Great article Eric. Thanks for giving us this information. As someone from a family that is extremely cancer prone (sisters, both parents, uncle's, me) it was a must-read. Restacking to Notes!
How much of this do you think will require a significant overall to our current health care system that was built on diagnosing and treating acute illnesses? There is no incentive (and in fact a financial disincentive) for prevention and early detection. There are also minimal individual incentives for prevention and screening (i.e. no break on health insurance premiums especially in employer and government provided plans).
Tina Marsh-Dillon is doing an excellent series on this in Word to the Whys.
Great question, not sure I have a definitive answer. We definitely need to shift the financial model from heroic acute care (that is sometimes futile) to more chronic disease and prevention, at least in the developed world. I am a little surprised that we haven't just opened up the floodgates to anyone gets a screening if they want it because many specialties are primarily compensated based on number of procedures performed. I know there have been shifting recommendations for breast and cervical cancer screening, and people are always talking about the risk of harms for excess screening; what does the data show for cost/benefit in colonoscopy? I would have to imagine it is more favorable than say mammograms, where many false positives can result in invasive biopsies, rather than removing an internal polyp you can't see or feel. I suppose there have to be some risks to a colonoscopy, but they are really quite safe.
Fascinating! I love cancer pathology too. My postdoc explored non genotoxic carcinogenesis induced by unleaded gas fumes. Carc modes of action are so interesting.
There are so, so many factors at play, from mutations the cancer cell acquires to how it interacts with local tissues and blood vessels to the immune system. It really is head spinning! I knew I had found the right niche when I was reading through the famous "Hallmarks of Cancer" review papers in Cell and found them as thrilling as a novel 🤓
Cool! My research was ages ago, in the 1980s...i moved on to regulatory toxicology so a different domain but still with carc questions that could come up (and they often did).
I'm glad more light is being shone on this extremely troubling trend. Thank you.
Pollution, obesity, microbiome, ultra-processed foods, viruses, Covid immune dysregulation, micro/nanoplastics... it's a storm out there. Diagnosed a 35 yo with triple negative breast ca and a 48 yo with metastatic lymphoma in the past two months. I still consider both of them young, and it's devastating. They fight on.
Wow, that is so scary, and sad 😔 I agree that there are so many contributing factors it seems almost impossible to disentangle them all. Given how little we have control of our environment, it seems like all we can do is the common sense stuff we (hopefully) learned as kids: eat healthy, exercise, get enough sleep, minimize alcohol and vices, stay active mentally and with a community, and definitely don't smoke
Great article Eric. Thanks for giving us this information. As someone from a family that is extremely cancer prone (sisters, both parents, uncle's, me) it was a must-read. Restacking to Notes!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed!
Thank you for the shoutout, Eric.
How much of this do you think will require a significant overall to our current health care system that was built on diagnosing and treating acute illnesses? There is no incentive (and in fact a financial disincentive) for prevention and early detection. There are also minimal individual incentives for prevention and screening (i.e. no break on health insurance premiums especially in employer and government provided plans).
Tina Marsh-Dillon is doing an excellent series on this in Word to the Whys.
Great question, not sure I have a definitive answer. We definitely need to shift the financial model from heroic acute care (that is sometimes futile) to more chronic disease and prevention, at least in the developed world. I am a little surprised that we haven't just opened up the floodgates to anyone gets a screening if they want it because many specialties are primarily compensated based on number of procedures performed. I know there have been shifting recommendations for breast and cervical cancer screening, and people are always talking about the risk of harms for excess screening; what does the data show for cost/benefit in colonoscopy? I would have to imagine it is more favorable than say mammograms, where many false positives can result in invasive biopsies, rather than removing an internal polyp you can't see or feel. I suppose there have to be some risks to a colonoscopy, but they are really quite safe.
Fascinating! I love cancer pathology too. My postdoc explored non genotoxic carcinogenesis induced by unleaded gas fumes. Carc modes of action are so interesting.
There are so, so many factors at play, from mutations the cancer cell acquires to how it interacts with local tissues and blood vessels to the immune system. It really is head spinning! I knew I had found the right niche when I was reading through the famous "Hallmarks of Cancer" review papers in Cell and found them as thrilling as a novel 🤓
Cool! My research was ages ago, in the 1980s...i moved on to regulatory toxicology so a different domain but still with carc questions that could come up (and they often did).
I'm glad more light is being shone on this extremely troubling trend. Thank you.
Pollution, obesity, microbiome, ultra-processed foods, viruses, Covid immune dysregulation, micro/nanoplastics... it's a storm out there. Diagnosed a 35 yo with triple negative breast ca and a 48 yo with metastatic lymphoma in the past two months. I still consider both of them young, and it's devastating. They fight on.
Wow, that is so scary, and sad 😔 I agree that there are so many contributing factors it seems almost impossible to disentangle them all. Given how little we have control of our environment, it seems like all we can do is the common sense stuff we (hopefully) learned as kids: eat healthy, exercise, get enough sleep, minimize alcohol and vices, stay active mentally and with a community, and definitely don't smoke
Oh Ryan. I’m so glad you are there for them. 🙏