Professors Michael Zimmerman and Rosalie David in England have an intriguing suggestion in their recent study of mummies: cancer may be a largely man-made disease. The study found no evidence of the disease in ancient corpses — leading to the theory that cancer may be the result of diet, pollution, and other man-made causes such as early use of snuff.
The researchers examined tissue from hundreds of Egyptian mummies and found only one case with cancer traces. Likewise, an earlier study of thousands of Neanderthal bones produced only one sample with possible cancer traces.
Some of the first published accounts of cancerous growths have been linked directly to such man-made causes as the use of snuff.
Such accounts largely occurred in the last 200 years with early accounts of nasal cancer (from snuff) and scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps — both in the eighteenth century.
Source: Daily Mail
General public health can be measured through actuarial statistics. The population is healthier longer than earlier generations. More than medical intervention, this is probably mostly due to better understanding of basic hygiene and the availability of plentiful clean water.
Cancer and heart disease are what happens when you don’t die of smallpox or measles or typhus or cholera or tuberculosis or any number of other former killer epidemic diseases that have been tamed by immunization and improved sanitation. You have to die of something, eventually, and so the few remaining killers loom larger in our statistics than before. But even then, we can now often live longer and better lives after a cancer diagnosis than we did without modern medicine.
HenMan
i’ve noticed that too. some of the “ask you doctor about” medications have side effects that far outweigh the original problem.
but look around most doctors office’s. It’s like being at a NASCAR race.
PatricParamedic–Not too long ago there was a frequently run TV commercial for a prescription acne medication. I didn’t pay close attention to it, so it took me a while to realize that one of the side effects the narrator was rattling off was tuberculosis. Let me think- bad complection or bad lungs. Hmmm, I guess I’ll keep the acne, Doc.
PatricP,
I am disturbed a little by your post, and I would like to offer another perspective for balance. Your post addressed many issues and I’m going to try to address them without writing a book as a blogpost.
“By overtreating ourselves on such a monstrous scale, we create diseases that have never existed, which in turn – wonder of wonders – “require” more and still more “drug cures.” We have allowed out of control health care to morph into its own nasty, rapacious life-form called “disease care.” And Lord help us all.”
The issue I have is that this mindset implies that we shouldn’t treat for diseases to begin with, or at least not for the subsequently evolved diseases. I couldn’t disagree more. Any argument against human intervention in disease control and elimination should be met with persistant opposition. Because apart from improved sanitizing practices and access to foods, advancement in medicine is the leading cause for increased measurable quality of life to date. The evidence for this lies plainly in our extended lifespans and lowered infant mortality rates.
“In the world of economics, this little matter is called The Law of Diminishing Returns – foolish efforts generating unwanted results.”
This implies something that is plainly false. The goal of medicine is and always will be for longevity of life, increased quality of life, and decreased mortality, all of which are measurably improved by advances in medicine.
“Pop these . . . and these . . . and by the way, your whole family needs a flu shot EVERY YEAR. (think your child really needs 120 injections in his lifetime?)”
No, almost certainly not. However, if he only needs 10, then which 10 did he need? You get him the other 110 because as a responsible parent you ensure the protection of your child.
“46,000 Americans died last year because they did not have access to health care – (Harvard study, 2009)
198,000 Americans died last year, as a result health care gone awry.(Also a Harvard study, 2005)”
Maybe Harvard is right, but do you really think that if you reformed healthcare to stop giving the healthcare to the 198,000 that died due to “health care gone awry” that there would only be 244,000 (46,000+198,000) that died because they didn’t have access to healthcare? No, the number would likely be far greater than the simple addition of the two, because in denying healthcare to people because some aspect of the care is dangerous then you will be depriving many more of healthcare that would save their lives.
“Our disease catering programs are a leading cause of unwarranted death, and THE leading cause of loss of both national & individual treasure.”
You can believe that only until it is taken away.
PatricP: Excellent post. Thoughtful, thought-provoking, and sobering. We’re a sorry lot, aren’t we…
At some point in the data mining of our grand, human lab-rat experiment, I suspect we’ll reach an irrefutable conclusion: that drugging entire populations – from birth to deathbed – with every seasonal vaccine known to man, fashions it’s own monsters via immune system supression, and abject loss of societal wealth & wealth.
By overtreating ourselves on such a monstrous scale, we create diseases that have never existed, which in turn – wonder of wonders – “require” more and still more “drug cures.” We have allowed out of control health care to morph into its own nasty, rapacious life-form called “disease care.” And Lord help us all.
In the world of economics, this little matter is called The Law of Diminishing Returns – foolish efforts generating unwanted results.
Anyone with the vaguest understanding of human psychology recognizes the transparancy of pharmaceutical TV advertizing: Expose the product; Create the sizzle; generate the want; underscore the need. We do it cell phones & breat implants, we do with music & makeup. From the standpoint of our legal drug cartels, incessant medication commericials are bowling for dollars. What could possibly be more lucrative than convincing Americans’ they are so sick on so many levels that they now require more drugs than their grandparents ever did.
