Cancer ‘mainly bad luck’? An unfortunate and distracting headline

What is the bad luck by the way other than the poverty and unjust the major source of all the illness and the deprivation.We must be very straight forward on such issues and do not link with our financial interest. Millions of people in pakistan are caught in the cancer just because of poor food,unhealthy living and bad environment conditions because of mismanagement of the responsible institutions just.If these are rectified it can be improved.

Who will define what is bad luck and from where it comes.The given version of bad luck is just a lullabying to hide the very fact that cause the major source of cancer,food,environment.

Dan, you missed the point of the study that says that some cancers are only bad luck.

I think a lot of the commentards here are missing the point. Whether you get cancer or not is a matter of chance (or “luck”) but you increase your chances of getting it (or ” bad luck”) with certain lifestyle choices. As the article says, you can smoke and not get lung cancer, and not smoke and get lung cancer. You are just 20 times more likely to get it if you smoke!!!

I do appreciate the comments made in this article, however I have struggled to understand why I had breast cancer at the age of 27. (I am now 42 – it has not returned thankfully). I didn’t have a particularly healthy lifestyle but no more unhealthy than my friends. There is no history of breast cancer in my family. After having read the article on risk factors, the only thing I can’t confirm is whether my breast tissue is more dense than usual. But still – I was 27 years old. I personally have two ideas as to why I might have got breast cancer. One – I’ve always had ‘hormonal’ problems, problematic periods and PMT etc. However, I’d had several hormone tests and none of them revealed any problems. Secondly – mental health. I’d had a very bad episode of depression for a couple of years prior to getting breast cancer. At one point, when I was feeling suicidal, I wished cancer upon myself. Of course this was dismissed by the medical team looking after me. However, I believe that negative thought and stress can play a huge part in physical health, I’m surprised that it hasn’t been mentioned as a factor in keeping a healthy lifestyle.

Smoking wasn’t listed in the original paper at bad luck. You should edit the article and remove smoking from the argumentation.

To ascribe a disease to “bad luck” simply means we do not know the cause. As a medical student in the 1950s almost all the patients I saw with cancer had no known cause, and that was bad luck. Who knows what research over the next 60 years could reveal.

This is quite a difficult article to read if your husband has recently died from cancer. He was told it was ‘bad luck’ at the beginning of his treatment as he didn’t smoke or drink much and was only a little overweight. I spend my days wondering if we could have done anything differently. This article does not help me deal with my grief. He was unlucky in that the surgery and the radiotherapy actually completely removed the cancer in the throat, but unfortunately a few cancerous cells it seems had already travelled to the liver and were discovered a couple of years later….

My husband was the healthiest fit person non smoker fruit loving surfing /cycle maniac u could meet at 59 he developed pancreatic cancer and given months to live 8 months later he was still surfing however 1year after being diagnosed he died his lifestyle was perfect he did everything right I get very annoyed when people suggest a bad lifestyle link to pancreatic cancer perhaps in this case it was bad luck/bad genes

And what about children who get cancer! Is is bad luck for them? Cannot be lifestyle led can it? Having watched my grandson being treated, successfully thank god, for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and other children who were not, try telling the parents that it was bad luck!

Whilst I agree that a healthy lifestyle is important I am very annoyed with the inference that people who are diagnosed with Bowel cancer do not lead a healthy lifestyle, your article tars everyone with the same brush. My wife was diagnosed with Bowel cancer in Sept, has never smoked we never eat processed foods, she exercised regularly and had no symptoms, it was detected through the screening programme,after having major surgery and now going through Chemotherapy a very difficult time is now being made worse by inferring that the cancer was more than likely caused by lifestyle your reporting needs to be more focused with a broader view.

I am 58. I have always been slim. I have never drunk more than 2 units occasionally in a week. I avoid lactose. I have never smoked. I live backing into woods. I cycle, walk, sail. I have stage 4 breast cancer. Which part of my life style caused it?

I tended to agree with the recent findings of cancer being just an unfortunate and unlucky [prtion for some of us. I had breast cancer 10 years ago, was 56, just had menopause, did not drink or smoke, weighed 9st 4 lbs, had 2 children reasonabley fit with a job and had a reasonable healthy diet.. Then a recurrence 3 years later, thankfully am fit and well now but it did become a real talking point in my family as to why the disease came to me. Thankyou for your information,,, to think about.

unfortunately my cancer, apart from being not one of the high profile conditions, seems to have been just bad luck. I was a fit and healthy 49 year old who went to the gym, ate healthily and didn’t smoke started to suffer from a hoarse voice and after being told I had laryngitis was eventually diagnosed as thyroid cancer and had major surgery to remove both thyroid and neck glands. Even my GP had only heard of it once before so while the more high profile conditions may be helped by lifestyle what about the lesser known conditions.

