Cancer 'is purely man-made' say scientists after finding almost no trace of disease in Egyptian mumm

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1320507/Cancer-purely-man-say-scientists-finding-trace-disease-Egyptian-mummies.html#ixzz1BbLNFCd9

Cancer 'is purely man-made' say scientists after finding almost no trace of disease in Egyptian mummies

Cancer is a man-made disease fuelled by the excesses of modern life, a study of ancient remains has found.

Tumours were rare until recent times when pollution and poor diet became issues, the review of mummies, fossils and classical literature found.

A greater understanding of its origins could lead to treatments for the disease, which claims more than 150,000 lives a year in the UK.

Michael Zimmerman, a visiting professor at Manchester University, said: 'In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases.

'The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer-causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialisation.'

To trace cancer's roots, Professor Zimmerman and colleague Rosalie David analysed possible references to the disease in classical literature and scrutinised signs in the fossil record and in mummified bodies.

Despite slivers of tissue from hundreds of Egyptian mummies being rehydrated and placed under the microscope, only one case of cancer has been confirmed.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1320507/Cancer-purely-man-say-scientists-finding-trace-disease-Egyptian-mummies.html#ixzz1BnPaWUoJ

[phantom power]

1. I think that's a pretty strong conclusion to draw from the available data.

[Odin2005]

2. Daily Mail = BS.

[Peace Patriot]

6. They are reporting on a scientific study by Manchester University professors.

It isn't Daily Mail "BS" unless you can establish that they have misrepresented the study or invented the study or invented the scientists or invented Manchester University.

All possible, I guess. But you'd have to do a bit of work to prove it.

[Odin2005]

11. Post 8 summed it up pretty well.

[defendandprotect]

62. Interesting the reluctance to see humans doing harm to nature and ourselves ... yet ...

obviously we're created Global Warming via capitalistic suicidal stupidities --

and put the planet and our ability to survive here in jeopardy.

Everywhere we look we see that capitalism has created filth and environmental problems --

destruction of species -- oceans, air, water --

but great reluctance to acknowleging it!!

amazing!

[ananda]

3. This is interesting.

I don't actually think cancer was completely nonexistent in ancient days,
but I can believe that it was much rarer than it is today.

[maritimer]

46. It's mainly a disease of old age

And many rank-and-file Egyptians did not live to be old by modern standards. 40, maybe 50 or so.

[PassingFair]

54. +1

I can't believe that they wouldn't have
factored this in, though.

So obvious.

[defendandprotect]

63. Really -- what's leukemia ? Strikes young and old -- and many youth have cancers ...!!

[SpiralHawk]

4. Cancer = consequences of a dirty planet

pump polluting shit out into the world, the world bites you right back in the ass...

Do not piss or shit in your drinking water, or add chemical crap or Genetically mutant crud to your food.

Or pay the price.

[Rex]

5. My thoughts exactly. Pump enough carcinogenic material into the world

and expect some form of anomaly.

[malaise]

17. I share that sentiment but will

look for more studies - this is interesting.

[cali]

7. oh please. the daily mail? really? for accurate scientific reporting?

[merh]

8. They cannot say that with such certainty.

To do so is hardly scientific.

What is the age of the mummies, what was the life expectancy of the people of that time?

Children who have cancer didn't get it because of their life style, did they?

How do they explain the genetic DNA mutation that occurred in an Ashkenazic Jewish community a hundred years ago which is said to be the cause of ovarian and breast cancer in many of the decedents of that community?

Was it the excesses of modern life that caused that genetic mutation? Was that mutation man-made?

I hate broad brushing anything, I especially hate it when it is found in science.

[customerserviceguy]

42. Bravo

We don't die from the things that used to routinely kill off people in ancient times, so we stick around long enough to get cancer.

[RedCloud]

48. They didn't microwave their brains with cell phone waves either.

Just telling you guys where the big investments should be: brain cancer research.

