alt Hacker NewsThere is going to be some big AHA moment tied so couple food practices. Like washing chicken in chlorine or something. I wonder how are the stats in other developed countries. The title says US.
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That seems like wishful thinking, IMO. Seems more likely we will find it’s due a complex constellation of genetics, diet, lifestyle factors like exercise, environmental exposure, etc associated eith a modern sedentary lifestyle with no clear smoking gun or single preventative intervention.
It sort of reminds me of when Lesswrong was fixated on a hypothesis that lithium levels in the water supply was the cause of the obesity epidemic. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea at the time, and somewhat understandably as it would have been a single variable that could be tweaked for massive societal benefits.
But there wasn’t really any credible evidence to support it. Trying to reduce the complexity of human biology and lifestyle to single cause/effect relationship is an easy and tempting trap to fall into to explain unknowns in medicine.
The trend has been down, even for this cancer. Such that I agree there were probably some big AHA moments. But I assert they almost certainly happened 50 years ago.
My expectation is that it is less that there has been a growing trend of this cancer getting worse, and far more that we have gotten better at many other cancers. That is, overall, this is good news on progress. Not a scare headline.
I had no clue this was a thing. Thanks for sharing your thought...
I think it's a combination of our pesticide usage and general food processing but like a sibling said these are educated guesses.
My bet is on low-fiber diet and people spending half hour playing with phone instead of getting up from toilet.
> An estimated 95% of American adults and children fail to meet daily fiber recommendations, with intake often falling below 10 grams per 1,000 calories consumed
It's tempting to focus on some magic bad ingredient/practice to explain our bad health (like seed oils), but we don't exercise, we eat directly against dietary guidelines, and we eat foods that we know are bad for us.
Now add on to that the social media grifters and industry advocates who tell you that eating poorly is good for you.
I don't blame individuals just trying to live their life though. This is how we've let our whole food environment set up shop.
My money is on massive overexposure to high fructose corn syrup in the Western diet.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9170474/