A very interesting and highly informed article (as you would expect) which makes good effort to explain very complex facts to “laypersons”. However, I’m still no wiser as to why, for example, some people can smoke 40 cigarettes a day and not get lung cancer while lifelong abstainers (like my late grandmother) can fall victim. I suppose it’s “in the DNA” as they say. In other words, something we’re born with. Therefore, I believe we can shift the risk one way or another through lifestyle choices, but only marginally, which may make a difference, of course, in a few cases. (By the same token you can reduced the risk of being killed in a car crash by never venturing out of the house!) The one thing I did object to in the article was the in the phrase “. . . one of the resulting cells could begin the long deadly journey towards developing into cancer.” The word deadly is used emotively (perhaps to scare?) which is unfortunate as CRUK is always keen to point out that not all cancers are fatal.

Hooray…the nation must be given accurate information and not distorted headlines taken from research papers, which can and in this case has led to confusion. Ultimately any inaccuracies can and possibly will result in more people suffering from cancer. it would be a tragedy if more lives are lost due to misleading media coverage.

Of course Life-style has an effect on whether people are more susceptible to cancer or not. For those with a parent who has suffered cancer the risk seems to me to be slightly higher. But hey why not try to improve your chances by being sensible about what you eat and drink.

Very informative as always, thank you.

I did not choose breast cancer, it chose me. I’m the one with one very special (now smaller) right breast. The very day I was told that treatment worked and was cancer free, my arm was twisted by a lovely young girl to run the 2010 Race for Life – I could walk it as long as I was warring something pink aparently. Since then: I stopped smoking, lost a stone and a half in weight, and run 5 Races for Life, 2 Half Marathons and numerous other smaller races. I’m approaching my 60th birthday but I was never fitter or so good looking in my life! I know I may get Cancer again but in the mean time I want to run at least one full Marathon, get a new job, ware this little black dress, learn to drive…………….. the list is endless. And yes, this new zest for life was given to me by a lovely young girl desperate to sign me on to my first R4L five years ago this month. Will I go back to my unhealthy life style? NO WAY! Chances to get cancer again may or may not increase with unhealthy life style but living a healthy way is more fun. Honest

I am the epitome of how a person should run their life when it comes to health. I almost never drink (2 unit of alcohol a week is consider a lot for me), I don’t smoke (never have & never will), excercises at my local gym 4 times a week, sometimes play tennis or go for a run, eat fresh fruit & veg, nuts, fish, poultry etc every day( Macdonalds etc are swear words in our house), drink plenty of water, do enjoy dark chocolate and sometimes coffee. So when I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in November 2013 my husband and I were totally shocked, stunned and pretty much lost for words, also as I have no history of it in my family. Therefore you cannot tell me that this is not bad luck. I do agree some cancers are a direct result of bad lifestyle choices and do believe we should always live as healthily as possible. Though in my case it was random and pure bad luck!!

However I do think when you go on about lifestyle choices you can make it feel that people are choosing to get cancer by being irresponsible in their choices and therefore deserve to get cancer. I did not choose to get breast cancer at 65 and go through 6 lots of chemo with some horrendous side effects at the time and continuing even now. Yes I had HRT for about13years after a hysterectomy at 45. Yes I do drink and yes I am overweight and no I don’t excercises regularly but have childminded for 4 years which keeps you pretty active! But I don’t deserve breast cancer in comparison with others which sometimes your research info suggests. I was unlucky that my cells didn’t behave!, they might have done but they didn’t. So I do get upset with some of your diagrams and they do have the result of making me feel bad about myself and I already have enough to contend with long term damage over the chemo and the side effects of taking the anastrazole for the next 5 years

“Bad Luck” in scientific terms means we haven’t enough knowledge to explain fully what is going on. Genetics is a fast growing area for causal factors in cancer and other diseases. As a participant in such research, I have been told that whilst I have been tested for three known, genetic risks and found to be negative, it seems that there is a risk of some yet unknown genetic condition that may provide an explanation of the occurrence of three different cancers. Research presently being undertaken with cancer indicates this. “Lifestyle” is what “we know” at this moment in time as a potential or actual cause. This gives us general guidance about keeping healthy and subduing risks. Although science has some way to go, it has got to be worth doing something about lifestyle factors we can control for all sorts of physiological and psychological reasons as well as cancer prevention. Our A&E departments would be under far less pressure if we follow the excellent guidance given.