[Raksha]

55. The DNA mutation in Ashkenazi women (and I am one) doesn't actually "cause" cancer,

but it does increase the susceptibility to it. I've been lucky so far, but at almost 65...who knows?

[defendandprotect]

61. There is almost nothing that can be said with "certainty" --

but in the questions you raise re the DNA mutation is also a suggestion for cause --

and very broad brush.

Obviously, capitalistic exploitation of nature and animal life and resulting destruction

and pollution of nature and our environment should be cause for not only study but alarm!

We've created Global Warming, put many species of animals under threat -- but think we

have done no harm to ourselves? :rofl:

We are part of the very nature we are destroying -- of course we have done ourselves harm.

1 in 3 Americans now have cancer.

Obviously, damage to our immune systems which we have long known.

[TheKentuckian]

9. Between the nuclear explosions, shitty air, filthy water, and tainted crops among other things

it wouldn't be much of a stretch.

Some will say it is because many such problems didn't have time to make themselves apparent due to lower life expectancy but an awful lot of the difference is because of infant and child mortality rates being so much higher.

Odds are we are at least contributing to cancer incidents in some aspect or combination of activities.

[d_r]

10. life expectancy was shorter

back then they died of diseases of scarcity before they could get old enough to die from diseases of plenty

[former9thward]

53. That is true but would not apply to mummies.

People who were mummified were in the ruling sector and had plenty. Most of the mummies I saw at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo were in the age range of 60-70 years.

[d_r]

79. agree

I thought about that, then my mind wondered to thinking about how accurate they could be in trying to find cancer in a mummy. Then my mind wondered to something else.

[mainer]

86. Even the middle-class got mummified -- just worse job of it

There were millions of mummies. Unfortunately, many ended up as curios in Victorian homes and were destroyed, ground up as fertilizer or used as fuel in trains. So it's not just the ruling sector. The ones you see in the Cairo museum are mainly the high-born ones because those are the ones the public wants to view.

[Cerridwen]

12. K & R and some more messengers to be killed rather than addressing

the message.

Univ. of Manchester's link to report: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=6243

Nature Reviews: http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v10/n10/full/nrc2914.html

PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=search&term=Michael%20R.%20Zimmerman

Live Science: http://www.livescience.com/health/cancer-man-made-disease-breast-cancer-101015.html

About one of the authors from Villanova Univ.: http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/biology/facstaff.htm?mail=[e-mail]

I'll let everyone else look for other messengers to kill.

Perhaps we could now return to the topic at hand?

[Kurovski]

23. +1

you do good work.

[Cerridwen]

24. Thank you.

I do try. :)

[defendandprotect]

64. +1 --

Almost humorous to watch the desire to "Run away! Run Away" --

Sadly humorous!

[notadmblnd]

13. maybe people jut didn't live long enough back then to get cancer

how old were the mummies when they died?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

83. Children's cancer wards seem to disagree with this premise. n/t

[LeftishBrit]

97. In the past many children died before the age of one

Which is earlier than the time when cancer usually develops even in children.

And there were no cancer wards for children because there was no specialized treatment for the disease. Children with cancer died rapidly. Now, three-quarters are cured.

I don't deny that environment influences the risk of cancer; just that it is PURELY man-made - or PURELY anything.

[JCMach1]

14. Maybe the reporters should read the report...

...Although I guess there is some truth to what the authors are saying, they do not discuss several alternative explanations for the rarity of cancer in young people in ancient times, such as:
- Abnormal morphology might lead to burning of bodies
- The industrial revolution coincides fairly well with large improvements in medical knowledge and technology; this would cause many people with for example a relatively weak immune system to survive beyond birth/childhood diseases. The link between cancer and the immune system has been studied extensively in recent years in hopes of developing new ways of treating, or even preventing, cancer (see for example Immunity to stemness genes in human cancer. (Curr Opin Immunol 2010)

I'm sure these suggestions are far from comprehensive, but it's all I can think of at the moment. I think it's sufficient to say the conclusions of the Rosalie David & Zimmerman paper as presented in the media go a bit too far.

