184
votes
Accepted
Is eating processed meat as bad as smoking for causing cancer?
According to the US CDC:
People who smoke cigarettes are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke
According to Carcinogenicity of ...
- 106k
96
votes
Accepted
Do 80 to 90 percent of lifelong smokers never develop lung cancer?
This study from 2018 has a table (Fig.3) for lifetime risk of lung cancer, with that being ~12-14% for current smoker, and less than 2% for never-smoker.
So, it is true that 80-90 percent of smokers ...
- 1,108
81
votes
Is there reliable evidence that depleted uranium from the 1999 NATO bombing is causing cancer in Serbia?
There are several points to consider here.
1) Depleted Uranium is not that much "depleted".
"Depleted uranium," the byproduct of the enrichment process, has about 0.002 percent 234U, 0.2 percent ...
- 19k
79
votes
Accepted
Was Eddie Van Halen's tongue cancer caused by metal guitar picks?
WP:Copper toxicity#EPA cancer data:
The EPA lists no evidence for human cancer incidence connected with copper, and lists animal evidence linking copper to cancer as "inadequate".
There is ...
- 19k
77
votes
Is eating processed meat as bad as smoking for causing cancer?
Does the claim “processed meat causes as much cancer as smoking in relative terms” hold up to scrutiny?
No, it does not. The WHO did indeed classify processed meat as carcinogenic to humans. Going to ...
- 14.5k
66
votes
Do 80 to 90 percent of lifelong smokers never develop lung cancer?
Note that the claim was specifically made about lung cancer. Smoking can cause many different types of cancer. Someone who dies from smoking-related throat, oral, stomach, etc. cancer wouldn't be ...
- 853
63
votes
Accepted
Do hot peppers kill cancer?
To the best of my knowledge, the paper cited by the BBC is "Vanilloid receptor agonists and antagonists are mitochondrial inhibitors: how vanilloids cause non-vanilloid receptor mediated cell death" (...
- 876
43
votes
Accepted
Lung cancer due to inhaling oily steam in the restaurant kitchen for a long period of time
There have been a number of case-control studies on Chinese women. Here are three open-access papers:
Ko et al. (2000). "Chinese Food Cooking and Lung Cancer in Women Nonsmokers". Amer. J. ...
- 1,767
39
votes
Is there reliable evidence that depleted uranium from the 1999 NATO bombing is causing cancer in Serbia?
Check out this paper: Cancer mortality in Serbia, 1991–2015, published in 2018. The study is based on official data on cancer-related deaths. The conclusions drawn by the authors are:
Overall cancer ...
- 2,447
38
votes
Accepted
Do vaccines against childhood diseases leave the immune system less capable of fighting cancer?
Claim
There are many debunked claims about possible dangers of vaccines in this 4chan thread, including the old standby that vaccines cause autism, which is dealt with in this Skeptics Q&A. I ...
- 3,176
34
votes
Does burning your food increase your risk of getting cancer?
There is no evidence that the acrylamide produced by browned food causes measurable harm to people
The big worry about browning or burning food is the presence of acrylamide which is produced by the ...
- 56.2k
19
votes
Accepted
Do elephants rarely get cancer?
Do "elephants have 40 cancer-fighting proteins in their DNA?" Elephants have 40 copies of a single cancer-fighting protein. This means they have a lot more of that protein than humans.
Do elephants ...
- 12k
17
votes
Accepted
Is Roundup weed killer carcinogenic?
There is no consistent evidence showing a relationship between glyphosate and cancer
There are a lot of studies on the relationship between glyphosate use and cancer. Some are small and poor; others ...
- 56.2k
16
votes
Accepted
Are organic vegetables higher in carcinogens?
Issue:
Whether organic vegetables are comparably more carcinogenic to vegetables treated with synthetic pesticides?
Evidence:
Research shows that numerous chemicals present in natural products tested ...
- 22.7k
15
votes
Accepted
Does drinking distilled kerosene cure cancer?
tl;dr- No, drinking distilled kerosene doesn't cure cancer as far as any modern research can tell. Some studies have suggested that it might cause cancer in some cases, though the general scientific ...
