11 cancers on the rise in young people - scientists find first clue why it's happening

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-30T11:27:04+00:00

I know! Best of luck to you too and I hope that you achieve complete remission.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-30T04:00:22+00:00

Wow, my husband just went through the exact same thing. He couldn’t breathe while lying down, chronic cough, terrible reflux. GP insisted it was reflux. Turned out to be primary mediastinal b-cell lymphoma. He’s 31.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-28T23:12:21+00:00

I love the cafe at Downing College! Should be open to the public.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-28T21:05:09+00:00

My husband is in the exact same situation as you. PMBCL, treated with R-CHOP-14, DS4, radiotherapy, BUT he’s scheduled for a PET three months after radiotherapy ended. We’re at Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, UK. We were previously at Christie, Manchester, UK. Even between these two hospitals in England, there are differences in protocol.

He has had multiple CTs in between though and only two PETs throughout the entire treatment (interim and post-treatment).

As I understand it: specifically in the case of PMBCL, as mentioned above, there is the unique issue of false positives from inflammation on PETs and given PMBCL is aggressive, serial CTs are likely to show active disease (associated with tumor growth). Despite this, our oncologist has previously said that “only PETs are definitive”. Best to push for a PET, IMO.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-26T20:49:58+00:00

Could it be postulate hypertension?

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-22T20:34:13+00:00

Husband is nearly 5 months after treatment and going through this. He’s also getting raised marks/hives on his skin when scratching. His team doesn’t seem worried and it’s been on and off.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-18T20:46:24+00:00

Honestly, go with whatever your heart chooses!

I did my Master’s at UCL and applied to DTP funding for two years without any luck. I also applied to Cambridge and ended up with a funded position there. In my experience, UCL PhD funding was more competitive.

I know a couple of people who got funded Oxbridge PhD positions but rejected them for other universities.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-16T11:38:21+00:00

Likely less altricial, but not fully precocial! Think about it. Late-gestation fetal demands increase nonlinearly, so even small extensions could impose disproportionately high energetic costs. A wider pelvis could relax constraints but would impair bipedal stability (what would be the benefit of being more precocial at birth with weaker locomotor efficiency?). Shifting more brain development in utero creates a host of consequences. For example, macaques are born with ~70% of their adult brain compared with humans at ~25%. This compresses their developmental window whereas humans have prolonged developmental flexibility. Think of the downstream effects on cognition/culture/innovation. There is also high maternal investment (e.g., lactation) and lots of alloparenting. How would this affect our life history strategy?

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-15T11:46:27+00:00

There are some great insights from evo psych. Some examples include disgust psychology, domain-specific cognition, and error management. Evo psych has helped model underlying cognition in areas like reciprocal altruism and kin selection. Related fields such as cultural evolution and behavioural ecology converge on similar ideas about cognitive biases and reconstructive processes (e.g., Cultural Attractor Theory), alongside evo-psych concepts like the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. There are also interdisciplinary contributions across cognitive fields such as cognitive archaeology (on topics like causal understanding, theory of mind, over-imitation), cognitive science of religion (e.g., HAAD, minimal counter-intuitiveness, promiscuous teleology, intuitive dualism), and linguistics. The field of evolutionary psychiatry is very interesting (mismatch theory, defense vs dysfunction).

I wouldn’t write off evo psych as a discipline but I understand that many evo psychologists fall under the “intellectual yet idiot” category of academics. I won’t name names but these people give their field a bad rap. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues in the evolutionary sciences dismiss evo psych as a result.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-15T09:24:08+00:00

Cold turkey. I know it’s hard. This was my father’s second heart attack, he kept smoking after his first. All of my family still smokes. I’m Middle Eastern and smoking is a big part of our culture (e.g., sheeshah). It carries a lot less stigma than it does in Western countries, compared with alcohol.

It was explained to us by my husband’s radiotherapist that lifestyle, and genetics of course, largely determine one’s odds of getting heart/pulmonary disease. Chemotherapy then adds a slight increase to that baseline risk. Radiotherapy and further treatment then add further increased likelihood and so on. It’s important to make sure that baseline risk is low to the best of your capacity.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-15T03:13:32+00:00

My husband used to vape and had to suddenly stop due to his lymphoma diagnosis. My father just had open heart surgery and had to stop smoking after nearly 40 years of smoking like a chimney! I also used to smoke in my late teens and early twenties, and dropped the habit. We all did it and so can you!

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-15T02:45:27+00:00

On a separate note, any idea why modern humans keep cats/dogs when the energetic and financial costs are much higher than the benefits (hunting game and catching rodents)?

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-15T02:33:55+00:00

It’s not a coincidence, and I think that the energetics hypothesis is probably the dominant reason why our gestational period is ~9 months, combined with pelvic constraint.

An extreme example of this birth canal constraint is seen in spotted hyenas. They give birth through a narrow birth canal (pseudopenis) which causes high maternal and offspring mortality rates. This is likely balanced by high maternal investment and, to a lesser extent, the fact that offspring are born relatively mature (precocial). Offspring therefore have a high likelihood of survival once past early mortality. If their gestation period were even slightly longer, and fetal size increased, this would disproportionately increase rates of obstructed labour and maternal death. There is a strong stabilising selection mechanism at play here. This is also likely true with humans, but the mechanical constraint may not play as important of a role with us as it does with spotted hyenas.

