to think people who think cancer is caused by lifestyle choices are ignorant?

[user19201881]

I have a work colleague who thinks that cancer is always caused by lifestyle choices - drinking, smoking, obesity etc. I have had cancer and find this sort of attitude quite upsetting.
I know of 6 people under the age of 40 who have/had cancer and none of them smoke, rarely drink and are not obese. It can't just be down to lifestyle otherwise children wouldn't get cancer.

💐

Cancer is such a cruel and indiscriminate illness.

I've always been skeptical about the lifestyle link. For sure smoking increases your chances of throat and lung cancer. But in general, a hell of a lot seem to be random. We all know super fit, super healthy people who've developed it. And we all know fat drinkers and smokers who just keep going.

Cancer really is terrifying. It's like this black cloud that hangs over every family. We can't prevent it, and we can't cure it. It has utterly defeated us. In the 1970s, Nixon declared war on it, and said we'd find a cure within a decade. Yet here we are, 50 years later, and we seem to have got nowhere. My friend's daughter has had to have a leg removed, and now it's spread to her lung. I also know of two other women, both in their 50s, who recently died from the f-ing thing. A few years ago, we were told immunotherapy was a game changer. Try telling that to my friend's daughter.

Depends on the type of cancer.
Some are caused by lifestyle … smoking, drinking, high sugar intake etc, coupled with genetic predisposition and some aren’t.

Really?? I've known at least 6 people well under 40 who have had cancer, including, sadly , children.

Your colleague is deluded. Lifestyle contributes to some cancers but fundamentally we do not understand this cruel disease. Of my two friends who died of lung cancer, one had experimented briefly with tobacco at university the way many of us did - probably smoked less that 20 packs in his life. The other smoked for about 10 years and was diagnosed about 35 years after quitting.

Both otherwise fit and temperate in lifestyle. Maybe your friend can explain away the element of bad luck, especially in the first case?

And childhood cancer is of course infinitely more cruel.

I remember sitting in a presentation at work years ago from some health improvement sorts who were talking about risk factors for certain cancers. Sitting next to me was my friend and colleague who’d recently had a breast cancer diagnosis and had just started chemo. The presentation was well intentioned to raise awareness but my friend felt as though her cancer was somehow her fault, which was bollocks but also really kicked her while she was feeling down and quite ill. She left the presentation upset and a few of us pointed out that some of their messages had all the subtlety of a brick. It was all quite awkward and I felt really angry she’d been upset by it.

My lovely friend died in 2019 after the bastard thing metastasised into her bones, but she often talked about what she’d done differently from others and could her life have followed a different path when of course it’s horrendous luck most of the time.

Some cancers can be caused by certain lifestyle choices. Like smoking. But I dont think science has worked out yet the exact reasons why some people get it and others don't. Also polution is a factor. . Also their are genetic factors too. In cancers such as breast cancer.

Some people like to think that we have more control over our health than we actually do have. I think it makes them feel safer. Lifestyle choices increase the risk for some cancers and for some other illnesses. Some cancers and other illnesses strike randomly. This attitude becomes a problem if people start blaming people for their health problems.

Be skeptical all you like, the links are well established. Smoking doesn't just vaguely increase your chances of certain cancers, it directly causes it. We know this.

It's not even slight;y true that we haven't moved on in the last 50 years, we have so many treatments and advances in that time. So many people have survived cancers that would have killed them, or had their lives extended.

Obviously most cancers aren't lifestyle choices, one of the problems you get is press report eating red meat doubles cancer risk but if that risk is .5 it is now 1 percent.

Many are lifestyle a lot aren't too

Cancers really are cruel diseases and yes, while lifestyle can contribute, it often doesn’t.

My maternal Grandma smoked from 16 (probably unfiltered for the first decades) and didn’t develop lung cancer, never even had breathing difficulties. Yet my paternal Grandpa DID die of lung cancer, presumably caused by his smoking. Why one and not the other?

Obviously your colleague is ignorant and unkind. I expect this belief gives her some kind of comfort.

I know of 2 children, under 10, who've died of cancer in the last year alone.

There is a difference between 'caused by' and 'fault of'. It's all a big numbers game. For example eating processed food such as bacon increases your risk of certain cancers. It doesn't mean that if you get them it's your fault for eating bacon. More and more we are understanding how genetics comes down the generations and childhood cancers risks may be increased because of the exposure of parents or even grandparents to certain foods or environmental factors. It doesn't mean the parents are to blame.

By contrast I do not know anyone personally that has had cancer.
I know of people (friend of friend for example), but not one person I would count as friend or family.
So I'm not surprised the PP doesn't know of anyone under 40.

Unfortunately my sister-in-law has this attitude. I will always remember when a relative of hers died, and she commented, 'well, he didn't look after himself.'
Victim blaming at its finest.

I knew a 3 week old baby who had cancer. Wonder what she’s say about his lifestyle

I’m in my fifties. The one person who died in our friendship group and who we all miss terribly was the correct weight, slim, fit, worked out regularly, didn’t drink to
excess, active, virtually vegan, ate no red meat, didn’t eat any processed meat, cooked all their own food from scratch. Cancer doesn’t discriminate.

Utter harmful nonsense about lifestyle causing cancer. Obviously there are theories about causes and links but how do they explain childhood cancer?

Or the lung cancer of a sister who never smoked vs the sister who smoked 40 a day and lived to 88?

The cancer of a woman who only ever ate vegetarian, home grown food and exercised regularly and still got cancer?

A young woman who lived a healthy lifestyle and discovered she was riddled with stage 4 terminal cancer with no symptoms?

Cancer is a rotten disease that can happen to anyone.

Your colleague (and others on this thread) are victim blaming?

Depends on the cancer, some are more likely to be caused by environmental factors. Other types are genetic, some are down to back luck for want of a better expression

Obviously it is not the case that cancer is always caused by lifestyle choices. That is an ignorant view. But it is well-researched that certain lifestyle choices considerably increase your chances of getting certain cancers.

Cancer in my opinion has a lot to do with genetics and bad luck. I know someone who died of lung cancer and never smoked a cigarette in her life. I also know people in their 90s who smoke,drink and eat crap and are still going strong. But putting blame on a person who has or had cancer is really low

I think cancer is down to faulty genes. Not necessarily hereditary, although obviously it can be, but just mutations in the cells and genes themselves and I don’t think that’s diet etc related.

My mum, Gran and uncle all died of fast growing bowel cancer. From diagnosis to death, 6-8 weeks for each of them. All of them had colonoscopies and endoscopies and blood tests that were coming back okay and normal until it was found too late - it only showed up on a CT scan and then grew very suddenly. I think there must be a faulty part of our bowel / gene. All of them very healthy, vegetarian, slim, etc etc.

My dad is now 84 and still works full time. He started smoking at 11 and smokes about 40 a day, always has done. Never eats fruit. Never exercises. Never had anything wrong with him, ever. Don’t think he’s even seen a doctor since he was a kid.

Of course these stories are just my own experiences. But I really don’t think we understand enough about cancer. We kid ourselves we can avoid it by doing xyz because our health being out of our control is scary. But that’s what it is. That’s why people tell people like me with chronic conditions like lupus to eat better / exercise more etc because it makes them feel less scared of their own health to think you can change it.

So how does she explain childhood cancers?