I was listening to the radio over the weekend, and someone was talking about the increase in cancer over the past 100 years. When asked why this was so, the person stated that it was because people are living longer, and that “if you live long enough, and don’t die from something else, you will eventually succumb to one form of cancer or another”.
I had to think about what he said. I think he meant that as you get older your risk for getting cancer increases, and that if you don’t die from heart disease or something else, when you reach some age, say 90 years old, you will inevitably get cancer, and it will probably kill you.
Really? This seems like a gross generalization since there must be humans who have lived to age 100 or older, that never had a cancer cell in their bodies.
As we humans increase our lifespans is it really inevitably that we are going to get cancer, or are some people just “immune” from getting it?