Scientists declare bad luck causes most cancer, ignoring food choices and environmental chemicals

(NaturalNews) A new "cancer study" could be the most significant study on the disease ever done, but not for any groundbreaking findings. Rather, its significance rests in how completely bizarre its conclusions are: Researchers have now said that getting cancer -- or not -- has nothing to do with outside factors and influences. Rather, it is all just a matter of chance.

As reported recently by Reuters, scientists and researchers have now determined that plain old bad luck is the major driver behind who develops cancer and who does not. Indeed, researchers said they found that two-thirds of all cancer cases of various types are attributable to random mutations -- not heredity, or nuclear accidents, or even smoking (which begs the question: Are states going to return to tobacco companies the billions of dollars they have been awarded by courts for "cancer-causing second-hand smoke"?).

Doesn't really matter what you do - or don't do?

Reuters further reported:

The researchers said... random DNA mutations accumulating in various parts of the body during ordinary cell division are the prime culprits behind many cancer types.

They looked at 31 cancer types and found that 22 of them, including leukemia and pancreatic, bone, testicular, ovarian and brain cancer, could be explained largely by these random mutations - essentially biological bad luck.

Nine other types, including colorectal cancer, skin cancer (known as basal cell carcinoma) and even smoking-related lung cancer, were more heavily tied to heredity and additional factors, like risky behavior or being around supposedly known carcinogens, scientists noted.

In all, researchers said 65 percent of cancer cases are caused by random mutations in genes that then cause cancer growth.

"When someone gets cancer, immediately people want to know why," said oncologist Dr. Bert Vogelstein, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, who led the study, which was published in the journal Science with Johns Hopkins biomathematician Cristian Tomasetti.

"They like to believe there's a reason," Vogelstein told Reuters. "And the real reason in many cases is not because you didn't behave well or were exposed to some bad environmental influence, it's just because that person was unlucky. It's losing the lottery."

Meanwhile, Tomasetti added that cancerous mutations can happen for "no particular reason other than randomness" as the body's master cells -- stem cells -- divide in different tissues.

He noted that the study suggests that changing lifestyle habits like smoking to avoid the risk of cancer may only help prevent certain cancer types, but may not be so effective in preventing other types.

"Thus, we should focus more research and resources on finding ways to detect such cancers at early, curable stages," Tomasetti said, as reported by Reuters.

The newswire service further noted:

The researchers charted the cumulative number of lifetime divisions in the stem cells of a given tissue - for example, lungs or colon - and compared that to the lifetime cancer risk in that tissue.

Generally speaking, tissues that undergo more divisions - thus increasing the probability of random mutations - were more prone to tumors.

Researchers did not examine all cancer types; prostate and breast cancers were excluded because scientists were not able to find reliable stem cell rates of division.

What about all of the earlier cancer research - is it wrong?

But despite this new scholarly research, is getting most cancers just a matter of having bad luck?

Then why do most cancer cases occur in low- to middle-income nations, according to the Pulitzer Center? Why do 85 percent of all liver cancers occur in developing nations?

Why have incidents of cervical cancer -- at one time the leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the U.S. -- become a fraction of what they once were, in America and throughout the developed world?

Is research tying higher cancer rates in the U.S. to higher obesity rates completely wrong? What about research tying higher cancer rates to higher ingestion of sugar?

To equate cancer with a lottery seems absurd on its face, given the plethora of existing research tying specific substances, behaviors and environments with higher incidences of cancer.

Sources:

https://ca.news.yahoo.com

http://globalcancermap.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://science.naturalnews.com