I get mixed answers depending on the source. Herbalist websites insist that it has gone up dramatically, while equally reliable yahoo answers says rates have actually been going down, but we are no longer dying of cholera and things like that so more people are living long enough to get cancer.
What are the real statistics on this?
Well it’s an herbalist website. 
Here, everything you could ever want to know about cancer rates.
And, from there, it seems overall rates are slightly down or stable at worst.
Remember, too, that not only are people living longer and thus allowing cancer to develop when it would not have in earlier generations but, increasing age, itself, is a risk factor for cancer.
Moreover, we are much better at detecting early and subtle cancers nowadays than in the past. Unless controlled for, that would tend to make rates seem to be increasing.
KarlGauss–How dare you actually offer a link to real, scientific knowlege!
Also the CDC report (the full report)
The exceptional group, kids: slightly higher incidence although dath rates from cancer decreasing as well.
Lots of reliable info out there.
I did not wish to poison the well. My opinion is likely similar to yours. My question comes from this website. The claim down the left of the page is, IMO ludicrous.
Cancer’s Grim Rise
in the USA alone
2010: 1 in 3 *
1980: 1 in 7
1950: 1 in 12
1900: 1 in 100+ **
Oh the twisted grain of truth, as noted by those Yahoo answers.
Average life expectancy in 1900 was 46.3 males and 48.3 females. By 1998 it had increased to 73.8 and 79.5 respectively.
Median age of cancer diagnosis is 67.
Yup, an era that had less than half of those born make it to 50 had few make it long enough to get cancer.
So those ludicrous figures are, in isolation, not too far off. Cause of death in 1900 was pneumonia followed by TB with cancer down at number 8, about 4% of all deaths. In 1998 pneumonia was bumped down to number 6, TB not on the top ten, and heart disease is number one with cancers in the number two spot, about 23% of all deaths.
“Average age” is essentially meaningless in this case since the age distributions aren’t Gaussian. Plenty of people were living into their 70s back then but few of them got cancer.
You will hear stats like “women’s odds of developing breast cancer are 1 in 9.” Yes, it is if she lives to be 85. At any age below that, odds are much much lower.
Or consider prostate cancer. Most types, as diagnosed, the question is whether it’s worth treating. If it’s diagnosed at age 75 and (like many prostate cancers) it’s often so slow-moving the person may still have 20 or 30 years, why bother destroying their remaining quality of life? Odds are they’ll die from something else before that.
Not Gaussian != meaningless.
However I am having a hard time making meaning of your post.
I suspect that of the less than 50% in 1900 who made it past 50 or 60 a large percent made it as long as those who make past 50 or 60 today do. I think that same suspicion may be part of your point. But are you trying to claim that of those 70 (oh say the median cancer diagnosis age of 67) and above in 1900 fewer had cancer than those who are of that age today?
If so I humbly request a real cite for such a claim.
Lots of evidence suggests that cancer is largely a modern disease. Here’s an excerpt from Nature Reviews Cancer:
I don’t think anyone here is disputing that, but I don’t think it says what you think it says. We know that cancer was not diagnosed as often a long time ago. But is that because people were dying of other things first? Is it because cancer wasn’t even diagnosed when it was the cause of death?
Given that many carcinogens were present in ancient times as was ionizing radiation, I think the claim that cancer is exclusively a modern disease is not very intelligent.
Right back atcha.
Of course I never stated cancer is “exclusively” a modern disease. Try to read for comprehension next time.
I don’t think what surreal is saying I’d surprising. Risk factors for breast cancer include alcohol consumption, obesity, having children late or not at all, low levels of physical activity…that doesn’t sound like the profile of women in a hunter gatherer society. However, I don’t think it implies what some people use it to imply…that it’s chemicals in our food, for instance.
Infant mortality was higher back then; look at where the arithmetic mean lies if you have two peaks in your distribution, one near the head and one near the tail.
I suspect that it is indeed true that cancer was rare in Paleolithic times and perhaps even in many if not most ancient cultures (and many “native” cultures); those were however not the time priods being discussed. The claim was being made comparing 1900 America to more recent years. 1900 was a period after the industrial revolution and before any environmental controls, with huge amount of indoor and occupational soot and other exposures to what we now know are major carcinogens. Feel free to look up in present times the rates of cancers among those who cook over charcoal fires in their homes.
If anything the last cites provided document that cancer was not such a rarity in the West in that time period if one lived long enough to get it.
Yes. Which does not change the fact that people were more often dying before they were old enough to get cancer, often infancy of pneumonia, influenza, diarrhea, etc.
Again, the fact that the distribution was not Gaussian does not change that fact.