The actual conclusion presented has a bit more nuance than you'd think from the news reports though:

Rosalie David & Zimmerman wrote:
Conclusion

It is hoped that research in palaeopathology will contribute to the elucidation of the pathogenesis of cancer. The publication of the first histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy is one step along the way. Despite the fact that other explanations, such as inadequate techniques of disease diagnosis, cannot be ruled out, the rarity of malignancies in antiquity is strongly suggested by the available palaeopathological and literary evidence. This might be related to the prevalence of carcinogens in modern societies... http://www.rationalskepticism.org/biology/cancer-is-probably-man-made-caused-by-pollution-and-diet-t14401.html

[MineralMan]

15. Too small a sample.

Drawing conclusions like those from such a limited data set is a serious error. Too many variables and not enough data.

Cancer is more a disease of older humans (with some exceptions, of course). That's the first thing I'd consider. What were the ages of the sampled mummies? How many mummies were thoroughly examined? What percentage of the population of the time do they represent?

I find this sort of speculation to be non-scientific in the extreme.

[DavidDvorkin]

16. That's why there's no such thing as skin cancer due to sun exposure

Oh, wait. There is.

[defendandprotect]

65. Well, it's more like skin radiation now ....rather than sunshine --

[DavidDvorkin]

81. Huh? No, it's a result of sun exposure.

[defendandprotect]

82. Ozone layer acts as our planet's sunscreen .... Ozone Hole = Cancer

Ozone Depletion | Ozone Hole | Skin Cancer
Navigate. Health Effects of Ozone Depletion: Skin Cancer. Introduction. Ozone's unique physical properties allow the ozone layer to act as our planet's sunscreen, providing an ...
www.ozone-hole.org.uk/11.php - Cached

Stratospheric ozone and skin cancer
A springtime ozone hole of the magnitude detected over Antarctica does not exist ... This would explain a 20-40% rise in skin cancer in the human population since the ...
www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap02/skin.html - Cached


Australian Skin Cancer Slip! Slop! Slap!
Australian Skin Cancer A ustralians suffer the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. Each year, around 1,200 Australians die from what is an almost totally ...
www.theozonehole.com/australianskincancer.htm - Cached

[Codeine]

88. No ozone hole over the US,

but people still get skin cancer.

[DavidDvorkin]

99. Oh, that's what you meant. However

that doesn't apply to the US. And skin cancer isn't a recent phenomenon.

[Taverner]

18. Poor Diet???? Trust me, we eat better now than the average person ate 1000 years ago

They ate what they could get, which would often be rotting vegetables, and beer (liquid bread.) MAYBE they might eat a fish or a ground squirrel. If they ate beef, it was often a one time thing.

[Voice for Peace]

25. not necessarily so

because of all the food processing & additives, (not to mention gm, or other environmental pollutants)
our bodies are trying to deal with stuff we haven't evolved to deal with.

at least a person could survive on whole natural foods even if sparse or fermenting - if clean water and air were available. And there was much more of that back then.

But all this other manufactured stuff... over time = many cancers (imo. It seems like common sense.)

[Taverner]

40. Giardia was common in most "fresh water" sources

Food spoiled often, this is how marinades and sauces came about - ways to cover up the rotten taste

While it is true that processed foods have many unhealthy ingredients, the average human circa 1000 CE had quite a few parasites in his stomach, as well as several bacterial infections.

The tradeoff I guess is chemical soup vs bacterial soup

[Voice for Peace]

58. I'm more comfortable with the bacteria soup I think

at least my immune system has a fighting chance with bacteria.. with the chemicals, it's like throwing a monkey wrench into the gears.

[Taverner]

104. Yes - but that's with the aid of Antibiotics

When we discovered penicillin, we single handedly raised the life expectancy about 20 years.