Following on from my earlier post – I also think GPs who miss cancer diagnosis before it is too late for some are misguided by the fact that healthy people, young and old can and do develop cancer all the time, and too much importance is placed on lifestyle factors and not peoples’ symptoms. You hear about it all the time: people being sent away for months on end because, ‘oh you’re too young/healthy to have breast/colon/ovarian/cervical/bowel cancer. Fortunately, I had/have an excellent GP who gave me a proper MOT for university when I was 17, and didn’t just send me away with a condescending wave despite my being in excellent health, and discovered my enlarged spleen hidden beneath my muscular dance-induced stomach.

I believe this has been a very good case example of poor knowledge translation, that is how scientific information is to be conveyed to the public. There were two very tricky points here, first the word “stochastic” and the phrase “65% of the variability”.
Yes a lot of very well known risk factors -both modifiable and not- influence the risk of cancer in a lifetime but what the researchers had tried to point out could be summarized as “the basic risk that cancer is observed in a given tissue is an intrinsic property of that very tissue, and the magnitude of any extra risk that can be brought upon by an external risk factor is also an intrinsic property of that tissue” This practically means in an example that “yes by completely eliminating smoking in the society you can effect a drastic decrease in the number of lung cancers, but you still probably cannot make lung cancer as rare as cartilage cancer”, because tissue structures and functions necessitate that more cell divisions -hence more chance errors- have to happen in certain tissues than in others in order to maintain them.

Had breast cancer 5 yrs ago. Not overweight, excersise, breast fed 3 children eat healthily. Dad smoked ate microwave meals last 10 yrs, he never ate fruit little veg, died at 87, mum smoked a little died at74 from lung cancer. Do u not think its all the stress of u lot keep telling us it’s our lifestyle…you don’t know for sure so stop blaming us!!

I cannot get over the selfish quote of K Unwin.Surely its no better to smoke at other innocent people than it ever was.Just because you may not get cancer with every cigarette containing 4000 chemicals other people ‘non’smokers dont want to breathe all those toxins in, asthmatics the frail the weak. the ill.When will society keep smoke in designated areas away from those who at the moment have not got a choice but to breathe foul toxic air in just to go shopping or to the opticians.Smoke gets in your eyes and in everypart of the body which is fine for those who choose that but what about rights health rights for those who dont.People may have liver and kidneys working double hard for other reasons they dont want to breathe nicotin bitumin and all the other unknown ingredients in.Stick to breathing in cigarette fumes in places like your own home garden where other pedestrians dont have to take you fall.

Some cancers may indeed be caused by lifestyle, but to those of us that have had it, yet have always lived a healthy lifestyle and are surrounded by people who don’t look after their bodies, it really is bad luck; although my choice of language would be slightly different under normal circumstances. I was 17 when I first had cancer, then 40 when I had it again as a result of the treatment I had when I was a teenager. I have got through it, and I do think, as others have said, that my healthy lifestyle, and attitude has helped me get through it, but I think even survival sometimes is luck, not necessarily down to the individual’s lifestyle. I was an active and healthy child and teenager; there was nothing I did that caused it. I grew up with 3 other siblings who all shared the same environment, ate the same food and behaved in the same way I did and none of them have developed cancer, and I hope they don’t. It was random, bad luck. Children and teenagers who develop cancer do not develop it because of their ‘lifestyle choices’. While I think that to dismiss the theory that some cancers are affected by lifestyle is short-sighted, I too believe that not enough is made of the fact that sometimes it just happens. It just does; and that is very bad luck.

While I am in total agreement with encouraging a healthy lifestyleand, as such, I have always led a healthy lifestyle myself, I was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. I have never smoked, I drink in moderation, exercised regularly and always eaten healthily. When I look at causes of colon cancer on cancer information websites, I feel it is a stigma against me and people who don’t know me will presume I lead that kind of lifestyle. I don’t think all cancer is down to bad luck but I do think that scientists need to keep an open mind in all this. I am sick of feeling like the bad person for having cancer.

P.S. to my earlier blog.
A healthy lifestyle is essential for all of us all the time so that if disaster strikes, in the form of cancer or other diseases, recovery from surgery and chemical treatments will be faster.

