What causes cancer? It’s a simple question to ask, and – in so many ways – one of the hardest to answer.
And last week, as 2015 slowly got into gear and many of us put the finishing touches to our new year’s resolutions, some eyebrow-raising headlines appeared claiming that scientists had ‘proved’ that the answer is ‘mainly bad luck’.
This story came from a research paper from scientists at Johns Hopkins University in the US, (press released here). And it appeared to contradict the message that many organisations have been trying to hammer home (including us): that although there are no guarantees, we can stack the odds of avoiding cancer in our favour if we embrace a healthy lifestyle.
(In fact, just a week ago we published new stats showing how, if the UK’s population had been healthier overall, an estimated 600,000 cases would have been avoided over the last five years.)
We weren’t the only ones with raised eyebrows – a whole host of blogs and opinion pieces appeared over the weekend, scrutinising the claims. We’ll look at some of these criticisms below, and discuss why the research DOESN’T mean that two-thirds of cases of cancer are ‘caused by bad luck’ (whatever that means).
But before we do, let’s have a very quick recap of what the researchers did, and what they found.
Cancer ‘mainly bad luck’? An unfortunate and distracting headline - Cancer Research UK - Science blog
And last week, as 2015 slowly got into gear and many of us put the finishing touches to our new year’s resolutions, some eyebrow-raising headlines appeared claiming that scientists had ‘proved’ that the answer is ‘mainly bad luck’.
This story came from a research paper from scientists at Johns Hopkins University in the US, (press released here). And it appeared to contradict the message that many organisations have been trying to hammer home (including us): that although there are no guarantees, we can stack the odds of avoiding cancer in our favour if we embrace a healthy lifestyle.
(In fact, just a week ago we published new stats showing how, if the UK’s population had been healthier overall, an estimated 600,000 cases would have been avoided over the last five years.)
We weren’t the only ones with raised eyebrows – a whole host of blogs and opinion pieces appeared over the weekend, scrutinising the claims. We’ll look at some of these criticisms below, and discuss why the research DOESN’T mean that two-thirds of cases of cancer are ‘caused by bad luck’ (whatever that means).
But before we do, let’s have a very quick recap of what the researchers did, and what they found.
Cancer ‘mainly bad luck’? An unfortunate and distracting headline - Cancer Research UK - Science blog