[defendandprotect]

66. They had naturally grown grains/vegetables/fruits -- far better than what we have now ...

because we throw pesticides and chemicals into our soil and destroy the

nutrition of plants!

[Taverner]

109. While you may be against GMOs

And there are many plausable theories that suggest they are dangerous, but lets just say there's no danger -

These GMO foods grow big and full of flavor and nutrients.

Granted, you're talking to someone who has never bought the GMO scare. I just fucking hate Monsanto's business tactics. Cross pollinating with non-Monsanto plants is neither Monsanto's product - it is the farmer's product.

[Taverner]

110. Having said all that...

I only eat Natural meat, with plans to go Veg someday (ethically, the vegetarians are right. personally, I love meat - so it will take some time and money.) I usually buy organic crops, not because of the lack of GMOs, but the antibiotics. Same goes for meat - no antibiotics, no 'downer' cows.

And yet, I still will eat fast food. Life requires certain things. And if you compare Monsanto v McDonalds, Monsanto is by FAR the more evil company. Keep in mind, however, that the X-Level staff at McDonalds Corporate will not eat the company's food. They cater their meals from anywhere BUT McDonalds. Bet you didn't know THAT.

But sometimes, you are in a pinch, and shit, fits the need. It is a taste treat, not a meal. Like Ice Cream, Candy Bars, Fudge or some combination of all three (yummmm)

Treat their food on that level and you understand McDonald's or any fast food place's appeal.

[defendandprotect]

114. VEGAN here -- highly recommend it for personal health and planet health -- !!

What usually gives fast food "taste" is added salt, sugar and

artificial chemicals!

Protect the planet -- eat vegetables!

[defendandprotect]

113. Why wouldn't everyone be against GMO's ... though I didn't mention them ... YOU did ...

What I was talking about was the long term use of pesticides and chemicals on

our soil as "fertilizers" -- which destroys the nutrional value of foods/plants.



Of course GMO's are dangerous in every way possible! Who wouldn't get that?

"Let's just say there's no danger" -- ?

Why would we do anything that dumb?

They "grow big and full of flavor and nutrients" ... ?

:rofl:

[Taverner]

115. OK - show me the proven danger in GMOs

Now there have been specific GMOs, like one of Monsanto's Corn Varieties, that is toxic for humans. But its not sold for human consumption - its animal feed.

GMOs are a hell of a lot safer than stuff packed with chemicals and Hormones.

[defendandprotect]

116. That's a bit upside down... let Monsanto PROVE the safety of this garbage ...

WAR BY MONSANTO -- FOOD BY MONSANTO -- !!

MONDANTO'S FDA -- !!

[sakabatou]

19. BULLSHIT!

Way too small a sample size to come to that conclusion anyway.

[SidDithers]

20. Daily Mail unrec...nt

Sid

[On the Road]

21. Wait, Now,

"Cancer is a man-made disease fuelled by the excesses of modern life, a study of ancient remains has found."

How did that one ancient Egyptian get cancer, then?

[MattBaggins]

59. Time traveler probably

[DesertFlower]

22. interesting. i'm 69. when i was

young we rarely heard of anyone having cancer. all our food was fresh. i remember my grandmother bringing home a fresh chicken. she'd put it in the kitchen sink to clean off the remaining blood and feathers. all our vegetables were fresh -- not canned. we ate meat, but the animals were not injected with hormones and antibiotics.

our milk was fresh. you couldn't keep it for more than 2 days or it would spoil. same with bread.

[Silent3]

30. When you were young...

...all you probably ever heard was people died of "old age", without any real details of the specific causes of death.

Even setting aside the cartoonishly overblown Daily Mail interpretation of the study in question, that study was of ancient Egyptian mummies, not people in America 69 years ago. Cancer aplenty was found in the US populace well before thre was anything besides "all natural" food to eat, well before modern pollutants entered the air and water.

