmill time in"?
    devin · 1790795620 · focus · HN ↗
    You can see my reply to a sibling, but: no, of course not.
    However, would I regret not being fit enough to go for a hike in my 60s? That's another story, and it is one which many do have the ability to intervene on.
    Treadmill time as an enabler of other experiences may well be worth keeping, even if the time spent on it doesn't satisfy some imagined "will I think of it on my deathbed as time well spent?" bar. I imagine there are a great many things I won't think about on my deathbed which on their own are unremarkable or even gasp not very fun, but that is of course not a reliable measure of whether anything is worth doing.
    mondocat · 1791164135 · focus · HN ↗
    If I’m dying an early preventable death, I might.
    throwaway2037 · 1790817508 · focus · HN ↗
    > It's roughly 20% of the total GDP of the United States.
    As of 2025, it is more like 18%. For other highly developed nations, the average is about 12.5%. I think a lot of that difference can be explained by the very high salaries paid to medical workers compared to those other highly developed nations.
    > In exchange for 20% of every hour you work for your entire adult life you get 1 extra year at the end of your life.
    This isn't a very apt comparison. Think about it a different way: How much can I keep if I give up that single year of life?
  7. goodmythical · 1790701028 · focus · HN ↗
    Couldn't your odds of developing a cancer be sloped to effectively zero if the odds are such that you are very likely to die of something else?
    A person drunk driving at twice the speed limit on a dark and rainy night without their lights on in an old vehicle with shoddy breaks and no traction control while not wearing a seatbelt and texting their ex probably has a near zero chance of developing a cancer given their near 100% of dieing in the next few moments.
    mapontosevenths · 1790708976 · focus · HN ↗
    > Couldn't your odds of developing a cancer be sloped to effectively zero if the odds are such that you are very likely to die of something else?
    Suicide is at once the worst and most effective cure for cancer.
  8. Aurornis · 1790702484 · focus · HN ↗
    When we talk about factors that reduce cancer rates we normally talk about like-for-like, adjusted for age.
    Discussing lifetime risk of cancer without accounting for years lived is not useful.
    I don't think it's helpful to point out that everyone gets cancer on a long enough timeframe, because that wasn't what the conversation was ever about.
3. epihelix · 1790693015 · focus · HN ↗
  And not just cancer. Top risk factors for dementia and heart disease are also diet, obesity, blood pressure, and lack of exercise.
  Basically, live healthily, and you'll have a (much!) happier and longer life.
  1. fithisux · 1790695943 · focus · HN ↗
    and you'll have (probably) a (much!) happier and longer life.
  2. didibus · 1790700580 · focus · HN ↗
    Throwing in blood pressure in the mix is interesting? That's not really something you can control isn't it?
    tryptophan · 1790701630 · focus · HN ↗
    Well thats caused by obesity , lack of exercise, bad diet. You can also take pills to fix it.
    nephihaha · 1790720803 · focus · HN ↗
    A lot of blood pressure is down to stress.
    dwd · 1790730541 · focus · HN ↗
    Stress can spike BP due to the higher cortisol level that narrows arteries.
    But baseline BP is all about diet, exercise, good sleep routine and avoiding smoking.
    Some foods like licorice can elevate BP; the glycyrrhizic acid inhibits an enzyme that deactivates cortisol.
    I personally drink hibiscus tea a few times a week which is an ACE inhibitor and is shown to reduce systolic blood pressure by 5-7mmHg. Also the occasional beetroot juice (+ apple and carrot) or magnesium bisglycinate for a 2-5mmHh systolic reduction due to the nitric oxide.
    nephihaha · 1790773503 · focus · HN ↗
    Certainly, but I would not underestimate stress. Definitely a major factor in cardiovascular trouble in addition to what you said.
    [deleted] · 1790703099 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    smt88 · 1790708702 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  3. jensgk · 1790702551 · focus · HN ↗
    There are no guarantees.
    jasondigitized · 1790706532 · focus · HN ↗
    But there are probabilities, even if that probability ultimately doesn't apply to you.
