Macmillan CANCER TV AD Disgrace

Decisions are based on information. If information is incorrect or withheld then it becomes difficult to expect positive changes

.
http://www.sellafieldsites.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Cake%20Sale%20010-1024x682.jpg

Macmillan coffee morning, wall to wall shoite.

Thanks for posting that Flower, a very sad picture indeed

Good point OOS. Poor advertisement for a very worthy cause.

You have no understanding of how statistics work, if someone was to find a larger
than normal percentage of cancer in people in certain parts of a country and finding
these people lived close to a nuclear reactor the link might be made between the two.

This would be wrong..there have to be certain statistical clusters, if there were not
then the maths would be wrong. Certain parts of the world must have pockets of cancer
higher than expected. But this can mean something or nothing but this is how it must
be mathematically.

Breast cancer rates in Japan used to be significantly lower than the western world (I mean statistically significant). This is changing but the change is due to the westernistaion of such coutries and the adoption of the low grade western diet. I do understand how stats work lfc, actually its closely related to what I do for a living.

Are the Japanese living longer?

Is their medicine,now westernised now able to detect and record cancer...
and so it goes on.

The Okinawa's (**** island) certainly do or at least those that have stayed true to traditional diet and values. They have one of the greatest incidence of longevity in the world

The very low incidence of cancer are recorded in many cases by missionary doctors working in populations such as the African continent. It is not a simple case of diagnostics being absent lfc

I'm off for some sushi right now.

Look certain ares, including possibly small islands must by the very nature of
statistics have a lower than normal, and in some cases almost amounting to zero
levels of cancer. This is simply how it must be mathematically. There may be a connection
to eating sushi and maybe a liking for red wine but the fact of these clusters prove nothing.

You must remember that the numbers must not and cannot be uniform.

"This is simply how it must be mathematically"

I am not sure what laws of mathematics or probability you are working to lfc but they are not any that I am familiar with. You seem to thin that small islands means lower incidence of cancer compared to large countries. That kind of thinking clearly has no statistical foundation at all

That is not what i meant, its quite clear if you want to read without bias.

I said certain areas..including small islands, didn`d think i had to add large islands
or any particular part of the world. The point is numbers cannot be uniform and so
with the thousands of small and large islands some must tend towards zero cases.

Especially if there are no inhabitants

Yes you have caught me there lfc, I was in fact referring to islands with zero inhabitants when I referred to low cancer rates. There is no pulling the wool over your eyes

Ah i thought you would take that get out, ok this is how it  works..
there will be certain parts of the world that have low, sometimes very low levels
of cancer. This may be related to diet of course but it is also possible that it
is simply how statistics work. Indeed if we were not to find these areas either
within a country or throughout the world then a mistake would have been made.

There will always be clusters of high and low cancer purely because of how maths works.

I must admit , when you see what goes into the vast majority of food that we routinely buy and think of as normal , most of it to preserve it's shelf life or give it a particular flavour that has been all but removed by processing the food stuff or colouring to make it more apertising , then it's not too much of a leap to think these have something to do with diseases like Cancer etc

Thank you lfc for this wonderful insight into statistics. Here was I using Chi squared test and P ratios when really its much simpler than that. I can see now that Okinawa simply is too small and is bound to have fewer cancer incidents because there just fewer people on the island, why did I not think of that.

lfc embaressing himself again

No Brendan, 'its how maths works'

i think he must have skipped, the sentence where you said (I mean statistically significant)

Far more dangerous than not knowing something is not knowing that you dont know something

Please try and read what i said and not what it suits you to think i said.
At no point did i say that the population of Okinowa was a factor...if
you can not at least discuss this in an honest way without misrepresentation
it dosn`t sit well for your overall argument.

lfc, you keep saying it's how numbers work or how maths works - what do you actually mean by that?

Mister Badger it is really quite simple but people are blind to this in everyday life....
and gambling.
Things happen not in straight lines or uniformity. There must be clusters of unexpected events
things that are rare are likely, indeed must happen more often than you think.
The expression that bad things happen in threes was first said by Shakespeare but as often
there is an element of truth to this.
This is the only way that the universe as a mathematical construct can be.

pumphol.  • July 11, 2014 10:37 AM BST
Macmillan nurses do a wonderful job, I will leave it at that.

