This comes from a survey done in France about people’s views of the causes of cancer.
It makes it a distinction that I didn’t quite have clear in my mind.
I will comment on my view of the psychology of the situation.
I focus on the first idea and that is that people confuse the fact that one can have a genetic predisposition to a cancer with getting cancer.
The idea is that there is a miss perception that since cancer is thought to be genetically determined your lifestyle has little to do with it
This strikes me as remarkable as over the last 20 years we have heard much more about lifestyle. About not smoking, about diet, and exercise reducing cancer risk. It appears from the survey the message has not gotten across.
It’s understandable on one level but on another, it’s interesting because ideas on changing lifestyle would seem to be more accessible to the general population. Thinking about genetics is still not so well understood.
I would say the psychology of it goes this way:
I like my lifestyle. Much of what I do is habitual and even unconscious.
In order to change I have to do a lot of work.
The mind goes to the easiest route and that is to convince me to ignore information that goes against the idea that I don’t have to change as cancer is generic. That is if I am going to get cancer there is nothing, I can do about it so I can continue my unhealthy lifestyle.
This is a disavowal of facts, not a denial, but an ignoring of the facts that are right in front of you, an avoidance of what is often clear to you if you stop and think about it
For the majority of people, I would say it’s more ignorance which means we have much educating to do.
As the article points out for the most part cancer is not primarily genetic it is epigenetic. The propensity to have a given cancer has to be brought out by environmental conditions that change genes after birth. That is an unhealthy lifestyle and environmental toxins are the irritants that “cause” cancer.
That is not to say that there are no cancers that have their origin in a primary genetic predisposition such as many breast, bowel, stomach, and prostate cancers. Nevertheless, these can be modified, and risk can be reduced by lifestyle changes.
Unwittingly this idea has been promulgated by the medical system in so far as we always ask about family history of cancers. We should do this as it can be important, but I believe most of the medical system falls prey to the same erroneous thinking that the public does. We concentrate on the family history more than we do on talking to patients about changing their lifestyles.
The message about smoking causing cancer seems to have gotten through to most people although it can be improved upon.
Finally, to return to the subject of weight which I have touched upon before. There is a dangerous movement of saying that being overweight is OK.
I understand what’s happening here. To review much of our weight gain we have no control over because we live in an environment that has sabotaged us. That’s not to say that those forces want us to gain weight, but weight is a direct consequence of heavily processed food and empty calories are more or less forced on us all the time.
Add to that sedentary a lifestyle and you get an obesity epidemic. I believe I read the other day that 50% of the world’s population will be overweight by 2035 that’s only 12 years away.
Being overweight becomes normalized and therefore less shaming. Celebrating obesity or just being overweight is a defense mechanism against being shamed for being overweight. And if there are enough people overweight then those people won’t shame you for being overweight. It’s going in the wrong dangerous direction.
How we combat these attitudes is a problem to be solved. And then saying any of this I’m not blaming anybody or saying that it’s easy or saying that some people are not metabolically able to bring their weight down.
In summary overall lifestyle is more important than genetics when it comes to cancer.
From the article:
Indeed, healthcare professionals almost systematically ask questions about family history of breast cancer and, when a family member has been diagnosed with cancer, medical monitoring of other family members is often sought out, thus reinforcing the belief that cancer is hereditary,” they said.
Furthermore, there seems to be confusion regarding the role of genes in the development of cancer. A person can inherit cancer-predisposing genes, not cancer itself. The authors highlighted their concern that this confusion may "lead people to think that prevention measures are unnecessary because cancer is inherited."
About 41% of smokers think that the length of time one has been smoking is the biggest determining factor for developing cancer; 58.1% think the number of cigarettes smoked per day has a bigger impact.
Experts at InCA and SPF put the debate to rest, stating that prolonged exposure to carcinogenic substances is far more toxic. As for the danger threshold concerning the number of cigarettes smoked per day, respondents believed this to be 9.2 cigarettes per day, on average. They believed that the danger threshold for the number of years as an active smoker is 13.4, on average.
"The [survey] respondents clearly understand that smoking carries a risk, but many smokers think that light smoking or smoking for a short period of time doesn't carry any risks." Yet it is understood that even occasional tobacco consumption increases mortality.
This was not the only misconception regarding smoking and its relationship with cancer. About 34% of survey respondents agreed with the following statement: "Smoking doesn't cause cancer unless you're a heavy smoker and have smoked for a long time." Furthermore, 43.3% agreed with the statement, "Pollution is more likely to cause cancer than smoking," 54.6% think that "exercising cleans your lungs of tobacco," and 61.6% think that "a smoker can prevent developing cancer caused by smoking if they know to quit on time."
Among the causes of cancer known and cited by respondents without prompting, excessive weight and obesity were mentioned only 100 times out of 12,558 responses," highlighted the authors of the report. The explanation put forward by the authors is that discourse about diet has been more focused on diet as a protective health factor, especially in preventing cardiovascular diseases. "The link between cancer and diet is less prominent in the public space," they noted.