Cancer Has A Bright Future, Humans Maybe Not So Much

Because you live in a relatively rich country, the United States, you have an enriched risk of the cancers that strike the well-off parts of the world: lung, breast, colon and prostate cancer. As countries increase their wealth, these cancers increase. The fact that we spend too much time sitting motionless on our couches, endlessly munching on nutrient-deprived processed snacks and ingesting the toxic byproducts of an industrialized society encourages these cancerous developments.

We’ll soon have lots of company. As Third World countries grow richer and more developed, their higher standards of living will mean higher rates of these cancers, too.

An analysis in The Lancet Oncology finds that as countries like China and India continue to expand economically, so will their rates of these cancers.

Right now, citizens of poorer countries have cancer, but their disease is most often linked to infections that are associated with cancers of the esophagus, cervix, liver and stomach.

By 2030, as these countries begin to live a more couch-potato lifestyle, their cancer totals will rise from about 12.7 million worldwide cases (recorded in 2008) to 22.2 million. The biggest spike is expected to occur in countries like China where the middle class is growing rapidly.

However, researchers explain that being a member of a wealthy society doesn’t have to doom you to cancer. Exercise more. Lose the potato chips and eat more fruits and vegetables. Give up smoking. Don’t live next to a busy (polluted) highway as you traverse the highway of life.