Is Cancer a Man Made Disease?

Alex's note:  This group of articles I found on one hand disturbing and on the other enlightening.  Wow!  This is the toxic world we live in! But there is a lot we can do to prevent cancer and that is the important take away message.  Once you need heroic measures like chemo. and radiation things have progressed.  It is always better to cut the grass while it is still short.  However since my grass was not cut that way (I got cancer).  It has become a life transforming event and I am dedicated to understanding cancer and its prevention.

A study of ancient bodies has determined that cancer is a man-made disease, one fueled by the excesses. Tumors turn out to be extremely rare until very recent times, when pollution and poor diet became issues.
Researchers analyzed potential references to the disease in classical literature, and also searched for signs in the fossil record and in mummified bodies. But despite examining tissue from hundreds of Egyptian mummies, they confirmed only one case of cancer
According to the Daily Mail:

"Dismissing the argument that the ancient Egyptians didn't live long enough to develop cancer, the researchers pointed out that other age-related disease such as hardening of the arteries and brittle bones did occur ...
Fossil evidence of cancer is also sparse, with scientific literature providing a few dozen, mostly disputed, examples in animal fossil".

Sources:

  Daily Mail October 15, 2010

  Nature Reviews Cancer October 2010; 10: 728-733

  Cancer September 1977; 40(3): 1358-1362