Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- Is there any info for a way to check this on your SNPs from genome sequencing data?by Aardwolf
- Jim Simons (mathematician turned billionaire trader) was a chainsmoker and claimed that he had his genome analyzed and found he was unlikely to get cancer. I always wondered whether he'd really done that or whether it was just a flippant response to an interviewer's question about his smoking habits.
- I've only ever smoked like a quarter of one cigarette when I was eighteen and I thought it was fucking gross so I never picked up the habit (fortunately).
That said, I'm a pretty pale dude and my sister has gotten skin cancer twice now [1], so I've started getting a bit worried that that's going to happen to me. I've started wearing a baseball cap every time I go outside to protect my scalp (since my body has decided I don't need nearly as much hair anymore), I almost never go outside without jeans and often now a hoodie even when it's relatively warm outside. If I think I'm going to be outside for more than ~30 minutes, I wear sunscreen on the exposed parts.
I have to admit that I kind of hate it. I don't like the slimy feeling of sunscreen on my skin, I don't really like how hats feel on my head, and of course wearing a lot of clothes when it's warm outside isn't terribly comfortable.
[1] Fortunately caught very early since she gets frequent checks, so she's fine.
by tombert - A bit offtopic, but have you tried different sunscreen types? There are quite a lot of formulations from matte creams to solid sticks. Mentioned because I remember avoiding sunscreens precisely because of that slimy feeling I got from the drugstore ones, that is, until I found an "invisible" one that doesn't feel like anything at all on my skin.by leawi
- Take a look at sun protective gear like Coolibar. It’s actually very pleasant to wear even in summer.by sebmellen
- Timing is also a big part. Going out for an hour at 1 pm can be a burn while going from 7 to sunset for the week might not even register.
If you must go out at certain times then the clothing selections from others are probably the best bet.
by zamadatix - Check out mineral based sunscreens, I have sensitive skin and I find them infinitely more tolerable.
- A fairly bad sunburn was the reality check I needed to start scheduling annual screenings. 30 minutes or so a year for peace of mind.
- Sun shirts are a great option for me at least.by brightball
- Strong recommend a UV umbrella. I also hate the feeling of sunscreen and will also fry the minute I so much as look at the sun.
Also, linen clothing. Far more comfortable in heat while keeping you covered. Hoodies and jeans sounds miserable.
by Mezzie - Also share the icky for greasy sunscreen. But there are some with a matte dry texture that not only serves the purpose but also make your skin looks nicer, since it levels out those small color variations. It’s a big market, so they really do research on those things.by pilgrim0
- In miceby JoeAltmaier
- So sick of this fake "gotcha" qualifier in HN comment sections.by asdff
- Mice smoke?by baxtr
- Mice are used for inhalation and skin studies because they're cheap, we know their genome, they have a short lifespan for whole lifecycle observation and they're ideal for mapping to human respiratory and skin responses.by htek
- My mother smoked from age 12 until she was diagnosed with lung cancer at age 45. But the lung cancer was the result of metastasis from an advanced uterine cancer. A friend's mother, another long-time smoker, developed bladder cancer. Smoking's damage can manifest itself in multiple ways.by TomMasz
- Authors seemed to have considered genetic implications of the driver mutation and downstream effects, but there are considerations to be made ahead of this point too. This sort of damage for example is typically detected and repaired. The fidelity of that repair mechanism is liable to vary among the population for many reasons.by asdff
- As a millennial growing up it was beaten into our head that smoking was a death sentence. I recently looked up what the actual cancer rate among smokers was... about 125k people in the US die of lung cancer annual. 25 million people smoke annually. That is a 0.5% chance for occasional smokers. Even if you smoke a pack a day your entire life, the cancer rate is less than 15%.
I am in no way saying it is okay to smoke, there are obviously other health risks associated with it... but researching that made me feel much better about that one pack a year I buy for vacation.
by crims0n - Cancer is not the only complication...by dblohm7
- A pack a year is unlikely to kill you, but as others have said lung cancer is not the only worry. I work in healthcare, I see COPD all the time. It may or may not kill you, but it's a guaranteed PITA even if well-managed
- And that 125k includes people who don't smoke and never have. Sometimes the DNA in a single cell just gets fucked up in just the right way to cause cancer. Smoking just increases the odds.by wpm
- The actual infection rates for some STIs are also similarly low, per-encounter. But they are high enough that if you are promiscuous and have a large number of at-risk encounters then you will eventually get a bad roll of the dice.by pdntspa
- Cigarettes kill about 480,000 people in the US annually. Lung cancer isn't the only kind of cancer you get from smoking cigarettes, and cancer isn't the only way it can lead to your death, so it seems very strange to only pay attention to lung cancer here.
You don't need lung cancer to have an absolutely miserable decline and death from COPD, for example.
https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/tobacco/data_statistics/...
by volkl48 - Very common press release/headline meme: the question in the title of the article is literally never answered (or the opposite of the headline's claim is true). This research plainly DOES NOT explain why certain mice got cancer and others didn't, let alone why smoking/UV rays cause cancer in some humans but not others. There was no control group for exposed mice that would've allowed them to look at which biological differences made one group get tumors and the others not (the study doesn't appear to actually be interested in that question).
The language here is also pretty hyperbolic. We've known for decades that certain gene mutations cause increased cancer risk in the context of a certain genetic background (BRCA1/2, etc.). Using language like "for the first time" is just juvenile, or purposeful lying at worst.
by TaupeRanger - This is why Zinc is needed to prevent cancer[1].
The gene they are focusing on in the study [2] is Methylated-DNA--protein-cysteine methyltransferase (MGMT) and it needs zinc as a cofactor [3].
Not enough zinc, lower MGMT, and less DNA protection and repair.
Nutritional deficiencies and genetic differences increase the risk of cancer.
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12011-023-03818-6 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10821-z [3] https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/P16455/entry
by Noaidi - That would imply that red meat eaters would be less likely to get cancer which doesn't seem to be the case. I'm not saying that zinc isn't a factor, but I think that saying a blanket "Zinc is needed to prevent cancer" is irresponsible. We should be so lucky that we can narrow it down to a single dietary element or be able to blame it simply upon nutrition.
- Anecdotally, whenever I go swimming with my kids in the summer, and I don't put sunscreen on right away, but let myself get some intense direct sun, I feel good and sleep really well that night.
As long as I don't let myself get in a red, sunburn situation.
by aantix - I typically do the same thing. I only wear sunscreen if I am planning on being in direct sun for an extended period of time where I can't easily get back in the shade.
The more you're able to build up a base tan the less you need it to avoid a burn at least.
by brightball - Vitamin D deficiency
- Most likely that’s the nitric oxide (not to be confused with nitrous oxide) that is a biproduct of vitamin d synthesis which requires UV light. It is a natural muscle relaxer and is generally considered good for blood pressure and heart health in general.by milesvp