Why the environment matters for your health and the health of future generations
Midway through the fifth game of the World Series it seemed like everyone in the Houston Astrodome — players, coaches and fans (more than 69,000 people) — held up signs for cancer awareness.
On each one was written the name of someone who had or has cancer; many signs read “Mom.”
These days cancer survival rates are heading up; the death rate from cancer is down 25 percent from 1991 to 2014. More than 2.1 million folks have made it who wouldn’t have before.
Diagnosis of cancer also has declined in some areas. Most of the drop is related to prostate cancer; overdiagnosis has declined rapidly. New lung cancer cases also are declining as fewer and fewer folks smoke. And recent reductions in
diagnosis of colorectal cancers seem related to the increasing frequency of colonoscopies. Among folks over 50, colonoscopies have increased from 21 to 60 percent in the past 15 years.