True risk factors
I just read a study that said prediabetes increases breast cancer risk. “ Heritable mutations account for some breast cancer diagnoses; a well-known example of which are the BRCA1/2 genes. However, most breast cancers arise from environmental or lifestyle-associated exposures.“ I tried to post a link to the study here but it wouldn’t let me. It’s from 2024. Here is the title.
The impact of poor metabolic health on aggressive breast cancer: adipose tissue and tumor metabolism
Barbara Mensah Sankofi 1, Estefania Valencia-Rincón 1, Malika Sekhri 1, Adriana L Ponton-Almodovar 2,3,4, Jamie J Bernard 2,3,4, Elizabeth A Wellberg 1,*
I keep coming across different information about this topic. I recently had genetic testing done of my tumor and met with a genetic counselor. She told me that what they know currently from research is that 10-25% of cancers are due to lifestyle factors.
However, just a few days later, I saw an article quoting from a different research study with the attention grabbing headline “half of all cancers due to lifestyle factors” , so I read the article and the original study. It turns out that the statistic was actually 40% and that of that 40%, 30% was due to smoking. So that leaves 10% left for other factors such as obesity, diet, inactivity, stress, etc.
What have you all heard?
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it indicates breast cancer is largely preventable. But on the other hand, it further stigmatizes women like me who have breast cancer. I cannot begin to tell you how much unsolicited advice I have received about why I have cancer. Most of it blames the patient for it - from sin, to diet, to unexpressed anger, to not manifesting correctly.
Another metastatic person I know said she overheard a doctor tell residents she was training (not on an oncology unit) who were shadowing her “don’t get cancer.“ in a tone which made it clear that she meant they can prevent it from happening to them and only stupid people get it.
I know I am venting, and it is likely due to feelings of guilt and regret that I didn’t take better care of myself.
What gives?
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My grandmother lived to be 86 smoking two packs a day. My father-in-law drank two shots of gin every night and lived to be 98. Who knows. Statistics have only so much explanatory power. We are not statistics, nor should we ever think of ourselves that way. And if cancer weren't super complicated, they would have cured it by now. So give yourself a break.
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@zipmonk - if the onc's perspective was correct far fewer younger people would be getting it - younger people who exercise and don't have the dreaded gene issue. But I see or hear from people who exercise, eat carefully and regularly get checked and still have developed cancer. Everybody is different - we do not fit into a neat little box with a label tied on it. It is probably just as well I didn't hear that comment.
As @tougholdcrow pointed out - if it were that simple it would be cured by now. But it is not - they have some idea of the push-pull factors that support cancer development and metastases, but any good researcher will tell you that they don't know the half of it yet.
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thanks to you all! I have had the same thoughts so it is maddening these ideas prevail.
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I concur that we need to understand that research reveals pieces of the puzzle but what the whole puzzle looks like and whether each piece holds actionable significance is still unclear. Breast cancer turns out to be a very complex disease with many possible variations. Although we would love certainty, we are still far from it.
As to those who feel as if we did something health/lifestyle wise to get cancer, I present my sister… She lived a clean lifestyle before that was even a buzz word. Diet, exercise, all as clean as possible from her teenage years. At age 50, she was dx’ed with a uterine sarcoma and passed away less than a year later. Clearly this is very personal, but I have no patience for those who believe we caused our cancer. I also want to add that I have been told that something in my lifestyle “grew” the cancer, while simultaneously being told that I have had 13 progression free years with mbc because of something happening with my lifestyle. I wonder which one it is 🤷🏻♀️😉?
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I try to not think about studies that state our lifestyles cause cancer. If I do think about them, I nearly start screaming. With the cancers I've had, at least one close relative had one of them before me, but the genetic testing I had done showed no connection. So was it things I did? I smoked for decades, but both my breast surgeon and oncologist said there hasn't been a link shown between smoking and breast cancer. My urologist told me it was a contributing factor, and I stopped, but my Dad had kidney cancer and he smoked a very occasional cigar a few times a year and never cigarettes. So why did he get it? I'm overweight, but I know people who are larger who've never had cancers. Am I getting other people's share of cancers as some sick cosmic joke? The place I worked (a history museum and research library, hardly a coal mine or asbestos factory) had a LOT of staff who got various cancers over the years. When a handful of us got cancers at about the same time, the vegan exercizing yoga woman died within a few months. Why her? Years later, I'm one of the few who hasn't died from it - so I get survivor's guilt on top of the WHY question. And now I have something that's not cancer but is apparently a by-product of it (a spinal meningioma) that will involve a more invasive surgery than any of the cancers, or, if I take the no-surgery route, will wreck my nervous system, probably within the next year. Who the hell did I piss off in a previous life? I usually see the sick humor of it all, but every so often I am pretty damn angry. And then I smack myself for whining, because I am, after all, still mostly vertical. But I'm sick of body parts dropping off as i lurch around.
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I can't control all lifestyle factors. I have no input on the amount of microplastics in our water sources, the pesticides used on the fresh food I buy, the pollution in the air I breathe. All I can control is how I live my life and I lived my life from 30 on better than most anyone I knew. Still got cancer so fuck it being my fault. Or anyone's fault. We have found cancer in our ancestor's remains. It's as natural as breathing. So good luck to all those people who think they can prevent it by "living right". Unfortunately I'll probably see a lot of them in the waiting area of my oncologist's office at some point.
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@alicebastable "still mostly vertical," I love that. Glad to meet a fellow historian!
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