I agree pumphol

I think the OP is wrong...all life involves some risk
if we cannot enjoy a cake in aid of a good cause...life is probably not worth living

just my own opinion

We are in fact allowed to eat some sugar every day,

I think we should be grateful we have a regular supply of food at all myself

and I regret to say, however healthy our diet.... we still die anyway

live dangerously, live life to the full, eat a cake

MisterBadger • July 11, 2014 6:15 PM BST
lfc, you keep saying it's how numbers work or how maths works - what do you actually mean by that?

lfc1971 • July 11, 2014 6:30 PM BST
Mister Badger it is really quite simple...The expression that bad things happen in threes was first said by Shakespeare but as often
there is an element of truth to this.
This is the only way that the universe as a mathematical construct can be.

If one was to take this seriously:
One would have to ban Christmas(Oliver Cromwell tried that), Birthdays, Anniversaries,etc
and all types of celebrations involving conspicuous consumption

In fact all sensible diets do allow a cake or a bun now and again, one only has to have less of
these at other times to balance, or just add an extra bit of exercise to burn it off

It is when people eat cakes all the time the problems arise, such as high blood sugar, too much fat, high cholesterol,
etc...I do not see MacMillan advocating this?

please keep a sense of proportion here

It is a myth that somehow exercise can undo the damage sugar does to the arteries and other internal organs. Poor food will damage you internally regardless of whether you are training for a triathlon or not. Macmillan holding cake eating parties are suggesting that to eat cake is OK from a cancer perspective.

By the way the food industry love this moderation message as they know that the foods they pedal are addictive and thus once tried moderation becomes impossible for many

Fair enough...I think you underestimate the power of exercise
Yet again I have made myself a bit of bully here ...apologies

I think we have a principle difference here though
surely people cannot blame the food industry for their own lack of willpower?
even though food is tastier than it was ever before....

Any sort of unhealthy lifestyle probably makes us more susceptible to cancer, as to any other disease

I still think you are being unfair to MacMillan here
they are good people......one should never attack good people

It is when people eat cakes all the time the problems arise

They do in the sense that the sugars in the cakes are in all the other food they eat all the time, our diet (and it didn’t used to be this way) raises insulin many times a day in the succession of large and small meals that we consume. The ‘healthy’ lunch that is brown bread, with chicken and some dressing, an apple or banana or grapes. A couple of hours later you are moody, tired and want something to eat – like a biscuit or two. People are on an insulin rollercoaster all day that is damaging and completely unnatural. Nearly all the food we eat that is not whole food contains wheat and/or high fructose corn syrup. The former causes all sorts of problems to which I can attest and is addictive, the latter doesn’t budge insulin and so your brain never receives the “I’m full” signals that Leptin sends it when you eat fat. It’s put in our food in place of fat and no one asked us if we minded or even told us. One minute it wasn’t there, the next minute it was. Foods that you bought that didn’t contain HFCS last week did this week. No wonder people are fat, the industry made them fat. Even when we are told to eat healthily we think fruit and below-ground vegetables - full of sugar.

If the cake were the naughty treat in the otherwise sensible day that’d be fine, but everyone’s diet is crammed full of rubbish that is additive and driving a diabetes epidemic.  The ad makers should just have been more sensitive, that's all – you’d raise an eyebrow if the publicity shots for the coffee mornings included a couple of women smoking and an old soak having another gin. These would be unacceptable even though they are probably closer to reality than not. So why should an advert for fighting a disease this serious include the kinds of food that themselves are part of the problem, too much sugar – the blue touch paper, in effect, of cancer?

and I regret to say, however healthy our diet.... we still die anyway … live dangerously, live life to the full, eat a cake

I know you are kidding to an extent, it does seem silly when you may say "It's only a cake or two we are talking about", I quite appreciate the apparent absurdity. But it is part of a bigger picture. No one is expecting to live forever. The point is that we want to live for as long as we can as well as we can. What’s the point of a prolonged decline at the mercy of a brain disease caused by a devil-may-care attitude to carbs?  Wouldn’t anyone prefer an autumn and winter of well being, followed by a rapid kicking of the bucket over a confused and painful long (expensive) decline? This whole health campaign going back has been exactly about that, about taking responsibility for your health in your 40s, 50s and 60s so that you are not a pain in the arse for a large part of those years and beyond and so you can actually enjoy those years in better health.

