> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.foodconsumer.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Cancer is man-made
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/cancer_is_man-made_0528160910/
- Published: 2016-05-28T10:10:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:30:51.000Z
- Description: A University of Manchester study in Nature Reviews Cancer reports that only one of hundreds of Egyptian mummies showed cancer and ancient writings rarely mention it, which the authors read as evidence that cancer is largely man-made rather than genetic.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Environment, Health News, #vivvo-import

You may think that genetics may play a big role in the cancer development and you cannot do anything to prevent cancer from developing. A [study ](http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v10/n10/full/nrc2914.html?ref=foodconsumer.org)finds evidence that cancer is man-made. Genetics may play a very small role in carcinogenesis if there is any.

Researchers at the University of Manchester in England conducted the study and found cancer occurrence was extremely rare in ancient Egypt and Greece. Published in the journal Nature Reviews Cancer, the study shows only one out of hundreds of Egyptian mummies was found with cancer and few references to the disease was recorded in literature during that period.

No surgical techniques could be used during that period, meaning that the number of cancers found in the dead was the actual number of cancer occurrence. So during that period, cancer was extremely rare.

Cancer is common now. In the United States, [half men and one third women](http://www.cancer.org/treatment/understandingyourdiagnosis/afterdiagnosis/after-diagnosis-who-gets-cancer?ref=foodconsumer.org) are expected to be diagnsoed with cancer during their lifetimes. [Cancer is the No. 1 killer](http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/5/330.1.full?ref=foodconsumer.org) in the U.S. now. So how could we prevent cancer? Live a life like people did in ancient Egypt and Greece!