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Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer

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phlox✔
11/26/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
WHB
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FuryOfFirestorm
11/24/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
I heard on the radio yesterday that these are the top 10 new leading causes of cancer:

10. gargling with Scope

9. flat feet

8. line dancing

7. reruns of "Xena: Warrior Princess"

6. Calvin Klein's "Obsession" (for Men)

5. alien abductions

4. nostalgia

3. farting and sneezing at the same time

2. Jessica Simpson

1. having cancer
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phlox✔
11/24/08

@FuryOfFirestorm: The only one on your list that really resonates (literally) is CK "Obsession". That shit will kill you FAST.
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HiredGoons
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
Won't somebody please think of the children!?
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BookishLookish
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
Does anyone know if there has been a study of occasional smokers and incidence of lung disease?
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Quilt
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
This just in:

Death causes eternal slumber!
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CeCeF1
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
Whatever you do, please don't watch "The Doctors" on tv.
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Quilt
11/23/08

@CeCeF1: But then how will I learn about my prostate or proper flossing?
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bowleserised
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
What's that Ben Goldacre quote about the Daily Mail? That the paper seems to be engaged in a Sisyphean task of sorting all the matter in the world into that which causes cancer and that which prevents it?

Same thing.
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inflammatorywrit
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
It's funny, because what of people who have combination lifestyles? Like me, for example. I smoke, but am not a heavy smoker (less than half a pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights a day). I work out regularly. I used to be overweight but now have a normal BMI, but a slightly high body fat percentage (which matters more?). I am not a vegetarian but I do limit red meat. I drink regularly but not excessively. I do not have a history of cancer in my family (luckily) - both my parents have smoked for 40 years and neither of them have cancer or diminished lung capacity. My father - a once raging alcoholic - has the liver of a twelve year old. But am I going to get cancer? Maybe. There's no telling.

Point being? Genetics have an awful lot to do with it, and no matter what lifestyle adjustments you make, you can't fight your genes. I wish they'd come up with an actual CURE than overanalyzing the causes to death. There are many healthy people who are just screwed by genetics, and people who get screwed by bad luck. What do we do to help them? Tell them to cross their fingers and hope for the best?
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Schm
11/23/08

@inflammatorywrit: After having worked in cancer research, my perspective on it has changed so much. Many types of cancer can be looked at as normal symptoms of aging, such as prostate cancer. The same case could also be made for the majority of post-menopausal breast cancer. Our cells and our RNA aren't designed to hold up forever, and as they get older they are bound to make mistakes and trip up, just as you would expect any old machine to. Of course lifestyle plays a role in your overall health, but people need to understand that cancer is an unfortunate but relatively common part of older life sometimes. All this fearmongering about whether you should eat a pound of blueberries every day or get 40 rather than 20 minutes of exercise is sort of irrelevant. The only thing that's ever really going to stop cancer is advancements in medicine.
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Lymed
11/23/08

@inflammatorywrit: Actually, people who have a predisposition to some cancers may be able to reduce their chances of getting cancer signficantly. For at least some cancers, the genetic predisposition is related to how the liver detoxifies certain toxins. Staying away from the toxins and working to improve the detoxification process can reduce the chances of cancer.

Exercise and sleep probably aren't the answer. But staying away from the toxins probably is part of it.
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BxgrlJeri
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
As someone whose family and friends have been decimated with cancer, I can tell you that no one knows and we should be finding the cure instead of wasting all this time and money on what causes it. Unless it's a cancer like lung cancer (and a few others that seem to have direct causes and/or genetic links), most cancers are hard to really trace to anything even lifestyle. I know 3 people who have died from brain tumors. No one knows what causes them and for many types, there is no cure.

I don't smoke, I eat right, I exercise and sometimes I get enough sleep. I could still succumb to cancer. Or be hit by the 1 train.

Either way I wish they would put more money and research into curing cancer and finding some correlation between these rogue cancers and something substantial that causes it. This sleep nonsense is just that: nonsense.
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Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
Christ, my family's medical history is rife with with cancerous breasts (and the occasional lung or ovary), and there's nothing I like more than having my lifestyle held ransom to the threat of eventual death. I do understand the importance of raising awareness (regular check ups = good, hanging around radioactive materials = bad), but I really don't appreciate all the scaremongering.
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Banjo-Sea Kitten
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
Thanks, Triborough, you're right. If you want to really know about cancer, read the alternative presses. What you read there will be on the AP feed 10 years later, once big Pharma finds a way to make a profit off what the naturopathic doctors were telling us all along.

Acidic bodies, inflammation, horrible corporate, corn sweetner-laden food -- this is partly where your cancer comes from.
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Multiphasic
11/23/08

@Banjo Kitten: I don't entirely disagree with this—but bear in mind, there's not-inconsiderable amounts of dough to be made in alternative medicine as well.

In short, everyone's gonna lie. Most of us weren't actually designed to live past 50 anyway, so maybe it is the best and brightest who're living on a chinese rock.
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SW-2
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
Maybe it's just a case of newspaper editors getting old and hypochondriac, and beginning to regret their multi-decade alcoholism & nicotine addictions.
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krismry
11/23/08

@SW-2: That's an interesting point, because the science sections, or pages, really, of the papers that even ran them started to be phased out in the '90s in favor of more service-y health related stories. Actual science reporting was probably always a kind of minority enterprise fraught with bias, strangely enough. And unspoken agendas about funding, careers and more money. It's weird!
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Weegee's bored
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
If you go to a specialist such as a neurologist for condition X, make sure you also go to a generalist such as a family physician. The former may be the expert on condition X, but the latter will have the broad perspective to tell you how this disease fits in with the rest of your life.
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Lymed
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
I just want to say there is no possibility that women who exercise also make other healthy lifestyle choices that could reduce cancer risk. It's a good thing the reporter didn't raise that possibility.
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Weegee's bored
11/23/08

@Lymed: Well-designed clinical trials filter out such variables so that the result is as close as possible to a direct comparison between those who exercise and those who don't. Assuming that such happened in this case, the reporter should have mentioned it.
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Lymed
11/23/08

@Weegee's bored: I've looked at many a study after a similar press release/AP/Reuter's article and discovered that no, they didn't hold for variables. Sometimes a study suggests a potential relationship and the press release words it like it's a proven correlation.
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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
11/23/08

In reply to Everything You Do Or Don't Do Gives You Cancer
That's really bizarre. Yesterday I heard two cancer stories, one after the other on the radio. One talked about doctor studying certain dwarves in Ecuador who are impervious to both diabetes and cancer. None have history of either, ever. Supposedly all descended from a Jewish immigrant. Then big informercial for new pill from astro zeneca that supposedly works just as well as chemo, but without the chemo. And it costs only a few thousand bucks a month.
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Auntie_Meme
11/23/08

@Uncle_Billy_Slumming: I giggled when I read that their Jewish ancestor ended up in Ecuador by fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. (I can be incredibly immature sometimes.)
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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
11/23/08

@Auntie_Meme:

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