- 4,111
15
votes
Does synthetic vitamin C contribute to the formation of genotoxins that can lead to cancer?
In a sciencemag.org article, which was apparently about this study, they state that:
In the process of destroying free radicals, vitamin C turns into what's called a vitamin C radical. If certain ...
- 311
14
votes
Did just 18 people die from prostate cancer in Japan in 1958?
No!
Other sources such as Vegan Bite By Bite (page 210) make clear that the number "18" is the number of autopsy proven deaths from prostate cancer, not the total number.
The source of the "18" ...
- 106k
13
votes
Would eliminating cancer only change the average lifespan by 2.5 years?
The actual number of 3.2 years comes from a US Health and Human Services report examining causes of mortality from a period between 1999-2001, and does not include any additional advances in medicine ...
- 22.4k
13
votes
Do 80 to 90 percent of lifelong smokers never develop lung cancer?
It is an oversimplification to assume that even the majority of lifelong smokers 'must' develop lung cancer and die from it. There are other causes of death, and lung cancer is a leading cause among ...
- 44.1k
12
votes
Are two thirds of cancer mutations random and unavoidable?
The actual research paper Stem cell divisions, somatic mutations, cancer etiology, and cancer prevention Science 24 Mar 2017:
Vol. 355, Issue 6331, pp. 1330-1334 says:
It is now widely accepted that ...
- 106k
12
votes
Accepted
Do aluminum-based antiperspirants cause cancer?
Research data does not have conclusive evidence linking the use of underarm antiperspirants or deodorants and the subsequent development of breast cancer.
Researchers at the National Cancer ...
- 22.7k
10
votes
Has first cancer case been directly confirmed to Fukushima cleanup?
No, at least according to the information presented in the source they reference, which just doesn't actually attempt to establish any correlation.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/...
- 814
10
votes
Are blue lights giving people cancer?
The thinking is that disrupted sleep results in lower melatonin production which through some unknown mechanism might make the body more vulnerable to the cancers.
This is classical clickbait. Even ...
- 201
10
votes
Accepted
Does smoking one joint give as much exposure to cancer-producing chemicals as smoking four to five cigarettes?
The USC webpage states
MARIJUANA USE CONSEQUENCES
The well-confirmed danger of smoking marijuana is lung damage and lung cancer. As examples:
1 joint = 5 cigarettes in terms of ...
- 14.1k
9
votes
Accepted
Is "blue scorpion venom" a legitimate treatment for cancer?
tl;dr- Yes, it sounds like blue scorpion venom is recognized as a folk treatment for cancer in Cuba, but, no, it's not well-regarded in current medical literature. Below are a few papers that ...
- 4,111
9
votes
Accepted
Are vegetable oils "worse" for your health than cigarettes?
There does not seem to be any supporting evidence for the claim.
By 'vegetable oils' they must mean 'seed oils', which have been the object of discussion among the health-conscious.
The specific claim ...
- 7,663
8
votes
Accepted
Are child thyroid cancer rates around Fukushima 20—50x higher?
When one reviews the comments of the Director General report of IAEA in Aug 2015 to the Tsuda et.al's study, there are valid issues noted which will need to be addressed in the future by Tsuda et.al ...
- 22.7k
8
votes
Can 'resonant frequencies' kill cancer cells?
Short version
This is a partial answer, as I've traced this back far enough to find significant connections to pseudo-science and basis for doubt, but I haven't found any sources that directly refute ...
- 4,111
6
votes
Can 'resonant frequencies' kill cancer cells?
The FDA approval is confirmed in FDA's press 2015 release, which mentions a trial, because it would have been absurd for the FDA to give apporoval otherwise:
In the clinical study used to support ...
- 59.8k
6
votes
Does burning your food increase your risk of getting cancer?
Yes it does.
Other answers are about acrylamide, but there are many other carcinogens, too:
Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) is ... one of the benzopyrenes ... and is the result of incomplete combustion at ...
- 3,289
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible