{"id":21937,"date":"2015-12-17T23:16:03","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T23:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/cancer-is-not-just-bad-luck-but-down-to\/"},"modified":"2015-12-17T23:15:47","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T23:15:47","slug":"cancer-is-not-just-bad-luck-but-down-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/cancer-is-not-just-bad-luck-but-down-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer is not just ‘bad luck’ but down to environment, study suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Cancer is overwhelmingly a result of environmental factors and not largely down to bad luck, a study suggests.
\n}<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, researchers sparked a debate after suggesting two-thirds of cancer types were down to luck rather than factors such as smoking.<\/p>\n

The new study, in the journal Nature, used four approaches to conclude only 10-30% of cancers were down to the way the body naturally functions or “luck”.<\/p>\n

Experts said the analysis was “pretty convincing”. <\/p>\n

Cancer is caused by one of the body’s own stem cells going rogue and dividing out of control.<\/p>\n

That can be caused either by intrinsic factors that are part of the innate way the body operates, such as the risk of mutations occurring every time a cell divides, or extrinsic factors such as smoking, UV radiation and many others that have not been identified.<\/p>\n

The argument has been about the relative importance of intrinsic and extrinsic factors.<\/p>\n

In January, a report in the journal Science tried to explain why some tissues were millions of times more vulnerable to developing cancer than others.<\/p>\n

Their explanation came down to the number of times a cell divides, which is out of our control and gave rise to the ‘bad luck’ hypothesis.<\/p>\n

In the latest study, a team of doctors from the Stony Brook Cancer Centre in New York approached the problem from different angles, including computer modelling, population data and genetic approaches.<\/p>\n

They said the results consistently suggested 70-90% of the risk was due to extrinsic factors. <\/p>\n

Dr Yusuf Hannun, the director of Stony Brook, told the BBC News website: “External factors play a big role, and people cannot hide behind bad luck.<\/p>\n

“They can’t smoke and say it’s bad luck if they have cancer.<\/p>\n

“It is like a revolver, intrinsic risk is one bullet.<\/p>\n

“And if playing Russian roulette, then maybe one in six will get cancer – that’s the intrinsic bad luck.<\/p>\n

“Now, what a smoker does is add two or three more bullets to that revolver. And now, they pull the trigger.<\/p>\n

“There is still an element of luck as not every smoker gets cancer, but they have stacked the odds against them.<\/p>\n

“From a public health point of view, we want to remove as many bullets as possible from the chamber.”<\/p>\n

There is still an issue as not all of the extrinsic risk has been identified and not all of it may be avoidable.
\n‘Convincing’<\/p>\n

Kevin McConway, a professor of applied statistics at the Open University, said: “They do provide pretty convincing evidence that external factors play a major role in many cancers, including some of the most common.<\/p>\n

“Even if someone is exposed to important external risk factors, of course it isn’t certain that they will develop a cancer – chance is always involved.<\/p>\n

“But this study demonstrates again that we have to look well beyond pure chance and luck to understand and protect against cancers.”<\/p>\n

Dr Emma Smith, from Cancer Research UK, said: “While healthy habits like not smoking, keeping a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet and cutting back on alcohol are not a guarantee against cancer, they do dramatically reduce the risk of developing the disease.” <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC:[Cancer is not just ‘bad luck’ but down to environment, study suggests->http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/health-35111449]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Cancer is overwhelmingly a result of environmental factors and not largely down to bad luck, a study suggests. } Earlier this year, researchers sparked a debate after suggesting two-thirds of cancer types were down to luck rather than factors such as smoking. The new study, in the journal Nature, used four approaches to conclude only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000070921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[75],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-21937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-news","tag-homenews","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":{"id":2000070921,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21937.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21937.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21937.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21937.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21937.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21937.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000070921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21937"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=21937"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=21937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}