Bad Luck And Nature Probably Gave You Cancer, Not Genetics Or Your Lifestyle
Thursday, January 1, 2015 - 20:00
in Health & Medicine
There is no question there are genetic and environmental components to cancer but a statistical model that measures the proportion of cancer incidence across many tissue types finds that cancer is caused mainly by random mutations that occur when stem cells divide. According to scientists from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, two-thirds of adult cancer incidence across tissues can be explained primarily by "bad luck," when these random mutations occur in genes that can drive cancer growth, while the remaining third are due to environmental factors and inherited genes. The implications of their model range from altering public perception about cancer risk factors to the funding of cancer research, they say. read more