100 years of cancer history

[johnnymk]

from an email I received:

I just read that scientists worldwide will be looking for
genetic mutations (i.e.: DNA "mistakes") associated with
cancer.

What a waste of time and money. We already have the
answer to 99% of cancer. It's all in what we put in our
mouths, which creates a toxic environment for cancer to
grow and thrive. Simple.

If you doubt what I'm saying, take a quick look at the
last 100 years of US history:

The year 1900: Cancer caused only 3 out 100 deaths in the
US. Breast cancer was basically unheard of.

- Food manufacturers began developing "better living
through chemistry" products like artificial sweeteners
(saccharin), taste additives (MSG), partially hydrogenated
vegetable shortening and margarine.

- Refined white sugar (acid and fat on a spoon) replaced
molasses as the leading sweetener in the American diet.

1911: A grain-milling process was discovered that strips
away the germ and outer layers of wheat grain (where the
nutrients are). The result: Nutrient-poor, acid-creating
white bread and refined white flour.

1921: General Mills invented a character named Betty
Crocker to convince Americans to eat more processed foods
(and increase the company's stock value).

1935: Only one case of cancer had been reported in the
last 50 years by the Inuit (Eskimo) people of Alaska and
Canada. After they began eating processed foods, their
cancer rate exploded until it equaled that of the US by the
1970's.

1938: From now until 1990, the avera ge male sperm count
will drop by nearly half, and testicular cancer will triple.

1949: After being unheard of 49 years ago, the breast
cancer rate is now 58 out of every 100,000 women.

1950: From now to the year 2000, the overall cancer rate
will go up 55%. (Lung cancer due to smoking is only 1/4 of
that.) Breast and colon cancer will go up 60%, brain
cancer 80% and childhood cancer will increase 20%.

1970: Americans spend $6 billion on fast food. By 2001,
that will skyrocket to $110 billion.

1971: The US Congress declares its "War on Cancer" which
has done virtually nothing to stop the growing rates of
cancer in the US in the next 30+ years.

- The US Department of Agriculture wrote "An Evaluation of
Research in the US on Human Nutrition; Report No. 2,
Benefits From Nutrition Research" which blamed the lack of
nutrients in the American diet for most major health
problems. That report was banned from public view for 21
years, reportedly at the insistence of the processed food
industry.

1973: From now to 1991, prostate cancer will go up 126%.

1982: Teenage boys drink twice as much milk as soda. By
2002, they will be drinking twice as much soda as milk.

1990: From now to 2005, over 120,000 new processed foods
will be developed to join the 320,000 processed foods
already on the store shelves.

2000: Cancer is now the cause of 20 out of 100 of all
deaths in the US, compared to just 3 out of 100 in 1900.

2001: Americans spend $110 billion a year on fast food.
Every single day, 1 out of 4 Americans eats at least one
meal in a fast food restaurant.

2005: Breast cancer, which was extremely rare back in
1900 and only affected 58 out of 100,000 women in 1949, now
strikes 1 in 3 women in the US. That means that in just 55
short years, it has gone up 568 times what it was. Scary.
Must be a virus, huh? Or our DNA has changed a lot, huh?
Momma Mia...


History speaks for itself. If you want to be alive into
your golden years and stay pain and disease-free, stay the
hell away from processed foods of any kind. That includes
boxed, bagged, canned or jarred foods, fast food, soda and
bottled sweetened drinks.

Jack La Lanne (who is 93, but looks about 70) has an easy
rule. Here it is: "If man made it, don't eat it."

[zippyjuan]

Some cancers take many years to develop and people in 1900 did not live long enough for some of them to develop. Also cancer was not as easy to diagnose as it is today so many "natural causes" deaths may have in fact been due to cancers.

It is true that we are exposed to many more chemicals which have been linked to cancer than were around in 1900. Life expectancy in 1900 was 50 years. Now it is into the 70's and 80's with many more living to 90's or even 100's.

You should still try to eat as fresh and varied a diet as you can and avoid sodas, coffee, simple sugars, etc and get fresh air and exercise. Despite the report on cancer, people are living longer.

http://www.efmoody.com/estate/lifeexpectancy.html

LIFE EXPECTANCY: (1999) In 1900, the life expectancy was 47 years of age. Only one person in 25 had then survived to age 60. Women lived shorter lives due to childbirth.