Pop these . . . and these . . . and by the way, your whole family needs a flu shot EVERY YEAR. (think your child really needs 120 injections in his lifetime?)
There is no more pathetic statement to be made in assessing this “tail wagging the dog” idiocy, that the following fact:
46,000 Americans died last year because they did not have access to health care – (Harvard study, 2009)
198,000 Americans died last year, as a result health care gone awry.(Also a Harvard study, 2005)
That’s 500+ citizens dying every day of the week, who THOUGHT they’d be having dinner tonight.
Our disease catering programs are a leading cause of unwarranted death, and THE leading cause of loss of both national & individual treasure.
Buddha:
definitely the lab rats, you must have see The Secret of NIHM to be able to have connected the dots.
Buddha, Perfect summation. (You seem to have this way of getting to the heart of the matter.)
I’m voting for lab rats as a contending cause.
Oh. And the general mismatch of mutagenic chemicals we’ve released into the environment since the advent of the industrial age without any idea of their long range effects.
And simple genetic predisposition.
And the above noted life expectancy discrepancies.
And a limited sample space from ancient history.
But the rats. They’re in on it.
The causation isn’t as critical as finding a mechanism for checking uncontrolled cell division in searching for a cure. Causation would have more impact on prevention.
anon nurse,
Thanks to you and Josh for your comments … it helps to have additional information when looking at an article like this which is so far outside my area of knowledge
That was back when people did not realize that the Supreme Court is sovereign over environmental law. In their ignorance they thought natural law trumped the law of legislators. Now, with the advent of the plantation mentality, we know enough to have enough cancer for everyone.
http://ecocosmology.blogspot.com/2010/10/pricing-priceless-at-plantation.html
Well, Josh, you beat me to the punch. Grabbed another cup of coffee and finished my comment. The old “early bird” :-)…
The original article is interesting. (Thanks for posting this story.)
While I don’t dispute the conclusions of the researchers, I was curious about the age of the mummies at death, knowing that it was probably a fairly low number. I remember hearing a prominent cancer researcher on NPR several years ago who said (and I’m paraphrasing), “If one lives long enough and if there isn’t some other cause of death, cancer is a foregone
conclusion — everyone will get it at some point.”
So, we need to look at cancer that occurs at or below the age of 50 — I’m guessing that this is addressed in the original article, in greater detail than in the following quotation:
(begin quote)
Is there anything else wrong with the study?
Almost all the mummies and skeletons were of people who died before the age of 50. “Ageing is one of the major causes of cancer,” says Schüz. He dismissed as “weak” the authors’ argument that they could find evidence for other diseases of ageing, such as arthritis and hardening of the arteries, and that cancer should therefore have shown up too. “In men today, 90 per cent of cancers occur after 50,” he says. “So if you examined the bodies of 1000 modern men who died before 50, you wouldn’t find many cancers either.”
(end quote)
Lost in this discussion is the fact that we live much longer now. Of course it is important to note that we are exposed to more known carcinogens today, but I think it would be equally true that if you only looked at the population aged within the average lifespan of centuries past, you would see a significant drop in cancer percentage as well. So, since neanderthals may have lived to be 40 on average, if you looked at the population under 40 today you’d find that the cancer rates drop drastically from the cancer rates vs the entire population.
As a child coming up I could always remember seeing fresh vegetables stores and poultry markets everywhere.
And as I think about it now people who passed away at that time I never heard the word cancer being a cause of death.
I cannot disagree with the study…I do remember a few years ago when Willies Farm aide came out…to save the American Farmer…that the Mid-West had the lowest rates of cancer anywhere in the US…then it like tripled in 2 years and exceed the National Average….I believed it to be stress related….
Then a couple of months ago on the History Channel…in Kuwait…pre-gulf war about 8% per 1,000 people had cancer….then the gulf war….oops…went up to sometime like 25-30% per 1,000….when Saddam was forced out the city was torched gas wells and all….all that wonderful stuff in the air…
I recently was in the “farm land” of America…I noticed all of these gas wells and of course the related burn offs….Some areas in Texas the water is filtered and some of it is still unfit to drink…after the mud is repacked about the well bits….the kids in these areas have higher rates of defects and cancer…. Gas and Oil burn off in these areas too…the premise is it is toxin related….and the water is becoming unfit to drink as well….
The modern high rate cancer is probably nature’s way of dealing with overcrowding and the stress and pollution that comes with it.
The New Scientist has taken the unusual step of issuing a briefing on this paper, owing to the amount of uncritical press coverage it has received.
Briefing: Cancer is not a disease of the modern world
http://preview.tinyurl.com/is-cancer-modern