Stress stress and more stress! Along with additives to our foods. Chemicals everywhere and much better detection. Having said that it doesn't make it any easier.  I have just been diagnosed with lung cancer and had my right upper lobe removed and now have lymphoma. I have had an incredibly stressful life and I feel that is the main culprit to this. Healthy eating, exercise and happiness are the key to good health and longevity in my opinion. God bless.

I'm not quite sure I buy into this "chemicals everywhere" narative - I think it's a lot more complicated

For a start we have much cleaner air than we did a couple of generations ago - true there are more cars but there is no lead in Petrol, the clean air acts banned the burning of solid fuels that used to create smogs we use natural gas rather than coal derived gas and coal fired powerstations are slowly being phased out.

We now have food standard agencies that are much more vigilent about what goes into food, there is better testing and monitoring and of course very few people smoke now compared to say 70 years ago when almost everybody did 

That's what I thought until I looked at the numbers

www.rationaloptimist.com/.../

OK this is the US but I'll bet it's not far off for the UK

There's a surprise for you - the lung cancer rates peaked massively between the 70's and 90s for men they fell rapidly but for women not so.

So why?

Well better detection probably meant that people were properly diagnosed with lung cancers whereas before many will probably have been diagnosed as TB as it was so prevalent - that would explain the big uptick

But why have women's numbers stayed so high? - Smoking - women have not stopped smoking in the way that men have

We all breathe the same air so  all the air acts all the pollution control all the coal fired stations don't make anything like the effect that smoking does

As for the other cancers they're generally on the decline

Another factor you have to remember is our age - we will mostly be of a certain age here and that is an age where cancer is more common. Our friends and familly willbe more likely to be developing it giving us the impression that it's more common.

Much like when we were in our late twenties and it seemed that everybody was getting married and when we were in our 30s everybody seemed to be having children

Thanks for the link.

An interesting part of the article was the dusting walls of houses with DDT it to kill malaria carrying mosquitos. My mother used to finely dust the inside ledge of the pantry (few had fridges in those days) to kill ants, one dusting would last for the entire summer.

I remember local farmers stockpiling it to use after it was banned, the good old days eh, when mercuric oxide seed dressing was mixed with seed with a shovel and no protective mask or gloves and cattle were treated for warble fly (which can ruin hides) with a powerful organophosphate poured on their backs again without gloves. I wonder if any cancers were caused by these practices.

They say it can be smoking, drinking, unhealthy lifestyle, sure these can all contribute to an increased risk of cancer, I don't think there's any definite reason, it's a horribly cruel disease abd the sooner there is a cure the better, they are making progress with various treatments so let's stay hopeful for the future