[HN Gopher] Global cancer cases will jump 77% by 2050, WHO repor...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Global cancer cases will jump 77% by 2050, WHO report estimates
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 36 points
       Date   : 2024-02-03 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
        
       | binsquare wrote:
       | "The researchers point to several factors as driving the expected
       | increases in cancer rates, such as obesity, tobacco use and
       | alcohol use, as well as environmental factors like air
       | pollution."
       | 
       | It's interesting to see alcohol use lumped in as cancer causing
       | as tobacco use and air pollution. I wonder what kind of cancer
       | risks it introduced?
        
         | myko wrote:
         | Alcohol consumption is linked to increases in liver cancer
        
           | quickslowdown wrote:
           | And throat/mouth, I believe. Alcohol is poison, even in small
           | amounts. I still drink it occasionally, not trying to be
           | preachy!
        
             | jacobsimon wrote:
             | And apparently breast cancer and several others. I also
             | drink regularly but I just finished reading _Drink_ [1] and
             | it goes pretty in depth on the health effects.
             | 
             | 1. https://www.amazon.com/Drink-New-Science-Alcohol-
             | Health/dp/B...
        
         | hackyhacky wrote:
         | I don't get this. 77% is a big increase. Alcohol and tobacco
         | use can't be increasing enough to drive that change. Obesity
         | and pollution are on the rise, but _that_ much?
         | 
         | Edit: autocorrect correction
        
           | vdaea wrote:
           | The big secret: the number is completely made up, but it will
           | be used as an excuse to take rights away from you.
        
             | hackyhacky wrote:
             | The people who have the power to limit your freedom don't
             | need to make up numbers in order to do so.
        
               | vdaea wrote:
               | They can't do it without popular support, so they make up
               | the numbers so the gullible people are happy with their
               | rights being taken away.
        
               | hackyhacky wrote:
               | The sound you hear now is my eyes rolling so hard at the
               | lengths that conspiracy theorists go to sow distrust in
               | institutions without any plausible evidence.
        
         | ipnon wrote:
         | It's a risk factor for colorectal cancer, which is not only the
         | 3rd most prevalent type of cancer, but is increasingly being
         | discovered in younger people. Alcohol has a number of
         | deleterious effects, from microbiome destruction, to the
         | genotoxicity of alcohol's metabolite acetaldehyde, and finally
         | alcohol changes your behavior to make other cancer causing
         | activities like smoking more likely.
        
         | hunter-gatherer wrote:
         | I'm not sure it in interesting to lump alcohol in there. I
         | thought everyone knew it was wikdly unhealthy, just also wildly
         | fun.
         | 
         | Air pollution deserves more attention IMO. I live along the
         | Wasatch from in Utah and have been trying to strategize a move
         | out of state because of air pollution. In sure I won't be
         | surprised if it kills me and my family in the end.
        
       | flenserboy wrote:
       | There are plenty of newer approaches to this, but this older blog
       | post points to some possible reasons:
       | https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/death-by-vegetable-oil-what-....
        
       | paulcole wrote:
       | How much of this is attributable to a) people in developing
       | countries living longer and having the chance to get cancer
       | before something else kills them and b) improved diagnostic
       | methods that allow more cancer cases to get diagnosed?
        
       | thomond wrote:
       | > Global cancer diagnoses will reach 35 million in 2050 ... from
       | the 20 million cases diagnosed in 2022.
       | 
       | How much of this can be attributed to population growth?
        
         | zaphod12 wrote:
         | Perhaps some, but only a small amount... current targets are
         | hitting between 8.4-9.5 billion by 2050 (some estimates are
         | we'd have already hit peak and be going down)! At about 8
         | billion today, we're talking between a 5% and an 18ish%
         | increase. Either way much less than the increase in cancer
         | diagnosis incidence.
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | - Population growth
       | 
       | - More access to testing
       | 
       | - People living longer, and not dying of other causes first
       | 
       | While yes tobacco, alcohol etc. do contribute to increased rates,
       | _everyone_ is going to get cancer at some point simply by living
       | long enough.
        
         | Spooky23 wrote:
         | This is one of those stats that get abused as fairly benign
         | cancers like certain prostate cancers get diagnosed more.
         | 
         | But as someone who just lost my wife to melanoma, I can tell
         | you that despite the fact that treatment advances has brought
         | 5-year survival rates from 10% to 70%, deaths are increasing.
         | The oncologists I spoke to attribute it to the ozone hole in
         | the 80s and 90s and the tanning bed phenomenon of the 90s and
         | 2000s.
         | 
         | Think of cancer not as a thing but as a disease process. Each
         | variant has different drivers and each treatment regime has
         | different risks. Social and environmental factors drive many
         | negative outcomes.
        
         | _qua wrote:
         | This is what I tell patients. Eventually something happens to
         | all of us, we just try to extend the time until that happens.
        
       | westurner wrote:
       | But how will it be treated in 2050?
       | 
       | Which cancers cannot be treated with NIRS-guided ultrasound?
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-02-03 23:01 UTC)