• Question: what is the biggest cause of cancer

    Asked by anon-210266 to Verity, Sergio, Nick, Maria, David, Annette on 5 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: David Whitworth

      David Whitworth answered on 5 Mar 2019:

      According to the World Health Organisation smoking and tobacco are the leading cause of cancer, with around 22% of all cancer deaths are from smoking. The next biggest is obesity. Both of these also cause other health issues as well.

    • Photo: Nick Werren

      Nick Werren answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      Anything containing chemicals that we can carcinogens is a cause of cancer. That’s why smoking, drinking, and red meat are often in the news.

      However, it’s important to again remember that genetics has an impact on cancer too. The biggest cause however is just time. Often it can just be bad luck that someone gets cancer, and the older you are the more likely you are to have bad luck with health problems.

    • Photo: Maria Walach

      Maria Walach answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      This isn’t what I study, so I am not sure. I do know that drinking alcohol, smoking and being overweight increases the chance of getting cancer! I also know that some cancers you are more likely to get if someone else in your family has had them as you can inherit the genes that make it more likely to get it.
      As Nick said, it can just be bad luck, but generally living a healthy life means you are less likely to get it!

    • Photo: Annette Raffan

      Annette Raffan answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      At the moment I think those above have given the answers you are looking for but in future I think we need to look at the impacts of unknown chemicals particularly relating to the build up of inorganic chemicals used in every products and also the huge problem that microplastics are going to be.

    • Photo: Sergio Adan Bermudez

      Sergio Adan Bermudez answered on 11 Mar 2019:

      As David said, there are big causes of cancer, which come from our habits such as smoking or obesity. However, there are other causes, like genetic, that are less common but serve as a very good model to understand the molecular level of cancer and how to approach it.

Comments