The Most Common Cause Of Cancer: Bad Luck

Are you worried that what you eat, where you live, or your own genes might increase your chances of getting cancer? Well, those factors might contribute to cancer, but according to a recent study at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, the most likely culprit is bad luck. A Johns Hopkins news release reports that scientists at the center created a statistical model that measures the proportion of cancer incidence, across many tissue types, caused by random mutations that occur when stem cells divide. By their measure, two-thirds of adult cancer can be explained primarily by “bad luck,” meaning random mutations in genes that can drive cancer growth. The remaining one third of cancers are the result of environmental factors and inherited genes. Predictably, the obverse, people who are exposed to cancer causing agents but don’t get cancer, is also the result of luck–good luck.  “Cancer-free longevity in people exposed to cancer-causing agents, such as tobacco, is often attributed to their ‘good genes,’ but the truth is that most of them simply had good luck,” say Bert Vogelstein,  the Clayton Professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, co-director of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Vogelstein cautions that poor lifestyles can add to the bad luck factor in the development of cancer.