In recent years, as celebrities like Sheryl Crow and Melissa Etheridge have detailed their battles with cancer, I have noticed that the only focus on cause relates to food. Both of them have said that they have switched diets, only eat organic, shun chemical preservatives, etc, etc. This is an extremely convenient explanation, because it's one of the few environmental factors over which cancer patients actually have some control. I wondered why they chose to focus on this small thing as a cause, and think I may have the answer: They are old.

I don't mean "old" in the normal pejorative sense. I just mean that if one gets cancer in one's forties (or later), it's much easier to believe that the build up of ever-nebulous "toxins" which may have led to the cancer is controllable by the individual. If however one gets cancer in her early twenties, as I did, cause becomes much more important. Since I had a B-cell lymphoma, the underlying cause was likely a genetic mutation, but something caused that chromosome to express, and to express significantly earlier than it normally does. Diet is unlikely in this case. So what is it? Some virus? The fact that I grew up 30 miles from a nuclear plant? That lingering cloud of carcinogens released on 9/11? Who knows? Not too many people seem to be asking, even in the scientific community.

But most people, if allowed to believe that they may in fact be able to change their lifestyle in an attempt to keep cancer from returning, will look no further. Control is important to everybody, cancer patients in particular, and to cede control of your own body (once again) to toxic chemicals is a heavy psychological burden to bear.