• Question: what age do most people get cancer?

    Asked by adri143 to Lyn, Katy on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Check out this web page: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats/incidence/age/

      It shows you how many people get cancer at what age, and you can see for both men and women it goes up really quickly when you’re about 50 years old!

      The reason for that is because cancer comes from mutations (changes) in the DNA in your cells. Mutations come from damage, and just like how your favourite pair of jeans gets more and more holes as it gets older, your DNA also gets more and more damaged, from sunlight, or chemicals, or just from mistakes the cell makes when it’s copying over the DNA to multiply. Mutations accumulated over 50 years is what it often takes to start cancer, and that’s why most of it happens then.

      But keep in mind that kids get cancer too! Sometimes babies are born with mutations in their DNA, probably because their parents had it too. That means they have a much higher chance of getting cancer at a young age.

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Yep, Lyn has it covered. The older people are, the more likely they are to get cancer because their DNA degenerates, but cancer can happen at any age.

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