The problem here is the food companies have to compete...so they make food which tastes better
because that way they sell more...do you see the problem

You could ask the government to pass laws on what they are allowed or not allowed to put in our food
but then you are removing peoples choice...another problem???????
In fact I wont have anyone taking away my own choice whatever

I would add another problem here, It is our the general poor values we have in our society
people may retreat to food for comfort

People living longer...even that is a two edged sword if you add up hospital, care and pension costs
..in fact the longer we live..we are a pain in the arse, whether we like it or not

still I will consider your post
mine is just my own opinion as usual

I think they didn't know that wheat and HFCS encouraged eating to start with, I believe they didn't want to lose sales because the fat and flavour had been taken out, I seem to remember trials in the USA where people said they didn't like the foods without the fat.So they simply wanted things to return to normal. But at some point it must have shown up in the sales that things were selling more. If you are not satiated (whether you've eaten enough or not) you are in a real sense starving, even though you have all the nutrition you need. I think they must have quickly realised that was a gold mine. I don't know either, but I think that's why there's wheat in things like soups and sausages that if you were making them at home you'd never include - same goes for high fructose corn syrup.

The solution is to return to fat, which does not raise insulin, cause inflammation or make you fat and does satiate you. However people are utterly afraid of it because of all the bad things they've been told.

An excellent post @00:13, FlowerMyth - followed up with another good one @00:46

Flower is spot on here. If there was one thing you should rule out of your life in addition to sugar it would be wheat. What the pro argument people on this thread are probably saying is that we do not expect legislation against cakes, what we expect is information from people who the public, sadly, tend to take notice. Macmillan are one of those sets of people who can exert influence and yet they are exerting influence in the opposite direction to the one they should be leading us. When big business exerts an adverse influence on our health in order to protect profit something is wrong in our society. When doctors know nothing about nutrition and everything about pharmacology, something again is wrong. I do not believe that we should back off from establishments because they employ well minded people but are run on a basis that is not likely to solve or help the problem.

The BRCA gene makes women who carry the mutation far more susceptible to breast cancer, which is why it is becoming more prevalent for those with the mutation to have masectomy's before any evidence of cancer. Before 1940 the incidence of breast cancer development in women with the BRCA mutation was 24%. By 2013 the incidence was greater than 85%. We have not changed our genes within that period but we have changed drastically our diet, exercise and general lifestyle. medical research shows that breast cancer cells and cancer cells in general thrive on sugar. So again I ask are Macmillan in the cancer promoting or the cancer reducing business?.

Human beings, in facts all mammals, seek tasty food.
You are blaming food manufacturers for giving us what we want, in fact they have to, if they produce
food that tastes like crud, nobody would buy it.

I accept it is probably bad for us. In fact we should eat a healthy and balanced diet.
But I still think this is personal choice.

It is more difficult with children, but part of a parents responsibility is to teach a child
to eat a healthy and balanced diet......but adults must make their own choice.

I still you are being unfair to MacMillan
just my opinion

feel free to differ

ebulGery, although we have disagreed sometimes is increasingly becoming the voice of reason
and sheer common sense, although not on every subject

ta lfc1971

Another point, is it reasonable to believe, that anybody seeing this MacMillan ad
would see it as a green flag to a diet of cakes and buns
surely people would have to be a bit dim to do that

I rather assumed people had a brain
and would see it for what it is, an attempt to raise money for a very good cause

But then maybe most people are dim....oh well

lets a a smokathon for cancer research then, cant argue with that, or a pub crawl

good idea Brendan, you would get my support

When I said people would have to be dim, I did not mean the posters on here, because they have thought about it,
and have taken a view, even if we don't agree

I meant, is the average viewer of this ad that dim?

I would say that average person going to an event endorsed by MacMillan Cancer, would assume that the event would be healthy for them or at least free from things that might cause ill health

I never realised cream buns were so dangerous

One cream bun will not kill you on the spot, but it's not part of a healthy diet.

phew!...I'm relieved

So was Mafeking

The original point being made was that cancer charities are promoting fundraising by using some of the very things that cause cancer - would anyone advocate holding an orgy to raise funds for research into STDs ffs? 

Probably  but who knows what really goes on at the House Of Commons

SDK got a lot to ansa 4

I meant, is the average viewer of this ad that dim?

No, the average viewer is no more dim than the average Renaissance man was who hadn’t heard of Copernicus yet and had ‘common sense’ and ‘reason’ to tell him the Sun obviously went around the Earth. It’s a shift in thinking that will seem obvious later that hasn’t happened yet and that’s what we should want. In 50 years people will say how bizarre it was to not notice that the thing they want to cure is caused by the thing they are encouraging people to do to stop it. Just as those ads where doctors stated they only smoked Camels or Marlboro cigarettes were taken in their stride by most people at the time, but would be outrageous today.

