[HN Gopher] To learn more quickly, brain cells break their DNA (...
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To learn more quickly, brain cells break their DNA (2021)
Author : chriskanan
Score : 82 points
Date : 2022-05-24 21:52 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| user_7832 wrote:
| > The discovery is all the more surprising because DNA double-
| strand breaks, in which both rails of the helical ladder get cut
| at the same position along the genome, are a particularly
| dangerous kind of genetic damage associated with cancer,
| neurodegeneration and aging.
|
| It's amazing how much, yet how little we know of our bodies and
| living organisms in general. I hope vast advances in
| understanding biology become the 21st century-equivalent of the
| technological revolution of the 20th century.
| veilrap wrote:
| Does this imply that thinking too hard, cramming, and other
| rapid learning strategies may actually increase brain cancer
| risk?
|
| Somewhat horrifying to think about... Oops.
| vermooten wrote:
| Daily Mail headline: "Thinking gives you cancer!"
| dekhn wrote:
| One can speculate and find many ways that thinking too hard
| would increase cancer rates, although none of these
| speculations are strong enough to be actionable.
|
| For example, thinking harder leads to greater metabolic
| activity in the brain, and greater metabolic activity can
| increase the risk of cancer. Therefore, thinking harder
| increases the risk of cancer.
|
| Thinking hard can be associated with increased stress, and
| increased stress can cause the induction of endogenous
| viruses, which can themselves cause cancer or other serious
| problems.
|
| I could go on, but the reality is, even while all of these
| are realistic statements, they contribute far less to overall
| risk than obesity or driving.
| whatever1 wrote:
| Anecdotally people I know who dont give an f live longer than
| the overachieving ones.
| flashfaffe2 wrote:
| Actually I would think the other way around.
|
| Though, this doesn't seem to be a clear correlation.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| How would the mechanism work in your example?
| wozer wrote:
| > High levels of education linked to heightened brain tumor
| risk
|
| > Gliomas, in particular, more common among university-
| educated, large observational study shows
|
| > Men with university level education, lasting at least three
| years, were 19% more likely to develop a glioma
|
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160620221757.h.
| ..
|
| I believe, for a rare cancer, a 19% increased risk is not a
| very big deal. It's still low risk. (And of course, only the
| correlation is known.)
| user_7832 wrote:
| While that doesn't sound very likely, I'm not a biologist or
| doctor (I don't think there's any current evidence to support
| such a theory.)
| peppertree wrote:
| Next time when you have to work on something hard, just think, is
| it worth getting brain cancer over this.
| herodoturtle wrote:
| First thing that came to mind was stimpacks from SC2
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