[DesertFlower]

34. my maternal grandmother lived till age 77, but

my paternal grandmother lived well into her 90s.

[cbc5g]

31. Raw milk doesn't spoil, it ferments into a strong probiotic

You can technically leave it out for months and it won't go bad because the good bacteria inside destroy any and all bad ones.

So I must assume you got pasteurized, same as whats available today

[DesertFlower]

35. we didn't know about probiotics back then.

if it smelled bad it got thrown out.

[MattBaggins]

60. Pasteur is rolling in his grave

[trotsky]

118. You read the scariest things on DU sometimes.

Frightening, ain't it?

[defendandprotect]

67. So true --

[distantearlywarning]

26. Statistically, cancer is a disease of the old.

Life expectancy was much shorter then.

[Dogmudgeon]

27. An hypothesis, at best

I'd also like to see the original paper. I don't trust The Daily Mail to get any scientific news right.

--d!

[SheilaT]

28. No more than a month ago I read

an article which looked at several hundred bodies (maybe more, I can't recall the details)from I-wish-I-could-remember-how-long-ago in which the incidence of cancer (or indications of evidence of cancer), once corrected for the much higher infant, child, and youth mortality, was essentially identical to the modern incidence of cancer. It also pointed out that cancer death probably won't show up at all if all you have to look at are skeletons.

So I would take this conclusion with a very large grain of salt. So many people died so much younger from so many things, and most Cancer is a disease that comes from living long enough to get it, that to conclude it's a purely modern construct doesn't impress me.

[Silent3]

29. Gotta love such nuanced reporting!

It's not the study itself at fault, it's the stupidly over-simplistic and exaggerated reporting of the story that's the problem.

Purely man-made? Purely? There are probably good reasons to suspect that some man-made aspects have increased our risks of cancer, but to conclude from any of this that the entire epidemiological phenomenon of cancer is man-made, purely man made, is Onion-worthy hyperbole, but without the sense of humor.

At any rate, give me the choice between average health and life span and quality of life in 2011, carcinogens and all, and average non-Pharaoh living conditions in ancient Egypt, I'll gladly and enthusiastically take 2011, thank you very much.

[cbc5g]

32. Environmental toxin load is higher

Many people then lived as long as those today..difference is that a lot died early from disease or war or during childbirth. That skewed the mean life expectancy so you would think people only lived to like 40, but it's not true.

We eat all day, our environment is full of toxins, we don't get much fresh air, we sit all day. People then went through periods of fasting with no food available which sends the body into a toxin removing, healing stage since it diverts energy from what would be digestion (hence why we don't want to eat when we're sick..to lower core body temp and divert energy to healing..its a natural process). People now eat all day so the bodies anti-toxin defense is never really fully optimised.

We get GMO foods, processed foods..chemicalized air, radiation, pollution ..toxic meat, veggies, fruits

We have a government that tells us GMO is safe, corexit, oil infused seafood is safe, antibiotic and steroid meat is safe, we have a toxic government

It's a nightmare and what I'm surprised at is why everyone in this system isn't getting cancer.

[CanSocDem]

77. Indeed.

Sounds like "cancer" is there for whoever wants it.

.

[Botany]

33. pure b.s. cancer is a replication error in cell division and has many causes

very hard to find old human tissue to look @ cells for cancer ..... in many cases in "the olden times"
people died very young from many other things and did not live long enough to develop cancers
because the older you are the more times your cells have divided and the more chances you have
for a replication error aka cancer

[defendandprotect]

69. No - Everyone has thousands of cancer cells floating thru their body --

the problem is with our immunse systems and the damage we are doing to

ourselves by allowing capitalism's/MIC pollution of the enviornment --


Look at what we've done to fertility -- you think people are spending thousands

of dollars trying to get pregnant because they're healthy?

Where's the male sperm count now? Can't fix that, then work on women and collect

sperm until you have enough activity to inject it!

1 in 3 Americans now have cancer -- and that should be alarming to anyone who knows it!!