4. znpy · 1790693809 · focus · HN ↗
  for anybody else wondering: the environmental factors mentioned in the article (<a href="https://www.oatext.com/img/ORR-1-115-g001.gif" rel="nofollow">https://www.oatext.com/img/ORR-1-115-g001.gif) are:
  diet, tobacco, infections, obesity, alcohol, others
5. jjice · 1790694083 · focus · HN ↗
  I always get a kick out of YouTube and other social media people proclaiming what is "healthy" or not, when we all pretty much know. Eat fruits and vegetables and not too much junk food. Eating too much consistently isn't good for you. Drinking and smoking are bad for you. We've mostly known smoking is bad as a society for a good while now and outside of the old myth that a glass of wine with dinner was good, we know drinking isn't a positive for your health.
  And you don't even have to be hard and fast with any of that. Drink on occasion and eat stuff that isn't good for you on occasion and you're probably still getting 95% of the benefits. Not sure about smoking though.
  It's very simple at the end of the day. Simple != easy to do. Drinking is fun. People enjoy smoking. Junk food is appealing because it's relatively cheap and tastes good.
  The best biohack is to eat like your doctor recommends while we all nod along and silently ignore. Just eat what is widely accepted as good for you and you'll have a good chance at living a happy, healthy life.
6. fabian2k · 1790695723 · focus · HN ↗
  That paper links a random blog post as source for these statistics (reference 9). That's a huge red flag for me and not what I'd expect in a scientific paper. I find the numbers wildly implausible in any case since they only have two categories: hereditary and environmental/lifestyle.
  Cancer is caused by random chance. Accumulate enough mutations of the right kind and you get it. Of course you can dramatically affect that chance through genetic factors and environmental ones.
  1. toasty228 · 1790697657 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah that's the "other" part in "environmental".
    > hereditary and environmental/lifestyle.
    Unless you can demonstrate supernatural causes these are the only two broad categories you need. It's either coming from inside (genes) or outside (diet, random neutrino bit flipping your shit, smoking, x-rays, etc.).
    fabian2k · 1790699623 · focus · HN ↗
    But a significant part of that is not something we can influence. Getting cancer is a side-effect of living. Our own metabolism causes DNA damage.
    There are other papers that attribute something like a third of cancers to the big environmental and lifestyle factors.
    toasty228 · 1790700794 · focus · HN ↗
    A significant part of the insignificant part yes, just don't be fat, don't drink and eat clean, that plays a much larger role than luck
7. sandworm101 · 1790696074 · focus · HN ↗
  And gentics. Some people/families are just more prone to cancer than others.
  1. hobo123 · 1790697471 · focus · HN ↗
    Generics is always claimed to be a reason, but nutrition also runs in families.
    It's like saying BRCA1 causes breast cancer, but 90% of cases don't involve the gene, and many people with the gene don't get cancer.
    I'm not saying it can't be a reason, but it looks like it's a common and maybe convenient excuse.
    sandworm101 · 1790697784 · focus · HN ↗
    There is an easy line to draw between the two. "Family history", which includes eating/smoking/drinking habits, follows habitation. Genetics follows blood. So differences between bloodlines stand apart from family trends.
  2. toasty228 · 1790697757 · focus · HN ↗
    > And gentics.
    Really no, not that many, 5-10% estimated. And I'd not be surprised if a lot of the "everyone in the family get cancers" aren't environmental either (factory next door, working in a field using chemicals, etc.)
    sandworm101 · 1790698013 · focus · HN ↗
    "Only about 5% to 10% of all cancer cases are hereditary, meaning they are caused by an inherited gene mutation."
    <a href="https://cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/reduce-your-risk/check-your-family-history" rel="nofollow">https://cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/reduce-your-risk/che...
    No. This is 5-10% are from inherited genetic issues, not environment. And that is the canadian cancer society saying so, not a random website or drug company. 5-10% is a monumental number of cancers.
    toasty228 · 1790698307 · focus · HN ↗
    We're saying the same thing yes...
8. moralestapia · 1790698896 · focus · HN ↗
  Assuming you have those under control, what about sustained stress? Little sleep, etc...
