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from the should-have-switched-to-an-e-cig dept.
Cancer is often viewed as a fundamentally modern and monolithic disease. Many people think its rise and spread has been driven almost exclusively by the developed world's toxins and poisons; by our bad eating habits, lifestyles, and the very air we breathe.
Actually, cancer is not a single disease. It is also far from modern. New fossil evidence suggests that its origins lie deep in prehistory.
We recently published two papers in the South African Journal of Science that describe the discovery and diagnosis of the earliest benign tumour and earliest malignant cancer to affect the human family.
Tumours and cancers are collectively known as neoplastic diseases. Until now, the oldest evidence of neoplasia in the hominin fossil record dated back 120,000 years. This was found in a rib fragment of a Neanderthal from Krapina in Croatia.
But our discovery, in two South African cave sites, offers definitive evidence of cancer in hominins – human ancestors – as far back as 1.7 million years ago.
(Score: 2) by nishi.b on Friday September 16 2016, @07:22AM
There are so many things causing cancer that I am really surprised at how many people believe it's a modern disease.
To your hypothesis, you can also add inhaling the smoke from fires, viruses (hepatitis, esptein-barr, papillomavirus...) that cause cancer, breathing volcano smoke, breathing almost any fine powder (sand, asbestos...), naturally occuring radioactivity (radon), sunburns, a lot of foods, alcohol (not sure when someone got the idea of eating rotten fruits), many plants (chewing betel nuts or tobacco leaves causes cancer) and naturally-occuring toxins (e.g. aflatoxin).
You can also have genetic predisposition to cancers, and as long as those cancers happen after you reproduced, evolution won't select them out.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @07:46AM
It's a "modern" disease in the sense that longevity has increased, and older people accumulate more DNA damage and have more time to develop large tumors.
As for alcohol, I think the cancer risk of eating slightly fermented fruits is less than swigging quintuple-filtered 80 proof vodka.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday September 16 2016, @03:25PM
Don't forget free radicals, which are produced by such high-tech newfangled things as our immune systems...