• Question: Why is cancer becoming more common?

    Asked by boo1234 to Gioia, Iain, Jo, Leo, Mariam on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by agent001, agentreadytodiscover, bechope.
    • Photo: Joanna Watson

      Joanna Watson answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      The main reason that cancer is becoming more common is that people are living longer and not as many people are dying of other diseases when they are young. The older you are the more likely you are to get cancer.

    • Photo: Iain Moal

      Iain Moal answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Good question. The main reason is because people are living longer and longer. The chances of developing cancer get bigger as you age. Since we know how to cure or avoid so many illnesses, it stands to reason that more people will die because of things that we do not.

    • Photo: Mariam Orme

      Mariam Orme answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      If cancer is becoming more common, I think it’s mostly because people are living longer: the older you get, the more chances your cells have had to pick up mutations, so the more likely you are to develop cancer. But there could be other factors too; for example, people these days tend to eat less healthily and are more likely to be overweight, which increases the risk of cancer.

    • Photo: Leo Garcia

      Leo Garcia answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      First it’s important to say that the overall number of people dying from cancer in the UK is falling:

      http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/mortality/timetrends/index.htm

      However, the number of people getting cancer (that we know of) is increasing. Add to this that it is only certain TYPES of cancer that are rising – some, like stomach and colon cancers are, apparently, falling:

      http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061216104601.htm

      But the number of people getting other types of cancer per year (called the ‘incidence rate’) is going up. For example, the breast cancer incidence rate in women has risen by 50 % in the last 25 years:

      http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/breast/

      Why is this? Well, our best guess at the moment is that it is due to a ‘modern’ lifestyle, which includes a poor diet, increased rate of obesity, lack of exersize and overexposure to UV radiation from the sun:

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6938186.stm

      All of which increase the likelihood of getting cancer. Perhaps our incidence rate is higher because we are catching more cancers with better ways of diagnosing it (like what I research!). So at least some of that increase in incidence rate are cancers that were there anyway, but were never found. Also, people are living longer and longer – and, because the likelihood of getting cancer increases with age, if we have an aging population, we also have a higher cancer incidence rate.

      As far as your own life is concerned – the best ways you have of avoiding getting cancer is to stay healthy by not smoking, getting regular excersize, eating well and staying protected on sunny days.

    • Photo: Gioia Cherubini

      Gioia Cherubini answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I have asked help again to the Cancer Research UK website and I found that “overall cancer incidence rates have increased by more than a quarter since 1975 but have remained fairly stable over the past decade”.
      Probably this is because in the past we have used a lot of stuff that we didn’t know it was cancerogenic (like asbestos), while we are more aware now of the long term risks of lots of substances and we have reduced that exposure to them.

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