We should want people to question the sanity of eating tons of sugar to help prevent the illnesses sugar causes. Perhaps the cake makers of Britain will then wake up to the fact that you can make virtually any cake without the damaging ingredients - like substituting coconut flour for wheat, for instance. That’s the pity of it, you can do it all with alternative ingredients, but all the time ads like this are made it perpetuates the status quo.

people are that dim

Human beings, in facts all mammals, seek tasty food.

I don’t think this is true in the way you mean it. It is probably a fact that once an animal (mammal or not) eats sugar it wants more. But that is Evolution. Fruits are seasonal and for most of the millions of years that there have been mammals there’d be a short period of fruit prior to winter. When you eat fruit it rapidly turns to fat and that helps you through the winter when there’s not much food about and you use more energy to find it. It is logical to think that once your brain registers high glucose it is going to seek as much as possible for the winter it thinks is coming, remember this is how it was for hundreds of thousands of human years. But that winter never comes these days, the starvation never comes, but the brain doesn’t know that. It has evolved to respond to sugar, but it is a 365 day a year bonanza that never ends. We are on a sort of autopilot to seek more and more sugar.

On the subject of animals, they can’t count calories and they have no idea about calories in/calories out, but they never get obese unless it is us feeding them. Wild animals maintain ideal weight with no trouble.

If you watch grazing animals, they will seek the most tender and freshest grass.
My cat knows what he likes and what he does not.
So they do prefer tastier food????

Human beings also operate on this basis.
I saw a program that attributed our success to this. Particularly with cooked food.
We can eat more of it, because it tastes better, so our brains grew.
Eating raw food is often not very appetising is it???

We are still programmed to do this.
Even though it may harm us.

Food manufacturers, cost every ingredient that goes into their food, particularly if it is mass produced.
We buy their food on the basis of taste.
Even if we choose low fat, low sugar, low salt foods,etc.....within this constraint, we still go for the tastiest food.

To blame the food manufacturers is absolutely ridiculous, they operate by the laws of supply and demand.
It is us which is the problem, not them.

just my own opinion.

I agree with you, we should eat healthy food, but that is our own responsibility and choice.

You can't argue against someone and his cat.

this thread is head & shoulders above most of the dross on the forum with some v well thought out & cogent posts that are v informative & thought provoking esp those of FM.
u boys done good

You can't argue against someone and his cat.

[i]"Given that for many people cancer is a food borne illness and many cancers thrive on a high sugar diet, are they drumming up business or simply being irresponsible ?."[/]

Makes me angry, too, when I see these adds.

Macmillan nurses do a wonderful job and I support their charity but these adverts do seem irresponsible.

Cancer feeds on sugar.

Some excellent posts on this thread from FlowerMyth, particularly the posts at 00:13 and 00:47.

"but it is a 365 day a year bonanza that never ends"

Very scary when you think of it like that.

Cancers sweet tooth

http://www.mercola.com/article/sugar/sugar_cancer.htm

What makes me mad is Tesco pretending they care about the rise in Type 2 diabetes.

They are actively promoting the consumption of the very thing that is the main cause of it.

Instead of having a stand full of donuts, on special offer, staring you in the face as you enter their store, why not have a stand full of blueberries?

No different to the govt. giving you advice to stop smoking.

If they were really concerned about your health, they'd ban it, but losing millions in tax is not what they want. And now they want to start taxing e-ciggies as well.

I'll read that tomorrow, Olias, when I'm less tired.

Here's a good book if anyone is interested

.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anticancer-New-Life-David-Servan-Schreiber/dp/0718156846/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405291327&sr=1-1&keywords=the+anti-cancer+diet

I try to eat as close as possible to the way nature intended us to eat.

I have to admit I'm no saint tho' and do fall off the wagon occasionally (see Moonbeams ice-cream thread )

Yes, cmat, it's all about money unfortunately.

What makes me mad is Tesco pretending they care about the rise in Type 2 diabetes.

All Tesco care about is profit. End of. 

Very true.

This is a great thread, I will look in on it again tomorrow.

Human beings are born with a sweet tooth you know
Have you not noticed how children prefer sweet things...we have to wean them off it

But all our problems are now been the fault of the food companies
How about as an experiment
WE eat less
WE exercise more

I have diabetes 2...but I accept it is my own responsibility
I have no intention of pinning it on somebody else

ebulGery we agree on most things and I'm with you on this one.