[hobbit709]

36. Look up the origin of the word: cancer.

there's plenty evidence of cancer in historical and ancient times.

Hippocrates wrote about it and gave us the words cancer and carcinoma.

[defendandprotect]

70. When you know the statistics now are 1 in 3 Americans have cancer ....

and when we know that most families even 50 years ago had no one afflicted

with cancer, it's alarming!! And should be --

Look at the huge rise in skin cancer from sun radiation -- ozone hole depletion --

[fascisthunter]

37. well, many around me suspected such a thing

[madrchsod]

38. a simple google search debunks this....

http://www.cancerquest.org/cancer-timeline-introduction

[hobbit709]

39. Now don't throw facts at the preconceived notions of some people.

:rofl:

[LeftishBrit]

41. Firstly, these researchers are Egyptologists.

I.e. they are experts on mummies, not medicine.

Secondly, this is the Daily Mail, which sensationalizes everything. In particular, they are known for their tendency to divide the world into objects that cause cancer and those that cure it.

It is true that ancient Egyptians didn't smoke and were not exposed to pollution from heavy industry; so there were indeed fewer risk factors for certain forms of cancer. But it's a rash assumption to make that 'cancer is purely man-made'. Most people in ancient times died of other things before the age when cancer becomes common.

Paleontologists have found fossils of dinosaurs with cancer.

[Kurovski]

45. Now wait a minute here...

dinosaurs didn't pray to Jesus, so OF COURSE they came down with cancer.

[Capitalocracy]

49. Dinosaurs with cancer?

Wow, those cancers must have been, like, 5000 years old!

[Kurovski]

50. Way old, Right?

Like, totally the oldest thing on earth!

[Capitalocracy]

51. They must've done something real bad to piss off God so much

that He gave them cancer and turned them into rocks!

[Kurovski]

52. He turned them into oil so more prayer-ful folk could relish in their sinful defeat!

Ye-haw, sinner stegosaurus! Who's the fuckin' king o beasts now, ya big barrel of hemmi juice!!

[siligut]

87. The comic relief in the cancer thread

Thanks

[Kurovski]

98. People with cancer laugh too.

I don't know how amused thousands years-old mummies are by it, but I personally know that live people with cancer laugh too.

But you know that, right? It's hard to tell without punctuation.

[siligut]

100. I was thoroughly enjoying the repartee

Laughter is the best medicine. I know I should have been more clear, this is GD after all.

[Kurovski]

101. It's hard to communicate through conversational writing.

Point taken on the GD thing.

[Kurovski]

102. Haven't we discussed your dancing bunny before?

I seem to remember going apeshit over it years ago.

[siligut]

105. Again, in the cancer thread . . .

LOL. I was just wondering if my butt shaking bunny detracted from my credibility. However, I stole it from someone here, so it probably wasn't me to whom you spoke years ago.

[Kurovski]

106. Shimmy bunnys are the very arbiters of credibility.

They are the go-to credential everyone needs in these confusing, contentious times. :hi:

[kickysnana]

43. Did they check to see if cancers were excised before mummification?

If you are sending someone to the great beyond it would be a good thing to get rid of the tumors first and perhaps they did.

[populistdriven]

44. died before age of 50 and cancer strikes after 50

[Capitalocracy]

47. Here's the deal with this study

I've seen this before, maybe it's a slow news day that it's popping up now, but this is what the scientists said about it.

A huge part of the reason cancer was so uncommon is because of the shorter life expectancy. But even so, the numbers indicate, as one may expect, that pollution or other environmental factors lead to more cancer today. So in this case, it's one of those where you're both right.

[Odin2005]

56. Pre-modern people were also surrounds by loads of carcinogens...

...just not the same ones as today. Wood smoke, various mental byproducts emitted by blacksmiths and goldsmiths, and a hole load of other things.

[applegrove]

57. Our manmade chemicals and general **** wears down the DNA in our cells.

And then they go crazy replicating themselves.

