Therefore, men get cancer more often

Men get cancer more often than women, but no one really knows why. It has been assumed that lifestyle factors play a crucial role, but a new study suggests that this is often not the case.

It is a fact that men have usually smoked more than women and drink more alcohol. They also tend to eat more junk food. It is also a well-known fact that more men than women die of cancer.

Although these lifestyle factors do not seem to influence the fact that men die more often from cancer. Instead, cancer rates in the sexes appear to be determined by intrinsic biological factors. So women seem to have better genes.

Big differences

In the new study, which is published in the journal Cancer, the researchers examined the risks of various types of cancer in the United States in 171,274 men and 122,826 women aged 50 to 71 between the years 1995 to 2011.

During that period, cancer was detected in 17,951 of the men and 8,742 of the women. Apart from thyroid and gall bladder cancer, the risk of being affected was 1.3 to 10.8 times higher in men. The biggest differences were found for cancer of the larynx, esophagus, upper stomach and bladder.

Dangerous to be a man

The men ran a greater risk even when different risk behaviors and the presence of different carcinogenic substances in the environment were taken into account. Only a small part of the cancer rate in men could be explained by such factors.

The researchers lean towards the fact that there are inherent biological differences between the sexes, for example of a physiological or immunological nature – congenital differences in other words.

Who these are, however, is unknown. The researchers, who work at the National Cancer Institute, therefore believe that in the future they will try to map the differences more clearly in order to be able to prevent cancer and improve cancer care.

Facts

Cancer

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