This morning I woke up to the radio news telling me that "over 40% of cancers are due to lifestyle"... and then went on to cite alcohol, smoking, poor diet and obesity as causative factors. Helloooo... firstly, that's not new, those factors are already well known, and secondly that means for 60% of us (still most) they are not. And as the boring, never-smoking teetotal, healthy eating, exercising type... well clearly it was my yellow wellies* that caused the problem.
These are the useful things I've heard in the last year or so...
The biggest cause of breast cancer is.... having breasts (substitute other part of body as appropriate)
It is just one of those random things that happens (paraphrase of my oncologist)
You'd be amazed how often I hear that (paraphrase of my chemo nurse on being told of my boringly healthy lifestyle)
People with cancers can have enough guilt or anxiety about their lifestyles without being told almost half of us contribute to our cancer. Yes, of course we should live healthy lives - but that's just plain comon sense given how many other conditions and diseases are linked to obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise etc., etc. Yes, of course there are the people who stand outside the cancer treatment centres puffing away on fags; yes there are people who live on rubbish or drink like fish (do fish drink?), but most just want to do their best to get, and stay, well for as long as possible.
I have spent far too much time reassuring other people they did nothing to cause their cancer, it just happened that they were the unlucky "1 in 3" (overall UK), they really don't need to be told this.
OK rant over
* Yellow Wellies... this utterly brilliant spoof Daily Mail article was posted on the bcc forum a year or so ago and has formed part of the 'lore' when the media reporting gets annoying:
WEARING YELLOW WELLINGTON BOOTS "CAN DOUBLE RISK OF BREAST CANCER"
Wearing yellow wellington boots can double a woman's risk of getting breast cancer, a study claimed today.
Cases of the disease were "clearly higher" in areas with increased levels of yellow wellington boot wearing, researchers said.
Women living in areas with the highest levels of yellow wellington boot wearing were almost twice as likely to develop breast cancer, one of the study's authors said.
Arthur Storey, from the Research Institute of the Nether Herdof University Health Centre in Canada, said "We've been watching breast cancer rates go up for some time. Nobody really knows why, and only about one-third of cases are attributable to known risk factors. Since no-one had studied the connection between wearing yellow wellington boots and breast cancer, we decided to investigate it. We found a link between post-menopausal breast cancer and wearing yellow wellington boots, particularly on a Wednesday. We found that risk increased by about 25% or by the lesser amount of 10% if the yellow wellington boots were only worn on Mondays and Tuesdays."
Dr Storey warned that the disturbing results should be interpreted with 'great caution', adding: "First of all, this doesn't mean that yellow wellington boots cause breast cancer. The key factor appears to be the day of the week on which they are worn and we would advise against wearing any colour of wellington boots on a Wednesday but especially yellow, green and blue."
Dubious breast cancer research stories affect several million newspaper readers each year. Eight out of ten journalists should know better.
Hope your wellies were green or black... and I dread to think what patterned ones might do... :-))