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The rich even get different diseases!
Topic Started: Jun 23 2005, 05:12 PM (235 Views)
dolmansaxlil
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HOLY CARP!!!
Higher income linked to higher childhood leukemia risk

Quote:
 
Children from rich families may be more likely to develop leukemia compared to their poorer neighbours, a new Canadian study suggests.

Researchers from the B.C. Cancer Agency found children from poorer neighbourhoods had a 13 per cent reduction in risk of leukemia compared with children living in the wealthiest areas.

The study, published in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology, offers no explanation for the trend.

Principal investigator Dr. Marilyn Borugian speculates that since poorer neighbourhoods tend to be more crowded, children there are exposed to more viruses than richer kids.

According to the "hygiene hypothesis," exposure to infections early in life from household dust or germy siblings and surfaces may reduce the risk of developing certain diseases in adulthood by boosting the immune system.



FROM SEPT. 18, 2002: Exposure to dust may protect against allergies: study

It's thought that improvements in sanitation and health care may have reduced exposure for the rich.

The findings are an exception to a general rule in public health, since low income is usually linked to poorer health.

For the study, Borugian and her co-authors looked at all cases of childhood leukemia from all provinces from 1985 to 2001.

Investigators used the parents' postal codes to determine the average income for each neighbourhood, based on census data.

An average of 1,285 children are diagnosed with cancer each year in Canada. The research focused on lymphoid leukemia, the most common type of childhood leukemia, which accounts for about 250 cases and 28 deaths a year across the country.

The agency also plans to conduct similar studies to see if there is a socioeconomic link to other common childhood cancers, such as brain cancer, bone cancer and Hodgkin's lymphoma.
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apple
one of the angels
they also are prone to richitis.
it behooves me to behold
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Amanda
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I think the leukemia comes from the rich kids being exposed to more EMR from all the individually wired rooms, electronic networks criss-crossing, sitting hours in front of their own powerful PCS and talking all the time on individual cell-phones! I don't think Leukemia is one of the cancers supposed to be especially linked to virus exposure...But it HAS been linked to power generation.
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"Daily Telegraph", London July 27 2005
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Nothing new, gout used to be considered the "rich man's disease". When my father was diagnosed with it, he knew he had arrived.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Amanda
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And it used to be only the rich who could afford to be fat. Now it's more an affliction of poverty.
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We should tolerate eccentricity in others, almost to the point of lunacy, provided no one else is harmed.
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"Daily Telegraph", London July 27 2005
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Bernard
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It's interesting that there's a difference but I don't know what it has to do with viruses. I don't think cancer is caused by a virus.

RE:
"Principal investigator Dr. Marilyn Borugian speculates that since poorer neighbourhoods tend to be more crowded, children there are exposed to more viruses than richer kids.

According to the "hygiene hypothesis," exposure to infections early in life from household dust or germy siblings and surfaces may reduce the risk of developing certain diseases in adulthood by boosting the immune system."


I'm glad my mother used to let us "play in the dirt" (we didn't have a sand box--just an excavation under the pine tree near the house, better than sand in many ways, for one thing you can BUILD things with dirt, sand just doesn't hold together!)
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johnmoonlight
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Bernard
Jun 23 2005, 08:26 PM
It's interesting that there's a difference but I don't know what it has to do with viruses. I don't think cancer is caused by a virus.


Depends on which type of cancer you're talking about. Cervical cancer in women comes directly from viruses. Infection with the virus is directly related to the number of sexual partners one has had. That's why nuns almost never get cervical cancer and prostitutes get have extremely high rates.
Burkitt's lymphoma is associated with previous infection with the Epstein-Bar virus; the same one that causes Mono.
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Amanda
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Mornin', John!

Since you're there (still are, I hope), What do you think of my hypothesis about one possible reason for the income difference in leukemia incidence?

It will be interesting to see if it holds up to with other types pf cancer, when they extend the study.

Of course, I suppose it's possible that general immune system strength could be developed through exposure to one set of diseases, generalize, and express itself in others. Or then again, maybe infant and child mortality is higher among those with lower incomes and that already reduces the most vulnerable pool of potential victims.

I assume they factored out the effect of race in making this comparison.

(The bottom line is, how well-designed was the study?)

Who knows? It could even be a result of higher income people having MANY more prenatal sonograms! (I know they're supposed to be perfctly safe, but just for the sake of argument...)
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We should tolerate eccentricity in others, almost to the point of lunacy, provided no one else is harmed.
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"Daily Telegraph", London July 27 2005
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dolmansaxlil
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Amanda
Jun 24 2005, 06:30 AM
Who knows? It could even be something as somple as the higher income familes having MANY more sonograms! (I know they're supposed to be perfctly safe, but just for the sake of argument...)

Since this was a Canadian study done on Canadian patients, I doubt the last is the case. Ultrasound is covered under our medical care, so I doubt there is the same difference in number performed in people with more money. It's not a matter of just walking into a clinic and saying you want an ultrasound, here. They give a standard anatomy screening around the 18 week mark, and very recently they've started to do one at around the 12 week mark for nuchal translucency (checking for Down's Syndrome). Any other ultrasounds are done only if there are problems warranting it - and that would be in any patient.

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johnmoonlight
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Amanda, I like your hypothesis. There are so many other factors that could be playing a part as well. Of course the dietary differences between the rich and poor has already been mentioned as a possible contributing factor.
How about the better access to certain medications by the wealthy? Maybe antibiotics are somehow predisposing us to certain types of cancer.
Maybe pollution has a protective benefit in the poor?
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