There's a rising cancer trend and, as I said, one of the major contributors is the overall ageing of the population - we aren't dying of other things, so we're dying of cancer.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Probably the most important reason we are seeing more cancers than before is because the population is ageing overall. And cancer is an age-related disease.
We may have to learn to live with cancer rather than die of it. It means a big change in our mindset and how we do research. We haven't quite reached there yet.
We are paying the price for living longer, collecting degenerative diseases along the way. Cancer is only one. Others are heart and brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinsons.
But do remember that the most important risk factor for cancer is growing older. Most cancers occur in people over the age of 65.
I think it's scandalous that we haven't done more to cure cancer.
Better treatment and detection methods have also improved the survival rate for people with cancer, and for the first time in history, this year the absolute number of cancer deaths in the U.S. has decreased.
Each of us knows a few or several young people whose lives have been devastated by cancer. I don't mean to be nihilistic about it, but it is very much an active killer of people now.
Unlike other diseases, the vulnerability to cancer lies in ourselves. We always thought of disease as exogenous, but research into cancer has turned that idea on its head - as long as we live, grow, age, there will be cancer.
For example, colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Every four minutes someone is diagnosed, and every nine minutes someone dies.
Cancer affects everyone, and it's up to all of us to support the important research that can one day make a much sought-after cure a reality.
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