[defendandprotect]

71. +1000% --

[LoZoccolo]

68. They've found bone cancer in dinosaur skeletons.

It's not surprising that we may be exposed to more carcinogens, but to be absolute about it and say it is completely man-made seems to be overreaching.

[defendandprotect]

72. The camcer/environment link is obvious -- it's the denial that's weird -- !!

[LeftishBrit]

94. No one is denying a cancer-environment link. What is being denied is that cancer is PURELY a man-

made phenomenon.

(a) Environment plays a significant part in cancer, but genetic and random factors are also involved.

(b) Not all environmental factors are man-made: e.g. the sun (known to be implicated in skin cancer especially in pale people)! And naturally occurring radiation in the environment.

By all means, people should avoid smoking, drink alcohol only in moderation, reduce environmental pollution, use sunscreen especially if they're pale, and reduce consumption of highly processed food. Then the risk of cancer will be reduced. But there will always be some risk.

[defendandprotect]

112. It's not "who creates a cancer cell" -- it is why are our immune systems no

longer protecting us from these cancerous cells?

Environmenal concerns are vast enough to be destroying the planet and animal

live -- and even our own bodies -- i.e., huge drop in sperm count in males over

decades! You think all of that is happening but we haven't destroyed our

immune systems?! The war on nature by patriarchy -- and our suicidal system

of capitalism which exploits nature for profit -- have created this destruction.

Genetics? Soon they'll be telling you that they've found a genetic link to poverty!

Will you believe them?!


Skin cancer "not man-made" -- ??!!! Try some googling --

Ozone layer has been seriously harmed by man-made destruction. We are rarely even

now given appropriate information/updates on that level of absolute destruction

which has called the HOLES -- however, there has to be destruction of OVER 50%

before the ozone layer is considered damaged!!! -- In other words, much more of the

ozone layer is damaged -- just not to the point of having been disappeared as yet!


Cancer is not being reduced by any means -- we are now up to 1 in 3 Americans suffering

from cancer - and it's still rising!

Populations under stress, drink and smoke more -- and America with 50 million w/o

health care is under stress. And, another 22 million+ unemployed and long term unemployed!


By all means, Americans need to turn up the BS meters -- turn them waaaay up!!

[trotsky]

119. Our immune systems have never been perfect.

I don't understand where this Pollyanna view of human biology has come from. Cancer has surely been with us since shortly after the first cells arose from the muck.

[Spider Jerusalem]

73. Nonsense.

One of the main arguments for cancer being an affliction of modernisation was the apparent lack of evidence for "common" bone cancers in children. But again, the figures don't bear this out. "It's true it's a relatively common cancer, but even still it only affects 1 in 10,000 children," Schüz says. "So even if you have 10,000 childhood mummies, you'd be lucky to find one."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19591-briefing-cancer-is-not-a-disease-of-the-modern-world.html

[SidDithers]

103. K&R for this post...nt

Sid

[tavalon]

74. Another one for the Duh file.

Of course, it isn't as simple as we made plastic and it's killing us, though there is something to that. It's that we are living well past reproduction age and there is no reason for us to still be hanging out so the cell synthesis gets tired and messes up and environmental things get in and well, garbage in = garbage out.

[JoeyT]

75. "Poor Understanding of Science Leads Reporters to Nonsensical Conclusions" would be a more accurate.

We've got transmissible tumors (CVT) in the canine population that look to have diverged about 6000 years ago. That kind of thing takes an awful lot of tries to evolve. How many transmissible human tumors have you ever heard of? Avicenna (980-1037) described and treated cancer. One of the earliest recorded surgeries for cancer was Ibn al-Haytham about a thousand years ago. Hippocrates described a few human cancers too. They weren't all that uncommon.