  1. tripleee · 1790699898 · focus · HN ↗
    On sleep I'm not actually sure if they've parsed out whether it's little sleep itself that affects you or if it's little sleep making you not exercise or eat well
  2. underlipton · 1790703825 · focus · HN ↗
    Chronic low-grade inflammation is the link between obesity and cancer incidence, so yes, those are not good. Better to be fat and chill (and active) than thin and stressed-out.
9. vconnor · 1790718510 · focus · HN ↗
  All things downstream to stress in life. #JustBeHappy it’s so simple
10. makeitdouble · 1790727814 · focus · HN ↗
  The list in the abstract
  > Additionally, all these environmental factors such as X-rays, gamma rays, the radiation emitted from radioactive materials, aniline type dyes, cigarette, free radicals, asbestos, silica dust, air pollution, food additives, various drugs, some of the chemicals used in perfumes, oncogenic viruses and bacteria are playing an important role in cancer formation and contribute the increase of incidence of cancer.
  Do the four you cited really cover 50% ?
  E.g. moving to a place with less air pollution or better building materials could have a lot more effect than fixing your diet if you're in the average.
11. joinHNtheysaid · 1790741285 · focus · HN ↗
  I deeply dislike that answer. Its religous tainted by that utopian pseudo-religion ("Glutony punishes the sinners with infinite growth") and a template for the "soft authoritarianism" that is prevalent in the european union. As in: "We know better then you, we will reduce the size of the dice and nudge you to be better with acrylamids in baked and roasted goods- everywhere except coffee "
  Synthetic rational religion even replicated hypocrisy in its own way. Cancer is just life going wrong. Its not avoided by being dead while alive.
12. lucb1e · 1791160865 · focus · HN ↗
  Replacing the misnomer class .black-text{color:25% grey} with just {color:black} instantly makes that article so much more readable
  The image is blurred beyond readability, but via tineye.com I found what seems to be the original: <a href="https://cdn.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/blobs/4f68/2515569/99b99587b2e8/11095_2008_9661_Fig1_HTML.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://cdn.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/blobs/4f68/2515569/99b99587... It splits out what environmental factors cause cancer. Unsurprisingly, your chance is already 25% lower if you don't smoke, but the rest of the pie chart is also interesting
crayforbrains · 1790688677 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
samso26 · 1790690753 · focus · HN ↗
The striking part is that many infection-linked cancers already have prevention or treatment options,but access and uptake are uneven. That makes this partly a delivery problem: vaccines, screening,and treatment only reduce cancer burden when people can actually get them. i’d be interested to see the estimates broken down by how much could be prevented with tools we already have versus infections where theres still no effective intervention.
1. neom · 1790692115 · focus · HN ↗
  Almost all your comments are flagged. Get yer clanker off HN buddy.
  1. Pannoniae · 1790693921 · focus · HN ↗
    FYI the prev comment is also clanker stuff, it's just purposefully prompted to inject grammatical errors. The wrong commas aren't a common error (unless you're 70+ yo) but LLMs keep doing "word ,another" and "word,another" to appear quirky
    esp when all the caps are missing but all the punctuation are perfectly present
2. mh- · 1790811863 · focus · HN ↗
  <a href="https://www.pangram.com/history/99f796d0-fa5b-4e0c-992b-3e614894c4ab?ucc=v0WYMhMlUiN" rel="nofollow">https://www.pangram.com/history/99f796d0-fa5b-4e0c-992b-3e61...
Frieren · 1790692112 · focus · HN ↗
> HPV vaccine hesitancy in Europe: side effects, uncertainty, and mistrust > When individuals mistrust those communicating about vaccines, perceiving, for instance, that they are not being fully transparent about the potential side effects of the vaccine, it can affect their confidence in the HPV vaccine even if they have received information confirming that the vaccine is safe and effective > This was seen with the rapid spread of You-Tube videos of young girls believing to have been affected by HPV vaccination in Denmark, Japan, Colombia, Ireland and the UK.