As someone who has had breast cancer twice I am convinced it is just down to luck. (apart from the genetic 15 per cent). I have always said there is no rhyme or reason to it. On the other hand I know smoking causes lung cancer and lifestyle, diet, weight, exercise etc. are contributory factors in other cancers. I have run a support group for ten years for ladies who have been diagnosed with breast cancer so am quite confident in my views. I have seen hundreds of ladies through our group over the years who have been sensible enough to spot breast problems early or take advantage of screening. Early diagnosis is essential in treatment and prognosis.

It’s nice to see the whole picture being given in regards to cancer. Unfortunately having had breast cancer and not having been a smoker, drinker or overweight it was difficult for me to accept my diagnosis…I’d tried hard to live a healthy lifestyle.

Thanks Cancer Research for setting the story straight!

My mother died of lung cancer, though she didn’t smoke. I had a grandmother who smoked for 40 years and died at 103 of old age. Whilst living a healthy life is no guarantee that we won’t get cancer, there are clearly lifestyle choices which we all know raise the risks. I have smoked, sunbathed and drunk too much when I was younger, but as I have grown older appreciated the greater risk I am putting myself at and have chosen to modify my behaviour accordingly. I can’t undo the damage I’ve already done, but hopefully I have prevented further damage. It is not about blaming someone for doing any of these things but making sure we all appreciate that if we don’t cut down or stop then we are putting ourselves at an increased risk of getting cancer.

I agree with a lot you have said on your blog but not all of it, I have always led a very healthy life style, I go to the gym twice a week to do yoga, I walk 4/5 times a week for 25mins, I don’t smoke or drink & eat lots of fruit & vegetables, I am 58 & in my menopause my BMI is 23 & I weigh 53.4k & I have taken HRT for the last 8 yrs, I have just been diagnosed with breast cancer so maybe it was a bit of back for me due to the HRT although I know people who have never taken HRT and not had breast cancer but this has not stopped me from continuing to lead a healthy lifestyle

I feel the person or persons responsible for press release saying cancer was down to luck have behaved irresponsibly .

Over recent years great steps have been made in the cure rates for many cancers and there can be little doubt that healthy living plays a major part in this
Of coarse genetic related cancers can be considered bad luck.
But we should keep faith in cancer research it plays a major roll all around the world

Sorry but go hang out in a cancer support group and you will find many there that lived healthy lifestyles and have cancer. They are also the angriest of patients because they have been told a healthy lifestyle protects them.

I have always been upset by the inference that when people get cancer it is their own fault,my husband did not smoke ate a very healthy diet but got cancer,my niece is a nurse but still got ovarian cancer at 33,I am liable genetically to get colon cancer,should I feel guilty?Also being brave does not help to fight it

it’s all in the detail as usual – not the misleading headlines. Keep up your good work!

I have to agree with Elizabeth Willis to some extent. I am sick and tired of being made to feel guilty about having had cancer. It is bad enough dealing with it and living with its consequences without being told all the time that healthy living may have prevented it. Yes, I might have avoided smoking in my younger years had I been given better information, yes, I know alcohol could be a contributing factor, yes I know I should do 150 mins of exercise a week, yes, I know the strong sun should be avoided. I could go on and on. I do try to keep healthy and follow all the guidelines, but I do slip from time to time. And do I feel guilty? YES, but I am human and I do want to sometimes enjoy myself in the time I have got left, that is until I get the next cancer or reoccurrence because I had one too many glasses of wine last week and only managed a 30 minute walk.
Finally, how could healthy living have helped me control my hormone levels? The “bad cell division” that led to my breast cancer may have been influenced by fluctuating hormones. What could I have done to help prevent this?

I was surprised by these headlines myself after research undertaken previously has suggested we all need to lead healthier lifestyles in order to avoid cancer.

However, having been diagnosed with breast cancer myself almost four years ago, I was particularly upset at the time of diagnosis by media suggestions that breast cancer is caused because women are obese, unfit, don’t exercise enough & basically lead unhealthy lifestyles. At the time I was undergoing chemotherapy there seemed to be a lot in the media & on the news to suggest this had been evidenced from research which had been undertaken. I am & have never been in the slightest bit overweight, I’ve never smoked, I enjoy a couple of glasses of wine with a meal at the weekend (although this is rare these days after other research has suggested even one glass of wine can increase the chances of breast cancer returning if you have had it in the past). I exercise regularly, participating in yoga, pilates, zumba & aerobic type classes & as soon as I recovered from major surgery I went straight back to these classes as another research project suggested women can reduce the chances of breast cancer returning by keeping up or increasing the level of exercise undertaken. I walk whenever I can as opposed to using the car & will take the stairs as opposed to using a lift if possible; I even walk up escalators rather than stand & wait to arrive at the top!

