Most people in the cancer field (I worked in a tangential one) believe that incidence of cancer is due to people living longer (cancer rates go up a lot as you age), and not dying of other diseases first. In a sense, cancer is what you get after you solved the other problems.

"Most people in the cancer field" seem to be pretty misinformed then. See [1] and [2]. At a minimum, health/diet habits have increased cancer risk in young people over the last 20 years, and probably other environmental factors/exposures as well.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2...

[2] https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-...

Sorry, i think you misunderstood. I believe that lifestyle effects do influence cancer rates, but I don't think they influence it as much as the effects I mentioned. Note that in the papers you describe, the increase in relative risk is actually fairly small.

Ok in that case I agree. I think it’s important to recognize that lifestyle and environmental factors are a contributor to cancer rates across age groups. Thanks for clarifying.

That reminds me of one of the cell phone radiation studies that I see get bandied about sometimes. People that are skeptical of cell phones like mentioning it because they found that rats exposed to massive amounts of 2G and 3G signals were more likely to die of cancer. However, what the study also found is that the rats exposed to the signals actually lived longer than the control group.

If cell phones give me cancer because they make me live longer, then maybe I should start carrying around a second one.

https://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsroom/releases/2018/novemb...

I agree - and you're probably right but I think we should hold ourselves to the same standards of evidence we expect of others.

Based on nothing scientific, I chalk up the increase in cancer to contaminants in our water, whether it's well or city water, and the introduction of petrochemicals/plastics.

"And nobody knows why."