# Why is breast tissue so susceptible to cancer when it isn't exposed to toxins? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 14, 2022, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-breast-tissue-so-susceptible-to-cancer-when-it-isnt-exposed-to-toxins/964432 "2022-05-14T22:02:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 20
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-breast-tissue-so-susceptible-to-cancer-when-it-isnt-exposed-to-toxins/964432/20 "2022-05-16T18:13:18Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > Daniel E. Lieberman addresses this question in his book _The Story of the Human Body_ . To directly quote his book: > > > Cancer, for example, is actually an aberrant evolutionary process going on within a body. From a previous thread > [@Is cancer primarily a mammalian disease?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cancer-primarily-a-mammalian-disease/784033/5): > > Cancer, or at least the dysregulated proliferation of cells in some manner, is the natural fate of all multicellular organisms if they live long enough. Even plants get a form of cancer. The remarkable thing is that multicellular life exists at all. For billions of years, all of life was single-celled organisms, and most of it still is. This is a more natural evolutionary state, since every cell may have descendants. As cells compete for survival, every cell has a potential evolutionary fu… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-breast-tissue-so-susceptible-to-cancer-when-it-isnt-exposed-to-toxins/964432)._