In the 1990s, the population growth rate for senior males is outstripping that of senior females, according to Census Bureau data. The male population over the age of 65 increased 11% between 1990 and 1996, while the female population increased 7.5%. During the same time period, the number of men in the age group over 85 rose 27 %, compared with 24 % for women. The ratio of women to men in the age group over 85 narrowed from 3.1:1.9 to 3.1:1.95. Women still dominate the population over 65, but the gap is beginning to narrow. In 1990, women accounted for 60 % of the population over 65; by 1996 that share had declined to 59 %, a notable change in a population of this size over this short period. The increasing number of men in the seniors' housing market could affect developers significantly, particularly in the amenities sought. An increased availability of health care for older Americans through the emergence of Medicare is cited as one factor in the increasing longevity of men, as is a decline in cigarette smoking among older males. (Housing the Elderly Report, April 1998)

OLD- AND GETTING OLDER: (1999) World Population: The global average for life expectancy had increased from 45 to 63 years from the1950's. However, 10% of the population is elderly- over 60 years of age. By 2050, it will increase to 20%.

The majority of people 60 and older, 55%, are women.

Among those 80 or older, 65 percent are women. Japanese women now have a life expectancy of 83, highest in the world. Nine million of the 43 million Americans 60 and older live alone and 80% are women.

Striking differences exist between regions with the elderly: one of five Europeans, for example, is 60 or older, compared to one of 20 Africans. By 2020, 46 percent of women 80 and older will live in Asia.

The American Association for Retired Persons said the Internet has been a boon to the elderly, with 47 percent of all online consumers over 50 and seniors more likely to contact family and others in the cyberspace community, thus reducing any feelings of isolation.

WOMEN AND LIFETIME: (1999) Why women live longer: a doctor at Ball State University indicated that "flexibility, resiliency and connections protect women against early death while men are more often wiped out by their own rigidity, aggression and denial of feelings." The life expectancy for men is now 72 years of age while women live in average of 78.8 years. Men smoke more cigarettes and consume more alcohol. They are three times is likely as women to die from accidents and four times more likely to be homicide victims. And as I a stated previously, white men have the higher suicide rates in the country once they get older than age 65. Many of these men have been insulated from the real world due to their positions of power in a corporation. However, once they retire, there entire powerbase may be gone (if there really ever was one). And they cannot boss their wives around since they have tended to develop more independency as they have gotten older.

In 1900, life expectancy for men was 49.7 years and for women 50.9 years. But by the middle of the century, men could now be expected to live to 65.6 years of age and 71.7 years for women. The increase for women, according to Dr. Crose, was due to women getting into holistic health and balancing their lives while men stayed in the "same old macho" roles. She also noted that while women do suffer more ailments and depression earlier in life, they use such adversity's to build into strength that they use later in life. A most interesting comment was the fact that women tend to be interested in more things and have a variety of emotions where men tend to express only two emotions: they are either fine or mad.

Gail Sheehy also commented about the difficulties of men as they get older. While men chuckle about menopause for women, it appears that men are "much more uncertain about the threat of aging than women. And the basis seems to be the threat of losing their potency in all the areas of their lives."

She noted that men should take a long vacation to review their lives and what they would like to change in the second half of life.

LONGEVITY: (Met Life 1999) "In 1997 life expectancy for all persons combined rose to a new record high of 76.4 years. Additionally, average future lifetime for newborn girls and boys also established new peaks-79.3 years and 73.4 years, respectively. For girls the 1997 value surpassed the previous high of 79.1 years recorded in 1992 and 1996 while for boys new peaks have been consecutively recorded since 1994. Last year's longevity enhancements among men were larger than those for women-continuing the trend of the past few years.

Newborn girls could still anticipate living 5.9 years longer than boys-the gap was 6.0 years in 1996 and 7.0 years in 1989-91. Current projections indicate that the disparity between the genders in average future lifetime may decline to 4.6 years by the year 2050. Also worthy of note is the apparent narrowing of the gap in longevity by race. In 1996 newborn white boys could expect to outlive nonwhite newborn boys by 5.0 years compared with 5.7 years in 1989-91; among girls the disparity diminished from 4.1 years in 1989-91 to 3.6 years in 1996."

LIVING LONGER- (1999) In ancient Greece, for example, life expectancy at birth was 20. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, life expectancy was still just 23; the median age was 16. Even as recently as 1900, most Americans died by age 47. In 1870, only 2.5% of all Americans made it to age 65. By 1990, that percentage had increased five-fold to 12.7%. Today, 31 million people are over 65 -- and the figures continue to grow, bolstered by advances in medicine and public health.

[ShawnLee]

I would completely aree with ZJ's take on it. Sure, there are more cancers - but it may have something to do with the fact that we're living longer and thus seeing more of it.

It's easy to romanticize life a hundred years ago, but life sucked back then.