We have to take responsibility for our own decisions, I get frustrated at how we should do this but not do that and so on. For me cancer, as most other illnesses is fairly random and whilst we can do what we want to feel better or watch our weight we should not stop enjoying what we want to enjoy.

http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Aboutus/HowWeRaiseAndSpendOurMoney/RaiseAndSpend.aspx

Although there is no slice on the expenses colourful graph for it; the largest slice of expenses is Fundraising at £58.1m (as per the text on the right) and then next highest is Healthcare £48.8m. So more money spent on fundraising then healthcare.

Their biggest income is from legacies.

Cancer is not random, if it were the global spread would be even not to mention the spread over time. In both cases it is not. With regard to personal responsibility I agree but one can only make the correct response if presented with the correct information. If doctors treat your diabetes first and foremost with drugs rather than take the time to examine the root cause and try to get YOU to take responsibility for the root causes then people will assume that disease is inevitable and the only course of action is a bag full of meds. This lack of information and correct advice is compounded by the huge lobbying budgets that the food industry have. We would all gain huge increases in health if we all cut out wheat (some would say even all grains) but are you going to get anyone prominent actually saying that. No of course not because the damage to the economy would be huge. The call made therefore is to allow the countries health to worsen whilst protecting jobs and share prices. We have spent the last 40 years on a diet recommendation of low fat high carb by food and health advice agencies. This ill advise was born out of the Mcgovern report in the 70's which was a report baised by political expediency and the need to protect certain food industries. We now know this advice was totally wrong but it will take a fresh generation of doctors to stand up and admit it

interesting stuff olias, can you recommend any websites where I can find out more about a "proper" healthy diet - particularly with regard to wheat/grains? tia

Great post OSS, I agree with you completely.

I've been grain-free for 6 months and without doubt it is the single most noticeable change I've ever made to my health via diet.

This guy is a cardiologist who had a best seller with Wheat Belly, here's his blog:

.
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/

And also a video:

.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbBURnqYVzw

If doctors treat your diabetes first and foremost with drugs rather than take the time to examine the root cause and try to get YOU to take responsibility for the root causes then people will assume that disease is inevitable and the only course of action is a bag full of meds

Actually Doctors do make great effort to try get people on a healthy diet and do more exercise,
if we have Diabetes 2, but they know people are quite weak though, so they prescribe meds

I am a diabetes 2 sufferer, and high cholesterol
but I admit it is self inflicted,
Of course if I will power I can beat it, but frankly at my age
there is not a lot of point, I make some effort though, just not a lot
I like cream cakes

thanks FM

Since I was a kid I've eaten more than 100,000 weetabix.

How long have I got left?

don't bother with tomorrow's card taxi

although Weetabix are good for you

the dietary advice on this thread is excellent

just feel we are being far too easy on ourselves here
it is our increasingly rich diet and sedentary lifestyle is doing this of course
but it is rather up to the individual themselves to do something about this

Badger there are two books you should read

Wheat Belly
Against the grain

Essentially some 50 years ago wheat was genetically modified to the current dwarf wheat. This was done to make it more profitable. The effects on our health have been a disaster. It is also a good example of the information vacum we all suffer from. The majority of people will assume wheat avoidance is for those odd few people with that funny named disease, celiac. In actually fact we would all benefit from a gluten wheat free diet.

I had the pleasure of meeting up with a friend of mine on holiday a few weeks ago. He is 80 years old and on two days we went out bike riding in the 25c heat of Portugal. We were out from 10.30am to 5pm with breaks for lunch and drinks. I asked him a few questions, trying to drill down into the secrets of his good health. I am convinced that one of the major factors is that he is currently 10st 7lbs and at the age of 23 he was 10st. His weight due to his lifestyle has varied little over all those years. When people try to convince you that weight gain is a natural and inevitable part of ageing, do not accept it. Believe me it simply is not true. During the last year I have returned from 13st 12lbs to 11st 4lbs (my 23 year old weight) and I have done this by eating as much as I want and with little exercise other than walking and the odd cycling. What you eat (not how much) is the key factor followed by exercise not (as the gyms would tell you) the other way round.

Just passed a man jogging...he was white (face and hair) about 80+ -  conspiracy advice regarding excercise put about to kill off old people. Thought it was a ghost - he already looked dead.

"What you eat (not how much) is the key factor followed by exercise not (as the gyms would tell you) the other way round."

Mr Makybe is a PT/Gym Instructor in his spare time and he would agree with that.

