Do Wild Animals Get Cancer? Humans And Domesticated Animals Seem To Be Contracting Cancer At Phenomenal Rates?

Just wondering if processed foods may have any bearing on the situation.


This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Cancers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Do Wild Animals Get Cancer? Humans And Domesticated Animals Seem To Be Contracting Cancer At Phenomenal Rates?”

  1. All living things, even plants, can get cancer.
    Cancer is not a modern disease, it’s an ancient one long predating modern processed foods.
    The oldest description of cancer in humans was found in an Egyptian papyrus written between 3000-1500 BC. It referred to tumours of the breast.
    The oldest available specimen of a human cancer is found in the remains of skull of a female who lived during the Bronze Age (1900-1600 BC) The tumour in the woman’s skull was suggestive of head and neck cancer
    Tumours have been discovered in the fossil remains of dinosaurs – you can’t get more wild or further removed from processed foods than that!
    It’s widely believed that cancer is increasing at phenomenal rates, but in fact it isn’t; there hasn’t been a significant increase in the incidence of most cancers.
    Any increase in the number of cancer cases can, ironically, be accounted for to a great extent by better health care and healthier living. More people are surviving infancy and living into old age than ever before, and cancer is mainly a disease of ageing – the vast majority of people diagnosed with most types of cancer are over 60.
    Cancer affects the healthy and the unhealthy alike; those who avoid processed foods and those who live on them. Nobody knows why of two people with the same risk factors (or lack of them) one will develop cancer and the other won’t.
    I used to think (when I considered it at all) that my healthy, vegan, largely organic diet, coupled with the facts that I have never smoked and exercised regularly, would protect me from cancer. I got cancer anyway.

  2. Actually with age and population factored in, cancer rates are no higher and some are actually declining, in the US anyway. All creatures can get cancer.
    The Devils are getting facial tumors and are starving before any cancer is able to kill them. They’ve got a “control group” that they’re studying. Finding a cure for their cancer has human implications also.
    The Devil’s cancer didn’t start with anything humans have done. It started with a bite from other wild animals.

  3. First off, the tasmanian devil was almost wiped out due to a virus that was brought in from humans. This virus causes cancer in tasmanian devils. This did not sporadically happen all on its own…
    In case there was any doubt as to whether or not cancer rates on the rise, please refer to this article from the World Health Organization:
    Global cancer rates could increase by 50% to 15 million by 2020http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/rele…
    There is a section there called “Cancer prevention: a healthy diet can help!”
    Processed foods contain many poisons all of which may cause cancer. This is coupled with the fact that processed foods contain no nutrition to prevent cancer. Some people consider that because a product is legal then it is deemed safe. This is certainly not the case. And just like you won’t get sick and die (or see any immediate visible damage) from having one cigarette today, you won’t see any immediate effects from consuming grains that are processed with alloxan (a powerful oxidant and bleach used to induce diabetes in Lab rats) or drinking sunkist cola with sodium benzoate (easily changes into cancer causing benzene).
    This is the reason products are provided with warning labels. But just because there are no warning labels for sodium benzoate or processed grains, does not mean that they are magically going to be good for you!! Quite the contrary.
    As far as cancer rates in animals, it can only be speculated. When studies are done in at risk animal populations it is often found that the populations go down, but it seems that the cause of the population decline is usually not caused by cancer. The initial population decline is seen as a result of reproductive disruption. Animals start to change mating habits and rituals causing a decline their total offspring as well as a decline in the survival rate of their offspring. It could be speculated that this reproductive disruption would wipe them out before they get a chance to get cancer as a result of a certain contaminant.
    But animals are not exempt from contaminants, the only thing that might make them less likely to get cancer is the fact that they usually eat food as close to its natural state as possible, unlike most of us humans. There are many exemptions to this: I have seen squirrels eagerly devouring pizza.

  4. The Tasmanian Devil has been all-but wiped out because of cancer.
    wild animals get cancer just as often as people, its just that of course, who records it?
    in fact, since wild animals get no treatment, more would die of it than people.
    processed foods, power lines, chemical treatments and other things may cause some cases, but often these things will affect wild animals too – did you think that after you tipped all the carcinogenic substances into landfill, that no-one would go near them?

  5. Yes, wild animals get cancer. Any living cell has the ability to mutate and become cancerous including plants, wild animals, domesticated animals, fish, trees, and people, etc.
    No one knows why one person might get cancer when exposed to something like processed foods while another one will not . . so your question can’t really be answered. If processed food ’caused cancer’ than why doesn’t EVERYONE who eats it get cancer? And, why do people who avoid processed food or don’t have access to it (in other countries) still get cancer .. you see those are the answers that you should focus on . . . I understand your curiosity about what ‘may cause’ cancer and the inclination to think it might be processed food . . but there are over 200 different types of cancer that can affect all age groups, crosses all cultures, races, countries, both sexes.
    Something else to consider, my son died from a type of cancer that almost always affects young males . . . that really has nothing to do with processed foods . . why would his type of cancer predominately affect boys and young adult males. There are certain cancers that are age specific .. meaning that older adults rarely if ever develop childhood cancers . . and children almost never develop an older adult cancer. Why would that be? Why does each age group seem to have a biologically difference in their cancers according to their age? Cancer is complicated and currently no one knows what ’causes’ the majority of the 200 types and just as many subtypes of cancer.
    Wild animals get cancer and even sharks get cancer (despite the rumor that they don’t). No one or nothing is immune to the disease.

  6. I think it’s quite likely that processed foods have a huge bearing on humans’ capacity for cancer. I’m sure wild animals do get cancer, but who tests for it? Who keeps records?

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