Not that fresh foods and good exercise aren't good things - but it's not the answer to everything. I doubt just as much that processed foods are to blame for everything.

[Napoleon54]

As someone with a degree in cancer biology, I'd say both posts are quite valid. To ZJ's point first: yes, people are living a lot longer. No doubt we're seeing more cancer simply because other things are being cured. Biologically speaking, cancer is inevitible: if something else doesn't get you first, you WILL eventally die from cancer. That's a given, an unavoidable truth.

But now to JMK's point: all the crap humanity has invented in the past 100+ years to make our lives easier does have biological consequences. There is a whole lot of crap in our environment and food. We're eating and breathing and otherwise being exposed to compounds every day that simply didn't exist a hundred years ago. Everything including preservatives in our food, pesticides, "new car smell", etc, has a lot of effects on our biology. Do this experiment and I can guarantee what you'll find: go to the most remote part of the country and drill a well. Go on, wander out into the barren tundra of Alaska and dig a hole, then take a sample of the water you find and analyze it. Then do the same analysis on municipal water from any city in the country. There WILL be detectible levels of PCBs, PAHs, etc, in both sources. It's not something that's part of a routine analysis, but if you look for it you'll find it. You can't see it or taste it, but there are compounds which have become nothing short of ubiquitous at very low levels. Chronic exposure to such things over 20, 40, 60, 80 years, leads to serious consequences, especially cancer.

For example, look at something like the Aldrin. This stuff was used quite liberally for decades as an insecticide. Exterminator would show up and spray the crap around your house to prevent termites, farmers used it to protect crops, etc. Well it turns out the stuff's carcinogenic. It's also highly hydrophobic (oily/ waxy), meaning it doesn't wash away or evaporate into the air... it simply sits around forever. If you live in an older house then it has probably been treated with aldrin at some point. That aldrin is probably still lingering even 50 years later, exposing you to itself at very very low (but biologically significant) levels. You simply can't get rid of the stuff. Then consider that there are dozens, probably hundreds, of chemicals just like aldrin. They're everywhere. Technology has released upon the world a hoard of nefarious chemicals that don't occur in nature, and thus nature doesn't know how to deal with. In biological terms, we haven't evolved mechanisms for dealing with such things because they've never existed before.

Here's some complete speculation on my part, but it's not far-fetched at all and I think may help put things in perspective: probably a tenth of the people reading this text actually HAVE cancer right now but are asymptomatic. Cancer is primarily a chronic disease. It usually starts very very slowly. The initial event usually occurs many years, even decades, before the disease reaches a level where it is detectable. For that one out of ten, maybe you'll die from something else first, or maybe your disease will reach some critical point where your body will react to it and kill it off, or else it'll continue to develop over time to a point where it will be diagnosed and treated (sucessfully or not). That level of incidence increases with age: at 20-something it's maybe 10%, at 30 it's 30%, at 50 it's 50%, etc. It might not kill you for another 20 or 40 years, but it's there now and we just can't detect it yet. I suspect the occurance of low-level, preliminary stage cancer in the population is a lot higher than we're aware of. You could easily have a few million cancerous cells sitting in your pancreas that just kinda hang out and chill for years before deciding to multiply to an extent that'll kill you within 6 months. A huge revolutionary development would be if we could discover methods to detect cancer at those very early stages. As it is though, we usually don't detect them until a point where they're far more advanced, symptomatic, established, more difficult to treat and cure.

We (society) are both 1) mitigating other causes of death, and 2) increasing the natural rate of cancer via exposure to man-made chemicals. The combination of these two ideas is why more and more people are dieing of cancer. The trend is doomed to continue.

[johnnymk]

It appears that more and more people sre developing allergies. I wonder if many people's immune system are already compromised and overloaded from the stuff they eat and the chemicals they have been exposed to, triggering these kinds of reactions? Just a thought.

[johnnymk]

If I recall from an old post, the death rate of the time around 1900 was skewed because of the high infant mortality rate. Anyone know if this is true?

[Napoleon54]

It appears that more and more people sre developing allergies. I wonder if many people's immune system are already compromised and overloaded from the stuff they eat and the chemicals they have been exposed to, triggering these kinds of reactions? Just a thought.
Actually, I think it works the other way around. Allergy is a case of hyperactivity/ hypersensitivity rather than a deficiency. Due to modern sanitation, cleanliness, antibiotics, etc, our immune systems don't have very many challenges. They essentially get bored and, in the absence of any real threats, start reacting to benign things. Historically I think humans probably have always experienced allergies to some degree, but as you point out I think the incidence is certainly increasing.