Question 1

Can a healthy lifestyle completely prevent cancer?

Accepted Answer

No. A large share of cancer risk comes from random errors that occur naturally when cells copy their DNA, which no lifestyle can eliminate. Healthy habits like not smoking and exercising meaningfully lower your odds, but they reduce risk rather than remove it entirely.

Question 2

Why do we get more cancer now than in the past?

Accepted Answer

Cancer is not more common biologically; we simply live long enough to develop it. For most of history, infections killed people before mutations could accumulate. Sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics extended life into the decades when cancer risk naturally rises.

Question 3

Why don't whales and elephants get more cancer than humans?

Accepted Answer

This puzzle is called Peto's Paradox. Despite having far more cells, large animals evolved stronger defenses. Elephants, for example, carry about twenty copies of the tumor-suppressing gene TP53, compared with one in humans, allowing damaged cells to self-destruct before turning cancerous.

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The Arithmetic of Cancer