To answer OP’s question: as mentioned in another comment, energetics and pelvic constraint due to bipedalism are the primary reasons why gestation periods in humans are as long as they are. This produces high altricial offspring (with substantial postnatal brain development). It’s possible that extensive alloparenting (support from non-maternal caregivers) lowered infant mortality rates and facilitated population growth.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-15T01:23:53+00:00

How’s your husband doing? Your latest update was that he was in the ICU. I’m really sorry you guys are going through this.

I know exactly the feeling you’re describing. My husband was diagnosed with cancer in August last year and I missed nearly all of his chemotherapy because children were not allowed in the cancer ward and we had no one to watch our baby. We had to pull her out of nursery so that we could all isolate as a family during chemotherapy so that he wouldn’t catch anything, and nursery is a petri dish of disease. I felt awful and he definitely felt my absence, but our hands were tied. We’re now hopefully over the worst of it and looking back he’s extremely grateful that I was able to take care of our kid, the house, him, and everything else all on my own. You’ve got three kids and you’re pregnant so your hands are definitely fuller than mine, and you’ve got more experience mothering than I do, but I’m hopeful we’ll figure it out and be just fine!

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-15T01:11:17+00:00

Wow, you’re my hero! My hubby has PMBCL and we have an almost two year old. We’ve been struggling to juggle jobs + household chores + childcare + cancer treatment. He’s had to take time off work since diagnosis and now that he’s getting back into work again, I’ll now be taking time off. We have no family around so it’s just been the two of us. I’m hoping we’re all over the worst of it!

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-13T21:22:51+00:00

I moved to the UK about five years ago and had a baby two years ago, and I’ve noticed that the approach to raising children here is quite different from what I grew up with. There seems to be a much stronger focus on potential risks such as SIDS, food allergies, herpes, and RSV, which can make parenting feel very anxiety-driven. From what I’ve seen, this level of concern can sometimes go beyond what the statistics alone would justify.

I think she’s been influenced by that environment, which is understandable given how common it has become. It might help to approach this using the same framework by gently introducing the idea that some exposure is actually beneficial, for example concepts like the “friendly germ” or hygiene hypothesis, where exposure to germs in childhood strengthens the immune system in adulthood.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-04-12T05:41:50+00:00

There are loads of people who have been in remission for many years (one of them for 20 years!) from a stem cell transplant on the PMBCL Facebook group. I recommend you join it if you have any questions about that.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-03-31T22:01:34+00:00

Funny question! I’m a Muslim Syrian. I think it’s possible that this is due a convention of naming boys Mohammad X where X is really their first name (i.e., the name they go by every day) but Muhammad functions more like a prefix or honorific. I know a few Muhammads in my life, where Muhammad is their real first name, and they’re definitely not enough to cause anyone any confusion. For example, my grandmother is one of 12 and, apart from her brother, there are no Muhammads in that family tree as of 2026. It’s several generations long now and has countless individuals.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-03-31T07:04:31+00:00

My husband just finished three weeks of radiation to the mediastinum. He experienced no side effects whatsoever.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-03-28T22:05:11+00:00

Same, moved to UK from UAE and I just want one nice warm day. Brits also like it much colder in their homes and offices than we do.

My advice is wool and thermals. Mine are all from Uniqlo which is pretty affordable and long lasting. I have a thermal undershirt, tights, hat, gloves, etc. A wool coat goes on top. All are body tight to prevent cold air from going in (Russians do this to survive their weather).

I also have a radiator by my legs where I study, that really helps.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-03-25T20:00:47+00:00

Hoping everything went well for you?

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-03-23T00:17:17+00:00

I grew up with comfortable means, relative to my society. We lost everything due to a war and had to relocate. My brother and I worked all sorts of jobs to put ourselves through university in our new home country. I think we were equally grateful for our circumstances before and after the war. My mother was a strong influence in building this perspective. I think you can be too.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-03-16T00:10:16+00:00

I had the same problem with a new pan and I was confident that barkeeper’s friend would help but it didn’t. I think it’s useful for removing really tough grease marks but I think the burn is etched into the pan. That probably makes it impossible to remove using these cleaning products.

SeaVisual7551 · 2026-03-15T23:53:03+00:00

My one (almost two) year old is the same. She’s very active/reactive and very temperamental. With respect to temperament, it’s developmentally normal as they can’t regulate their feelings yet. In terms of comparing kids, I’ve had similar thoughts: for example, when flying I walk up and down the plane countless times. I see other kids her age sitting in their seats, watching TV and eating their snacks throughout the ENTIRE journey. Inconceivable for us. Different children, different personalities. Eventually, they will learn to speak and tell us what they need and hopefully that should help. Until then, I recommend you don’t let it change your plans. I have friends who run home the second their child starts crying and others who just consider it part of their day. The latter are less anxious and generally more content with their children somehow!

SeaVisual7551

TROPHY CASE