Given the size of a tumor and how quickly someone would likely have died, if even by accidental overdose or suicide due to pain, what do you think the chances are of landing on a tumor vs healthy tissue would be in a sliver? Especially since Egyptian mummies were generally stripped of all the parts that cancer tends to spread to when it metastasizes. As people have pointed out, age would have been a factor as well. Ignore the "OMFG brittle bones and hardened arteries." misdirection. There are many ways to get a good idea how old a corpse was when it died, and if those ways backed their conclusion up they'd have mentioned them. Brittle bones and hardened arteries could just as easily have been a genetic or nutrition problem, given that we're talking about nobility that married their brothers and sisters for generations or commoners that would be subject to malnutrition.

It's actually debatable whether we're exposed to more carcinogens than people in ancient times or not. Remember that these were people that, for the most part, knew *nothing* of biology. Mercury and arsenic were medicine and drinking the water from a blacksmith was a cure for pregnancy in many places. All cooking was done over fires on whatever (often impure) metal was handy with whatever fuel was around to burn. Given our (admittedly limited) understanding of how and why tumors form, it's entirely possible that if there is an increase in cancer rates, it's a strictly natural phenomenon.

There are WAY too many assumptions in this article, even by the scientists. I'm guessing someone either heard their funding was going to get cut or they're angling for more funding. A more accurate headline, which wouldn't have generated any controversy would have been "Cancer Possibly Less Common in Ancient Times". Of course controversy = attention, so that would be entirely beyond the capabilities of the Daily Fail.

[DCBob]

80. +1

well said.

[Orrex]

76. 'Snow is purely man-made' say scientists after finding almost no trace of it in Egypt's mummies

Via the same reasoning, these learned scientists also identified pregnancy, walruses, and feldspar as "purely man-made."

[Gator_Matt]

90. lmao! Exactly.

This is a flawed study.

[Richard Steele]

91. I always thought that feldspar had something fishy about it!

:rofl:

[Ediacara]

78. This is bull

Cancer is found in almost all vertebrates, and is documented in fossil bones from animals that lived and died tens of millions of years ago. If there are no tumors in mummies, the likely cause is the extremely short life-span of humans living in a time before medicine.

[Cleita]

85. Exactly, especially since the life span of the average

human back two or three thousand years ago was between 25 and 45 years of age depending on how advanced their society was.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

84. Perhaps a walk through a children's cancer ward would quiet some of the

kerfluffle seen in here.

[LeftishBrit]

92. I have sadly known several children with cancer.

Those who were my contemporaries mostly died. Those whom I have known as an adult survived- reflecting a considerable increase in the cure rate over the last 40 years or so.

But the existence and seriousness of cancer does not make it a 'purely man made disease'. It especially does *not* as the Daily Mail suggests make it a result of the 'excesses of modern life' - as though it's all due to people's sinful self-indulgence. Pollution and certain infections are more likely to be the environmental factors that increase the risk of cancer. Especially with regard to children who have little opportunity to engage in 'excesses'.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

93. Children born with cancer are not responsible for condition, neither are the

parents for the most part. Today humans contain over 400 measurable chemicals in their blood that no one had prior to WWII.

[trotsky]

117. But that's the M.O. of today's alt-medders.

Blame the sufferer for his/her disease. Either they did something to bring it upon themselves, or they DIDN'T do something (like thinking positive, gosh golly!), which brought it upon themselves. Blame the sufferer. Such a sick, twisted philosophy.

[Codeine]

89. That is the stupidest fucking conclusion I've ever seen drawn anywhere. nt

[PBS Poll-435]

95. Elephants did not have Erectile Dysfunction Until McDonald's

See I can make shit up too!

[Codeine]

96. LMAO!

:rofl: Excellent!

[Lucian]

107. I'll believe this if it's published somewhere else other than the Daily Mail.

[NNN0LHI]

108. Couldn't it have just as much to do with natural evolution as anything else?

[trud]

111. no time to read

but there was an article in the NYTimes recently that said work like that had been done and found the same incidence historically as now, pretty much.