Whilst I was feeling ill with the effects of chemotherapy I remember wanting to scream at the TV that they needed to make the point that not ALL women who contracted breast cancer fell into this category.

Because I believe I’ve led a healthy lifestyle & there is no family history of breast cancer, I like to think that I’ve just been ‘unlucky’. However, I also very strongly believe that being so fit & healthy is what helped my recovery from both surgery & chemotherapy. So, I can see both sides of the argument, I just wish it could be made clearer sometimes by the media that not all of us breast cancer survivors are or have been fat couch potatoes abusing our bodies by smoking & stuffing all the wrong foods into them!!

I’m going to put my hands up and say that when I read the news that ‘two thirds of cancer cases were bad luck’, I believed it. it made me doubt trying to have a healthy lifestyle and I feel like lots of people will have taken on board this news, just as in the tweet above, and will continue to do harmful things to their body thinking ‘hey, if its all bad luck anyway then screw it!’.

Great article and thank you for clearing that up. There is luck/ chance in every aspect of life and this applies to cancer too, however its refreshing to know that a healthy lifestyle still counts.

Thank you for writing this. I read the article which was published by various news providers with dismay, as I and those I love (and I’m sure many more), try very hard to lead a balanced and healthy lifestyle, with the hope that it helps contribute to a good quality of life and also a reduced chance of getting terrible diseases like cancer. I’m glad that the message isn’t quite as clear cut as these articles made it appear. I hope that others don’t just give up after reading those articles!

Excellent blog and much needed after the stupidly mistaking headlines last week! Great work as ever from all involved.

Henry, very sensitive response to Elizabeth’s comment. Excellent science and excellent communication!

There is no mention of children’s cancer here?

Shouldn’t we also be promoting the message that if you are ‘unlucky’ enough to be diagnosed with cancer, being fit and having a healthy lifestyle may aid your recovery and help you withstand treatment?

Elizabeth,

Thanks for your comment. We’re truly sorry to hear about the impact cancer’s had on your family. It’s never our intention to annoy or upset anyone – particularly anyone affected by cancer – and we apologise if we’ve done so. Our reason for writing the article was to highlight the fact that, in some cases, cancers are influenced by lifestyle factors such as smoking. Of course, in others, these factors play no part at all. And whether lifestyle factors could be linked or not, cancer is never someone’s fault. But we were concerned about the way the media covered the ‘bad luck’ story, and how it clearly led some to believe that lifestyle factors play no role at all (for example, in the tweet embedded above). It’s a really tricky balance to strike, there’s an element of luck or chance to most things in life. But we need to keep talking about things like smoking, obesity, physical activity and the rest, because the evidence shows that parts of our life that we can influence, like these, play a large part in the UK’s overall cancer rates (see, for example, this story).

But that’s not to say we ever want anyone to feel ‘blamed’ for their disease – cancer is never anyone’s ‘fault’, and we wrote an article a while ago addressing this very point, which you can read here:

http://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2012/04/11/lifestyle-and-cancer-against-the-blame-game/

Thanks again for your comment, and for your support over the years – it means a lot to us. And, once again, please accept our apologies for upsetting you or anyone else. We wish you all the best,

Henry
Cancer Research UK

You have annoyed a lot of cancer sufferers. I was diagnosed with breast cancer 1 year ago, I don’t smoke, used to row and work out regularly etc. My son was 4 when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour, my sister had leukaemia, her husband colon cancer, my ex had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma . I think we are extremely unlucky as we are all theoretically fit; my son studies human bioscience and he was not at all surprised by the news. I support CRUK by monthly donations by the way (£50 by GAYE). I think you should support the news as many people are made to feel guilty about their illness and it really made me feel better when this news came out. I wasn’t so happy when I saw this.

The interpretation of this study is based on a frightening variety of errors in interpretation and basic math. http://ameyer.me/science/2015/01/02/vogel.html

Great balanced summary of the reactions to the press release and press reports. It’s easy to see how this was twisted – most people do not understand relative versus absolute risk and the methods used intros paper push limits of statistical analysis.

I do think there is one area of value to the reporting of the finding, even if it only reiterates what Richard Doll and others have espoused for many years, in that random chance does play a significant role and there is no reason for victim-blaming. This is important as many newly diagnosed patients feel guilty that they have somehow contributed to their disease when this is impossible to tell (and is probably not the case). This is countered somewhat by the message that “it’s out of my hands so I can do what I like”. Obviously, that isn’t the case and such people are unlikely to act on any evidence (such as the 18 fold higher risk associated with smoking and lung cancer).