Of all the Horsemen, cancer is probably the hardest to prevent. It is probably also the one where bad luck in various forms plays the greatest role, such as in the form of accumulated somatic mutations. The only modifiable risks that really stand out in the data are smoking, insulin resistance, and obesity (all to be avoided)—and maybe pollution (air, water, etc.), but the data here are less clear. We do have some treatment options for cancer, unlike with Alzheimer’s disease (as we’ll see in the next chapter), and immunotherapy in particular has great promise. Yet our treatment and prevention
...more
