Just 10 to 30 per cent of cancers are due to the way the body functions, or ‘bad luck’, say researchers from the Stony Brook Cancer Centre in New York. Their findings counter research a year ago that had claimed up to two-thirds of all cancers are caused by ‘bad’ genes.
Reassessing the evidence with four different mathematical models, the researchers have come up with a picture that many feel is far more accurate, and which is convincing.
Although everyone is agreed that cancer happens when the body’s cells divide out of control and stop dying in a process known as apoptosis, cancer specialists have been divided as to how the process begins. Some have believed that it is chiefly down to intrinsic factors – such as genes – while the researchers have now demonstrated that the vast majority are the result of extrinsic factors, such as smoking, a bad diet, pollutants or excessive sunlight.
As lead researcher Dr Yusuf Hannun told the BBC: “External factors play a big role, and people cannot hide behind bad luck. They can’t smoke and say it’s bad luck if they have cancer. It is like a revolver, and intrinsic risk is one bullet. If they’re playing Russian roulette, then maybe one in six will get cancer – that’s the intrinsic bad luck. Now, what a smoker does is add two to three more bullets to the revolver. And now they pull the trigger.”
(Sources: Nature, 2015; published online: doi: 10.1038/nature16166; BBC, December 17, 2015)
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