Researchers have speculated that you are more at risk of getting cancer once you hit your fifties 65 is the median age for all types of cancers. Mortality due to cancer is also higher for older people than younger ones.
Cancer can, of course, affect anybody, irrespective of age, but the chances of you getting it increase as you grow older.
There is a lot of guesswork about why this happens. One reason trotted out is that older people have been exposed to more carcinogens such as sun, pollution, and stress and that their cells have had longer to mutate. However, this doesn’t explain the strange genetic abnormalities found in tumors.
The bodily changes you experience as you age could impact the development of cancer.
And the vulnerability increases because your body has had more time to harbor and grow tumors. The DNA in your body loses its ability to prevent the mutations of cells as the body ages.
So the possibility of cancer rises with old age as the body mechanisms deteriorate and depends on the kind of lifestyle you have followed. The kind of cancer that you may get also changes every ten years of your life.
For example, in men the incidence of testicular cancer is higher for younger men and the risk decreases as they grow older.
The risk grows exponentially in cases of prostate cancer. Men are also more likely to develop cancer than women. Lung, breast, and colorectal cancers are common in women above 60 years of age.
The immunity of a person decreases as they grow older. The body will form fewer antibodies in response to infections and the immune system will be less able to distinguish between malignant cells and normal cells. And that’s why the risk of cancer increases.
Until scientists find the link between aging and cancer it’s best to assume that the chances are high as you grow older. So as the decades pass take care to change your lifestyle and live a healthier life. You can’t turn back the effects of aging but you can reduce the impact on your body.