Governments around the world are losing citizens trust. And that has terrible consequences. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. And the rise of far-right contrarian governments that use fear to destroy trust in institutions and gain votes are the main cause. Billionaires financing far-right governments end costing the lives of their citizens that will have poorer physical health.
We may know how to reduce the risk of cancer. We may have vaccines for that infections. But if governments care more about power than serving citizens all that knowledge is for nothing.
- <a href="https://www.hpvworld.com/articles/hpv-vaccine-hesitancy-in-europe-side-effects-uncertainty-and-mistrust/" rel="nofollow">https://www.hpvworld.com/articles/hpv-vaccine-hesitancy-in-e...
1. etcetcetcetceta · 1790692402 · focus · HN ↗
  Suspect this is caused by demographic shift, don't know any people who have even the remotest HPV vaccine hesitation over the past twenty plus years.
  Know that it is common among certain demographics though.
  1. foobiekr · 1790694497 · focus · HN ↗
    About ten years ago I was at a party and an Australian coworker and I were talking. I casually mentioned the HPV vaccine since his daughter was entering her teens. He declared, “I’m not going to turn my daughter into a whore.”
    You may be right that the demographics are shifting but not necessarily in a good way.
    Nasrudith · 1790694920 · focus · HN ↗
    Which brings to mind a horrifying and inappropriate counterarguement to such twisted puritianical logic - who says she is consenting if she gets infected? Is it worth adding cancer to a rape victim?
    tialaramex · 1790705868 · focus · HN ↗
    Even without that, the position implies they haven't understood that she's an individual and so her future is her own to determine, at least to a much greater extent than this acknowledges.
    What ever happened to parents who just wanted their children to be happy? Maybe she wants to be a whore. The more figuratively you're happy to deploy that term the more likely her choices overlap.
    anenefan · 1790733043 · focus · HN ↗
    That sort of thinking isn't recent, it's a mindset still kicking around from the days of old. If one were to guess why there's been no serious attempt to make vaccines for common STDs - any idea was killed off. It's a wonder that HPV vaccine escaped this odd mindset.
    I last noted this backwards thinking when an early vaccine for covid at the University of Queensland was developed using a protein portion of HIV ... did this old cabal flex its power. Quite sad, despite the reasons given not to use the developed vaccine, didn't pass the pub test.
    kbelder · 1790785047 · focus · HN ↗
    I absolutely agree that getting the vaccine is obviously the correct thing to do, but:
    >"I casually mentioned the HPV vaccine since his daughter was entering her teens."
    Is a little weird to do, and seems like it might be downplaying some provocative or nosy behavior.
  2. baud147258 · 1790695478 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    etcetcetcetceta · 1790768583 · focus · HN ↗
    Two in particular, those with a distrust of or ignorance to authority, and those with a paternal expectation of abstinence (with extreme punitive consequences for defiance) and therefore no need for such a vaccine.
    The former of course is (uncomfortably) why we have seen a resurgence in smallpox, measles, and scabies.
    baud147258 · 1790843382 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    etcetcetcetceta · 1790871996 · focus · HN ↗
    perhaps just stick to subjects you're more informed on
    cindyllm · 1790879054 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
2. jimmar · 1790695762 · focus · HN ↗
  > And the rise of far-right contrarian governments that use fear to destroy trust in institutions and gain votes are the main cause. Billionaires financing far-right governments end costing the lives of their citizens that will have poorer physical health.
  I'm old enough to remember when Trump was recommending the Covid vaccine and democrats were fear mongering about it. Trump was even booed at his own rallies for promoting the vaccine.
  1. cassepipe · 1790763281 · focus · HN ↗
    Was it the dems who booed Trump at his own rally ?
    The 2020 Democratic skepticism was about possible political pressure to approve a vaccine before the election, it wasn't about vaccines themselves.
