Title: when did Cancer become such a common thing and has it been much more common in the west than in Asia? | Yahoo Answers
Headings: when did Cancer become such a common thing and has it been much more common in the west than in Asia?
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when did Cancer become such a common thing and has it been much more common in the west than in Asia?
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Jean
Lv 7
10 years ago
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100 years ago, people ate healthily and lived in a far cleaner environment. These days, food is loaded with preservatives, colourings, flavour enhancers, stabilisers, etc, etc, etc, sprayed with chemicals and genetically modified to grow faster, give bigger yield and to be more resistant to pests and disease. Then we take it and blast it with radiation in the microwave. Cars and industry spew chemicals into the atmosphere which rain down on us or damge the ozone layer allowing dangerous levels of solar radiation down to ground level, drugs and medications are readily available, there's the pill and estrogen can be detected in water supplies because we're peeing the hormones out, there are carcinogenic chemicals in every day beauty products, even the foundation you wear on your face, and our homes are regularly sprayed with chemicals. Then you need to consider how far medical science has come. 100 years ago, cancer would have gone undetected until it killed the victim, and unless a post mortem was done (and I doubt they'd go to that trouble for a sick patient), then they'd never know unless the tumour was blatantly obvious. These days, everyone's aware of cancer and the things you need to look out for. We have x-rays and ultrasound for early detection, and means to treat the disease. Maybe the rise in cancer rates isn't much higher than it used to be, maybe it's purely because we can now detect it before it kills.