Cancer ‘was made by modern man’

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LONDON: Cancer is a modern, man-made disease caused by lifestyle factors such as diet and pollution, research by British experts suggests.

Only a handful of possible cancer cases emerged after scientists analysed almost 1,000 remains from ancient Egypt and Greece.

They also found precious little reference made to the symptoms of cancer in ancient literature.

Researchers did for the first time identify cancer in one Egyptian mummy but it was the sole example in all they examined, proving the disease was very rare, said experts.

It was not until the 17th century that they found descriptions of operations for breast and other cancers. The first reports in scientific literature of distinctive tumours have only occurred in the past 200 years. Reports include nasal cancer in snuff users in 1761.

‘In industrialised societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. In ancient times, it was extremely rare,’ said Prof Rosalie David at Manchester University.

‘There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle.’

She said they were confident enough to make the assertion as they looked back 3,000 years, not just 100 years.

Colleague Prof Michael Zimmerman diagnosed cancer in an unnamed mummy, an ‘ordinary’ person who had lived in the Dakhleh Oasis, now part of the Libyan desert, during the Ptolemaic period, about 300AD.

He agreed cancer factors must be limited to societies affected by modern industrialisation.

It has been suggested that in ancient times people did not live long enough to develop cancer.

However, people in ancient Egypt and Greece did live long enough to develop such diseases as atherosclerosis and osteoporosis.