The two researchers, oncologist Dr. Bert Vogelstein and his colleage, the biomathematician Cristian Tomasetti, found that while poor lifestyle choices, like smoking, and a genetic pool that predisposes you to cancer can lead to getting it, there’s something that is an even greater cause of cancer.
Bad luck.
Their research was published in the science journal ‘Science’ and it is a compelling read. They found that simply random DNA mutations will amass in a body when its stem cells divide into tissues, and that fluke event causes two-thirds of cancers. The random aspect of it is crucial for it indicates that there’s nothing known that you can do about.
It will happen at some point in your life — or it won’t.
The study is titled Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions and it was published on Thursday. To draw their conclusions, the study authors examined 31 types of cancer and found that over two-thirds of them, 22 of the 31, were caused by mutations in stem cells and could not be prevented.
These are some of those cancers the researchers say are random: bone cancer, brain cancer, pancreatic, leukemia, testicular cancer and ovarian cancer.
It’s not, they said, that exercise and not smoking, a healthy diet and avoiding too much time in the sun aren’t all good things to do. They are and they will go a long way to preventing cancers such as skin cancer and lung cancer.
But none of that, nor your genes, can guarantee that you won’t get cancer.