    Harris explicitly said she'd take it if Fauci and public health experts endorsed it
    Once the vaccines approved, Dems went all in on vaccination and Trump didn't promote them (still took credit for it when he could) OTOH he spent a looot of time dissing health officials
3. zahlman · 1790700616 · focus · HN ↗
  This gets things exactly backwards. The trust was eroding well before the re-emergence of "far-right contrarian governments" and that is what enabled them to emerge. It has eroded because of greater access to information: people see things that they disapprove of but otherwise could have ignored because it doesn't affect them personally.
ck2 · 1790692218 · focus · HN ↗
well they are finding forever-chemical and micro-plastics in all freshwater in the USA now and even in ALL mother's milk
so safe bet that cancer rates are never going to be lower than they are today
remember US also just deregulated all pollution from power plants, funded re-starting coal plants and dropped car engine efficiency requirements
oh they are also trying to double oil-fracking output which toxifies groundwater and air for miles around it with offgassing
every rocket launch and deorbit by starlink et all also put toxic pollution into the atmosphere
so next decade should end well for cancer rates
1. scottLobster · 1790692647 · focus · HN ↗
  You can't be worried about fracking and coal at the same time in the US. The former is the reason for the latter's demise
  1. ck2 · 1790694084 · focus · HN ↗
    wow that's the most repeat fallacy, I even see in political commercials now
    we don't use domestic oil, we sell it overseas
    and oil until pop-up "ai" datacenters was not used for power production
    you are thinking about solar and wind power for coal's demise
    which now they are also defunding, even worse reusing the funds for coal investment
    scottLobster · 1790695412 · focus · HN ↗
    No, but we get so much natural gas as a side effect of the fracking that we literally can't distribute it all, it's effectively free. Which is why natural gas plants have been displacing coal plants for over a decade.
    You... really need to read more before forming your opinions
    Vrondi · 1790696199 · focus · HN ↗
    No, really, when the fracking boom hit, it was so much cheaper than coal that it made a large dent in the coal industry for energy production. Solar and wind expansion have been far slower to roll out nationwide, but fracking was an almost overnight expansion of gas power production at that time.
    linkregister · 1790702323 · focus · HN ↗
    Solar and wind subsidies have been illegally halted, and are the subject of ongoing litigation.
    Solar and wind are commercially viable and provide about 30% of the electrical energy in Texas. Around 50% of California's daytime electrical energy is provided by solar and wind power. New projects are typically hamstrung by transmission permitting constraints.
    While subsidies would help substantially, they aren't a necessary condition for continued adoption of renewable energy sources. Storage is probably the next big hurdle to displace fossil fuels once there's sufficient progress with transmission.
  2. cassepipe · 1790696968 · focus · HN ↗
    You can. It's not because fracking has displaced coal that it's overall a net benefit (I know it is overall true for climate change, I don't have an informed opinion concerning environmental pollution) and it's what should have happenned.
    For example either renewables + batteries or nuclear could have displaced coal. Just because there wasn't enough money/political support for it doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about both fracking and coal usage consequences.
    scottLobster · 1790701008 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, on a long enough timeline we should be moving away from fossil fuels as much as possible, but in the meantime fracking has allowed us to substantially lower carbon emissions without massive society upheaval. It's like equating hybrid cars with traditional ICE vehicles. Sure they both have problems, but one has a lot fewer.
    And no, renewables + batteries and nuclear couldn't have displaced coal precisely due to a lack of money and political support. Why are those constraints any less important? The goal isn't just to build renewable tech, the goal is to build a functional society that uses renewable tech. There also is a technological constraint here, fracking became viable in the early 2000s before modern battery and solar tech existed at its current price point.
  3. solarkraft · 1790699020 · focus · HN ↗
    Why shouldn’t one be able to worry about 2 bad things at the same time?
2. mchusma · 1790698441 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
  1. jasondigitized · 1790706615 · focus · HN ↗
    Thank you
3. tonmoy · 1790709193 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
4. MetaWhirledPeas · 1790718828 · focus · HN ↗
  > every rocket launch and deorbit by starlink et all also put toxic pollution into the atmosphere
  Bringing up Starship launches in the same discussion with car emissions is like bringing up skateboards when talking about traffic jams.
