Findings add to growing efforts to explain why cancer rates are increasing among younger adults worldwide
  • TheUnicornOfPerfidy@feddit.ukEnglish
    16·
    19 hours ago

    Correlation ≠ causation. I would assume that people with underlying health conditions sleep less/worse on average. Some of those health conditions could in some cases cause cancer and in others some could be cancer. Now let me actually read the article and see if they took account of this.

    Edit: It has a bunch of caveats at the end quoting someone saying things like i did but with some actually expertise, e.g.

    “So if your immune system takes a bit of a hit, then I suppose it would make sense that your risk of some cancers may increase. But it also might be the other way around. It could be that if you have cancer, and it’s not yet clinically obvious, it could be causing some change in how you sleep.”

    So don’t stay up at night more worring that doing so is causing cancer. There’s every chance it isn’t and there are just a few unlucky people that are creating the association, because they have some form already.

  • Lon3star@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    1 day ago

    Would need to read this more if they factored in things like Energy Drinks and Highly Processed Foods, since that is the common cuisine of the night owl and those burning the candle at both ends

    • captain_zavec@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      8·
      1 day ago

      There are possible causes from the physiology that arises from poor sleep, but also the fact that when sleep-deprived it’s difficult to live a healthy life – there is more drinking, more obesity, less exercise, more smoking etc – and these may be what causes any possible increased risk.

      They’ve already called out that it’s just an association, more work is needed to show if there’s actually causality