A new international study has suggested many everyday synthetic chemicals considered previously benign could cause cancer, even at very low doses.

The study, published in the journal Carcinogenesis and involving 174 scientists globally, challenges the existing technique for measuring whether a chemical is carcinogenic, or cancer-causing, in isolation.

Instead, it says we live surrounded by a "chemical soup" of normally harmless chemicals that can combine with others to create a dangerous and unpredictable mix.


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Wouldn't this theory then mean that everyone living in the same house being exposed tot he same chemical cocktail should get cancer?

I guess it could come down to a very specific combination so precise that it gets down to one person eating one bit of food that no-one else eats and that one bit of food completes the cancer combination, but that would mean there's an almost limitless combinations and we'll never get a handle on all of them.

Not necessarily, though I should think it raises the odds of it happening. Genetic variation, levels of health, other lifestyle factors and so on are all in the mix when it comes to disease susceptibility. For example, not every heavy smoker or asbestos worker will get lung cancer, though its incidence is high in both of these groups.

As for avoiding all dodgy cancer-causing chemicals? Pretty much no chance, I'd say - potential nasties are everywhere, from rain to food to medicines to the radon that naturally seeps out of rocks.
I guess it's about living as healthy as possible, avoiding what nasties we can and not worrying about what we can't change.
What does everyone else think?

I was getting the car serviced the other day and the mechanics were talking about this former colleague who used to paint spray vehicles for years in closed quarters without a mask of any kind. That's about as lethal and toxic as you can get. That was thirty years ago and they were saying he's still live and well today.

Having said that, they do say that 'genes loads the gun and lifestyle pulls the trigger'. So even if you have an unlucky gene inheritance, then you can still luck out with some clean living or if you have some good genes, you might be able to take a few more risks than the average person.

My aunt, for example, never ate a salad, smoked a cigarette each afternoon coupled with a small glass of sherry and apart from small neighborhood walks, rarely exercised.

She died at the age of 101.

Good to hear, while my aunt died on the age of 40 due to stomach cancer who didn't smoke, worked half time to take care of the children, didn't drink, sported regularly and lived a healthier life than my mother does.

Not only my aunt but also my uncle who died years before I was born had cancer and died on the age of 18. My grandpa died of a brain tumor, he was 76 and had major heart problems. In the end it wasn't his heart but a brain tumor.

I think it's all a matter of what are the odds? Lately you can get cancer from practically everything but what are the odds? It's been all around us apparently all our lives, now we just know. I think if you start believing everything they say that can give you cancer, you just don't live anymore.

I know there are things that are clearly cancer causing, like smoking and drinking but also in less known stuff like maybe that black stuff you get when you burn food, or even the oil where you bake your French fries in. I even heard once that contraceptives was made with cancer causing things. Last thing I read was that even drinking tea too hot might be cancer causing. I think it was only black tea but it's proven.

All of these examples are saying it could or even it might give you cancer. But I never ever heard someone had cancer because they drank their black tea too hot or because of the use contraceptives or eating burnt pieces of meat.

It doesn't hurt to live healthy but starting to avoid things you never did before because it might give you cancer, is a little far fetched sometimes. That's why it doesn't hurt to live a little unhealthy either.

I think there are also a whole lot of other factors that play a part in wether or not you get cancer. Genes and the unfairness of life, like my aunt.