1: The bad news?
The ten-year survival rate for someone with Stage IV cancer is essentially the same now as it was fifty years ago, Peter Attia writes in his book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
Stage IV or metastatic cancer occurs when the cancer cells break away from the primary tumor and travel to form new tumors in other parts of the body.
And what is the probability a person with advanced-stage cancer will survive?
Zero.
Here are the numbers. And the numbers aren’t good.
Cancer is the #2 leading cause of death after heart disease.
It is the #1 killer of people between the ages of 45-65. Cancer kills more people those ages than heart disease, liver disease, and stroke combined.
Half of women and one-third of men will have cancer in their lifetime.
2: In the early 1970s, then President Nixon declared “War on cancer.” There was cause for optimism. We had recently landed a man on the moon.
Fifty years later and many, many billions of dollars later, we have very little to show for it.
Yes, there have been some successes: We’ve cured or can treat certain cancers, primarily leukemia, and lymphomas.
Yet “curing” cancer has proven to be exceedingly tricky.
Our first challenge is understanding there is not one type of cancer. Cancer is many diseases, Peter explains.
What cancers have in common is dysregulated cell growth. One myth is that cancer cells divide or grow more rapidly. That’s not the case.
It’s not that cancer cells grow faster than other cells; it’s that they don’t respond to “cell signaling” that tells them to stop growing.
Normal cells cease growing when they are signaled to do so. And they stay where they belong.
Not cancer cells. Cancer cells keep growing and will travel from the site of origin.
3: When someone dies from cancer, the cause of death is not typically where the cancer started but where it is spread. While there are some exceptions, including brain cancer, most of the cancers that kill us–colon, lung, breast, prostate–do so when they travel to other parts of the body.
Unlike heart disease, where we understand the biology, with cancer we have many blindspots.
One thing we do know, Peter explains, is that inherited genetic mutations cause less than 10% of cancers.
Most cancers (about 90-95%) are caused by changes that occur after birth, throughout a person’s lifetime.
These cancers arise from environmental factors like exposure to carcinogens, like UV radiation or tobacco smoke, errors in DNA replication, aging, and lifestyle factors, including diet, exercise, and other lifestyle choices.
As we age, mutations accumulate, and our immune systems begin to decline, which allows cancer cells to evade detection.
“Five decades into the war on cancer,” Peter writes, “it seems clear that no single ‘cure’ is likely to be forthcoming. Rather, our best hope likely lies in figuring out better ways to attack cancer on three fronts: prevention, more targeted and effective treatments, and comprehensive and accurate early detection.
This week in RiseWithDrew, we will explore all three strategies to combat cancer.
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Have I, a family member, or a close friend battled cancer? If so, what were the lessons I learned? How has this experience impacted me? Does anything surprise me about the metrics regarding cancer?
Action: Journal about my learnings.
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