I totally agree with you, ole joyful. I live in an agricultural area and it seems like everyone in this town has/had a family member with cancer. I feel like some of it has to do with all the chemicals the farmers use on their fields. It's in the air and the water. There's just too much cancer in this small area. IMO

The thing I wonder is, are these things they're finding actually "new" or just weren't aware of them before? "Cop didn't see it, I didn't do it"? Kids don't drink if parents don't see them? Was Pluto even there before it was discovered, whether it's even acknowledged as a planet?

How much healthier would people be if they didn't make a hobby of running to the doctor weekly? Going to a concentration of disease, what does a person expect to come away carrying?

Curious how Norway has essentially erradicated MRSA, by cutting down the cleaning paranoia and telling people to stay home while we in North America have some of the highest MRSA rates with some of the "cleanest" hospitals. Norway tells people not to run to the doctor every time they get the sniffles. That's part of the cure! LOL And it's working.

One thing that can't be denied. We're living longer than ever before. How long do people expect to live? I like what Redd Foxx used to say about people saying not to eat pork and fat and stuff like that. Aren't you gonna feel like a g__d___ fool laid out in the hospital dying from nothing!

Something to ponder as we separate our two-ply into two single ply!

I found this interesting:
__________________________

Man, Environment And Life Expectancy
By Edward Grimsley

In the beginning, the air and all the rivers, lakes, and oceans were clean and pure. And darkness was upon the face of the deep much of the time.

Man spent most of his time looking for food and shelter, and shivering, clothing made from fig leaves not being very warm. Finally, he learned that animals were useful not only as food but also to provide clothing and shelter, since their pelts and hides could be used for cloaks and tents and so forth. He became a hunter and hunted all the time without a twinge of remorse, since there was no animal-rights movement to tell him he was doing wrong.

So he roamed the earth, searching for food and shelter, breathing the pure air and drinking the pure water. He had plenty of room to roam, for the Earth was not crowded in those pristine and prehistoric days. The average life span, you see, was only 18 years.

Man limited his activity to the daylight hours, of course, since he had no light strong enough to dispel the darkness that covered the face of the deep several hours of each day. He was in bed by sundown, which means that he spent much of his short life in unconscious sleep.

Over the centuries, life changed. Man discovered the fire, which provided heat and light. True, it burned forests, and occasionally human beings, but people decided the advantages of fire more than offset its dangers. Through the years, more and more people began to live in permanent villages, towns, and cities. They dumped their garbage into the streets and nearby streams and rivers. Thus they invented pollution.

And life expectancy rose, reaching 30 years by Roman Times.

Man continued to develop and change. Eventually he invented candles. Then he discovered that lamps fueled by oil, from whatever source, produced stronger light than candles. Since whales were a good sourced of lamp oil, people killed a lot of whales in those days. But there was less darkness upon the face of the deep. People could even see to read at night. Hardly anyone spoke out in defense of whales.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, man moved into the Industrial Age. This featured factories that filled the air with black smoke and poured new pollutants into the rivers and lakes. Man breathed poison 24 hours a day.

His live expectancy jumped to about 40 years.

It was only a couple of hundred years or so ago that the population of the world was 1 billion.

It took a century or two for it to grow to 2 billion.

Now it's over 6 billion, going on to 7 billion.

Pretty soon we're going to have to break up those big lawns around the suburban designed-for-cars homes to grow veggies.

I hope that the architects are designing those big homes so that they can be split into three apartments, for when our increased numbers of low-wage people will need to cut down the square-footage of their habitation in order to afford the energy needed for either heating or cooling, in addition to the lighting and other chores.

ole joyful

There are so many ways to look at the subject, and I mostly agree with all of the posts. My late Daughter-in-law didn't go to the Dr like she should have. A throw back of being left to support 4 kids by a a$$ of a ex-husband and didn't have the money or insurance. After she married my son, and they had good jobs with insurance, she was still in the mind set of not going to the Dr when she should have. Maybe if she went sooner, the cancer would have been caught sooner, and she may still be with us. I do believe the environment is more toxic than it used to be.

I completely believe it. It's infuriating because there's no way to get away from all the chemicals and pollutants. I keep my home as chemical-free as possible. I use non-toxic products, or even just plain vinegar, to clean. I only use products I would consume on my body (coconut oil for a moisturizer, natural shampoo/toothpaste).

I spend a fortune on organic produce because I don't feel comfortable with conventional. And even the "organic" tag doesn't mean as much as it used to. And even if you grow your food at home, the soil is still polluted in most areas.

I do my best and try hard not to worry about it. I hold my breath if I walk by a smoker or a heavy-exhaust vehicle that is idling in a parking lot.

But I agree. We're living longer but we're also subjecting ourselves to a variety of cancer and other problems that were unheard of just a few decades ago. I believe the statistics are that 1 in 3 people will get cancer in their lifetime and it's only going up. I'm still in my 20's and I already know at least 10 people who have had this disease. And yes, older age does play a role in disease development, but it's also affecting many, many younger people. I know a 27 year old who never smoked in his life who has stage 4 lung cancer. It's so sad.

Any sober second thoughts to offer?

We're having more complex and extreme weather patterns, too, it seems to me.

ole joyful

Why, my oh my, would we be worried about Global Warming and pollution? I see them as real and present danger.

OTOH, my maternal grandmother buried her mother, her sister and her brother before my own mother was six. They died of TB. My paternal grandmother was the only surviving adult child of her parents' six children. Three died before they were two -- probably of germs their father brought home from his work as a doctor. Two died before they were twenty, both in accidents that would almost certainly not take place today. My maternal grandfather died after a stroke he suffered in his early 50's -- quite preventable today.

I agree with Dotmom's point about going to the doctor. One of my brain tumour's has invaded a part of my brain where the surgeon cannot access. Had I gone to my physician and told him of my symptoms sooner, the neurosurgeon would have been able to remove all of that one before it got into my superior sagittal sinus cavity because it was a slow growing tumour. Now the situation is a lot more difficult and risky for me than it needed to be. I kick myself over that.

However, I do agree that we need to live as cleanly as possible and be kind to our environment. Our future depends on it.

Stats like one in three will develop (Whatever) beg the question: We all die (of something). A difference today is that Medicine has a clue about the Whatever.

Some old death certificates I've seen while doing genealogy are laughable on Cause of Death: "Died after losing her faculties." "Swelled up and died." "Became feverish and disoriented. Heart stopped." They say what happened but there's no *diagnosis* of the cause -- not the case with the state of science today. Thus, more people have or die of 'cancer', 'sepsis', whatever diagnosis of disease. At least I'm seeing *some* death notices that simply say the deceased died of "age related illnesses".

I wonder how many people who now complain about crap in the air and water would be willing to go back in time and live the same kind of lifestyle enjoyed by our ancestors 100-200 years ago when the air and water were presumably cleaner. The average life expectancy of someone born in 1900 was 48 years.

I'm all in favor of clean air and water but everything comes at a price and it isn't just a financial cost. I guess you can have a glass is half empty (gloom and doom) or a glass is half full perspective on most anything in life.

Our ancestors certainly had their share of obstacles and hardships that we can only imagine. I'm grateful that we have the medical knowledge and technology to prevent and treat many of the illnesses and injuries that plagued them.

However, in my opinion, the tragedy now is that we're doing all of this damage to ourselves. Our ancestors were victims to outside forces beyond their control, but our choices in consumption are directly affecting our health. It just baffles me that science has to work so much harder to keep up in order to fix the things that we're doing to ourselves.