  One big help for car emissions would be to make them electric.
hobo123 · 1790697245 · focus · HN ↗
Is it 100% clear cut that the infection causes the cancer, or can there be a common problem (like immune system degradation) that causes both the infection to develop (or develop easier) and the cancer the grow (which always involves failure of the immune system to kill it, if I'm not mistaken)?
Many viri are present in many human beings, but they don't develop cancer after all.
1. paimapi · 1790699363 · focus · HN ↗
  depends on the infection. COVID, for eg, is well-studied as something that chronically weakens the immune system and may cause autoimmune disorders
  <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7744845/" rel="nofollow">https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7744845/
  <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12185401/" rel="nofollow">https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12185401/
  so it's not surprising that infections can lead to downstream, systemic problems in the human body which then allows for things like cancer to arise (especially given that we just lived through a once-in-a-century pandemic that is still ongoing)
  1. tptacek · 1790701928 · focus · HN ↗
    Has there been a clear epidemiological signal post-COVID in elevations of any cancers? There are obviously stories about elevated rates of e.g. colon cancer in younger people, but those long predate COVID.
    paimapi · 1790708661 · focus · HN ↗
    not for COVID afaik but it seems like the mechanism is similar - systemic shocks to the body of some sort by viral loads leading to future pathologies
    tptacek · 1790709610 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not asking if it's plausible, I'm asking if there's evidence it happened.
2. dsign · 1790706408 · focus · HN ↗
  My best friend died in July, and his cancer came from both things: immune system degradation that let a throat infection become a bad cancer. Primary cause of said immune system degradation were environmental and lifestyle, i.e. weekly/biweekly infections brought home by the kid (I've never seen anything like that), powerful allergens in his housing unit, decades of alcohol abuse (one last multi-day incident started the illness and the subsequent process), and tons of stress. Possibly also genetic factors. Miss him everyday a world, and I'm sure it is orders of magnitude worse for the family he left behind.
3. abirch · 1790709874 · focus · HN ↗
  Pedantic but it's vira or viruses <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus#Etymology" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus#Etymology
  Viri is the latin plural for men
4. michael1999 · 1790778275 · focus · HN ↗
  In the extreme, you can observe direct transmission.
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease
jobs_throwaway · 1790698255 · focus · HN ↗
If you haven't gotten your HPV vaccine yet—go get it. One of the easiest interventions you can take to reduce your cancer risk.
1. formvoltron · 1790713767 · focus · HN ↗
  i got mine at age 51. why not!?
  1. Am4TIfIsER0ppos · 1790768546 · focus · HN ↗
    Does it rid you of infection if you've already got it?
    jobs_throwaway · 1790779760 · focus · HN ↗
    No. There is some very limited evidence that it may help existing infections but not enough to say with any certainty.
2. druvisc · 1790718294 · focus · HN ↗
  About to get the 2nd shot at 33M.
  1. jobs_throwaway · 1790779772 · focus · HN ↗
    Nice work!
3. sizzle · 1790748271 · focus · HN ↗
  For men? I thought it was predominately cervical cancer
  1. cromka · 1790762083 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, men too, HPV causes mouth and throat cancer.
  2. jobs_throwaway · 1790779859 · focus · HN ↗
    As noted, it helps prevent mouth and throat cancers. Also, it helps contribute to herd immunity. The more men get it, the less of the disease will be floating around.
    The upsides are significant and the downsides are nil. It's a no-brainer.
realityrunner · 1790701818 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
lofatdairy · 1790702574 · focus · HN ↗
[delayed]
verity_check · 1790706180 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
flopsamjetsam · 1790717423 · focus · HN ↗
The paper: <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(26)00307-4/fulltext" rel="nofollow">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2...
johnnyApplePRNG · 1790717858 · focus · HN ↗
>For many people, sun exposure, smoking and family history are the first thoughts that come to mind regarding cancer risk factors. While infections are rarely high on the list, new research shows one in eight cancers worldwide are actually caused by them.
To be fair... Smoking increases your chance of infection significantly.
WorseIsBetter · 1790757065 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
just60sec · 1790783852 · focus · HN ↗
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