Environment, not ‘bad luck’, mainly to blame for cancer

Scientists can now observe, measure and model the malignant transformation of stem cells and progenitor cells that leads to tumor growth, and show how different kinds of cancers gain a foothold. This study revealed that more than half of the children with germline mutations lacked any family history of cancer.

Researcher Yusuf Hannun from Sony Brook University examined the effect of external factors on cancer rates. They looked into the scenario when people moved from low-cancer-risk areas to areas of high risk, among other things, according to WebMD. Story continues after photos.

Inspired by a January 2015 research paper in Science, which concluded that the majority of the variation in cancer risk among tissues is due to “bad luck”, the research team used the same data to assess what leads to the risk of developing cancer. These findings are important to strategising cancer prevention, research and public health.

Reuters Most cases of cancer are down to unhealthy lifestyles rather than our genes, experts say.

A new study suggests that most cancers are influenced by environmental and lifestyle factors.

Pharmaceutical companies are keen not to miss out on increased spending.

Third, the team also analyzed the SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiologic, and End Results Program) data, which showed that many cancers have been increasing in incidence and in mortality, suggesting that external factors contribute heavily to these cancers. They found that while a few forms of cancer had a greater than 50 percent of intrinsic mutations, the majority of cancers, such as colorectal, lung, bladder, and thyroid cancers had large proportions of mutations likely caused by extrinsic factors. The researchers believe that had it been only for random mutations, cancer would not have been so rampant.

The government set up a “100,000 Genomes Project” to try to find the genetic causes of many rare diseases and cancers.

As part of the research, a British statistician also proved that 70 to 90 percent of cancers would be eliminated if people made the necessary lifestyle changes.

Professor Kevin McConway, of the Open University, said, “The authors’ aim is to calculate what percentage of cancers would not arise, if we could wave a magic wand and get rid of all possible external risk factors”.

“This study provides an alternative explanation: that environmental risk factors may produce most mutations during cell division, meaning tissues that produce more cell divisions are more susceptible to external risks”, said Hooker, who was not involved with the latest study.

In 2012, there were nearly 339,000 of new cancer cases of cancer recorded and nearly 162,000 deaths, according to figures from Cancer Research UK. It found fault with the conclusion that asserted “bad luck” was the major cause of cancer – saying that this was a misleading outcome that could detract from future efforts to identify and prevent the causes of cancer.