Agree with the 'what' you eat bit - just keep moving - can't see the point in killing yoursef!

Just passed a man jogging...he was white (face and hair) about 80+ -  conspiracy advice regarding excercise put about to kill off old people. Thought it was a ghost - he already looked dead.

he probably was...you saw the ghost of a long dead jogger

Just passed a man jogging...he was white (face and hair) about 80+ -  conspiracy advice regarding excercise put about to kill off old people

Well it’s obviously not working then if he’s 80+.

No, if you wanted to deliberately kill the people off prematurely after you’ve wrung every last penny out of them, you’d be better off telling them that something that’s very bad for them should be eaten in 5 portions a day. But if that doesn’t work, increase it to, um, I don’t know – 7 portions a day, perhaps? At the same time, tell them something that makes them slim and protects their hearts from lesions and their brains from inflammation is very very bad for them and will kill them stone dead, so it will, i they so much look at it. Make sure they are absolutely terrified of this essential macro nutrient, and make sure they are absolutely convinced that the other nutrient that they don’t need in any quantity at all is vital to their health, and then... oh, hang on……

Hugh Hefner is in his late 80s, essentially as fit as a fiddle, and is known to have drunk vast amounts of Pepsi cola
every day for the last fifty of these years.

Young athletes on fantastic diets can and do find themselves unfairly knocked down and taken out by aggressive cancers.

People are desperate for a rulebook that simply doesn't exist, because human beings seek comfort in the illusion of control.

Groundhog day Flower :)

Perhaps Hugh would be fitter than a fiddle if he had not drunk coke

What that shows is that there will always be exceptions. Diet for most cancers is a factor, in about 10-15% it is not.

There’s a group of people in Quito, Ecuador, who never get cancer despite smoking and drinking too much. The are all short because they lack or have very low amounts of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor-1. When protein is consumed, this hormone is switched on and you get a proliferation of new cells. When you do not eat it, your existing cells get repaired - which is an evolutionary safeguard. But when new cells are being made via protein consumption, the old ones are not being repaired. Cells in this condition are the ones that can become cancerous. This is why the dwarf people of Quito never get it, their existing cells are always repaired because they have little or none of the aforementioned growth hormone.

The Western diet is high in protein - it is eaten every day often in excessive amounts. For most people, who have fully functioning growth hormone, they are constantly creating new cells when the old ones need repairing. That’s why a fast makes you feel well, your body repairs what it has, it is not leaving cells in a damaged state, with all the implications that can have for developing cancer.

So you can say such-n-such doesn’t fair badly on such-n-such a diet, maybe he’s lucky, but that doesn’t mean you will be or that you can’t take steps to limit your chances of getting a serious illness by taking appropriate steps. Yes it is an illusion of control, but not an entirely forlorn one because there is more rulebook than no rulebook at all. For instance, it's a rule that cancer uses (like us) glucose to give it its daily energy needs, but unlike 'us' it is metabolically inflexible. We can derive our energy needs from fat, cancer cannot. If you are unlucky enough to get cancer you can at least feed yourself without feeding the cancer quite so ravenously.

"If you are unlucky enough to get cancer you can at least feed yourself without feeding the cancer quite so ravenously."

Very well put, FlowerMyth.

I was unlucky enough to get cancer, btw.

Still here after 17 years

Seen a lot of relatives get cancer and all of it can be put down to bad diet , smoking and/or lack of exercise. Very few people get cancer for genetic reasons
alone and if they do they are very unlucky. If someone eats poorly (sugar,fatty foods, red meat) then its long odds on they are going to get cancer or heart disease at some point.
Agree with the OP ,its irresponsible. Cancer is a made made illness in the vast majority of cases.
You don't get many people dying in the 3rd world of cancer but if you sent them cigarettes and sugar goods it wouldn't be long before a lot did.
Milk preventing osteoporosis is enough myth -the countries consume the most diary produce have the highest rate of osteoporosis.

There certainly is a body of thought and evidence now that suggests our genetic makeup is not a destiny of disease or no disease but a blueprint. Think of it as the ghost of christmas yet to come but as scrooge finds out not neccessarily of what has to be. There is a pool of genes which was originally termed the junk genes until genetecists discovered that they are in fact promotors. They in conjunction with your lifestyle can activate or not activate physical and behavioural charactersitics through your genes. They have discovered that a present gene for a certain disease will result in a greater or lesser incidence of that disease depending on lifestyle. Certain genes can therefore be blue touch paper rather than an inevitable occurance of disease.