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Childhood Infectious Diseases Protect Us From Cancer Later In Life

fever protection
The red protection

There is a great deal of evidence that having childhood febrile infectious diseases at an early age, under 9 and even as an infant, protects us from having a variety of very serious diseases as we get older.

A febrile disease is one that causes a fever, such as measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, pertussis and scarlet-fever.

Unfortunately, with vaccination programs denying children the opportunity to have these diseases at the “right” time, and so develop their immune system as it has evolved to operate, people are now more exposed to serious, life-threatening disease, as early as in late childhood and teens.

Below are two articles about this protection phenomenon, followed by a collection of science studies.

Articles

Neil Miller: Why people choose not to Vaccinate
Measles vs. MMR Vaccine: Risks and Benefits

Science studies

Cancer in general

Febrile infectious childhood diseases in the history of cancer patients and matched control
“The study consistently revealed a lower cancer risk for patients with a history of febrile infectious childhood diseases (FICD). The strongest associations were found between patients with non-breast cancers and rubella respectively chickenpox. A strong association was also found with the overall number of FICD, both ‘classical’ (measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, scarlet-fever and chickenpox) and ‘other’.”

Acute infections as a means of cancer prevention: Opposing effects to chronic infections?
“Exposures to febrile infectious childhood diseases were associated with subsequently reduced risks for melanoma, ovary, and multiple cancers combined, significant in the latter two groups.”
“Conclusion: Infections may play a paradoxical role in cancer development with chronic infections often being tumorigenic and acute infections being antagonistic to cancer.”

Ovarian cancer

Mumps and ovarian cancer: modern interpretation of an historic association
“Prior to vaccination, mumps was generally a mild illness but could have serious sequelae including orchitis and sterility, meningitis and deafness, and pancreatitis. Nevertheless, our study suggests there could also have been unanticipated long-term anticancer benefits of a mumps infection, such as we have described in this paper.”

Brain cancer

From Wikipedia – A glioma is a type of tumor that starts in the brain or spine. It is called a glioma because it arises from glial cells. The most common site of gliomas is the brain. Gliomas make up about 30% of all brain and central nervous system tumors and 80% of all malignant brain tumors.

History of chickenpox in glioma risk: a report from the glioma international case-control study (GICC).
“In our study, a positive history of chickenpox was associated with a 21% lower glioma risk, adjusting for age and sex. The protective effect of chickenpox was stronger for high-grade glioma, particularly among those under age 40. Our findings, which represent the results of the largest study to date on this topic, confirm the inverse associations previously reported in the literature on VZV and glioma.”

Lymphoma

From Wikipedia – Lymphoma is a group of blood cell tumors that develop from lymphatic cells. There are dozens of subtypes of lymphomas. The two main categories of lymphomas are Hodgkin lymphomas (HL) and the non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL). About 90% of lymphomas are non-Hodgkin lymphomas.

Do childhood diseases affect NHL and HL risk? A case-control study from northern and southern Italy.
“Our findings provide additional support to the hypothesis that infections by most common childhood pathogens may protect against Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) or, at least, be correlated with some other early exposure, which may lower the risk of Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) in adulthood. In addition, our study shows that measles may provide a protective effect against non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).”

Delayed infection, family size and malignant lymphomas.
“It is proposed that delayed infection could explain the increasing non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) trends, through an impairment of the Th1/Th2 lymphocyte patterns. The model of delayed infection has been proposed also to explain increasing prevalence rates of asthma.”

Risk factors for Hodgkin’s disease by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) status: prior infection by EBV and other agents.
“Measles and/or combined child-hood infections are protective for Hodgkin’s disease in our data; biological considerations and the Hodgkin’s disease epidemiological profile suggest that this is due to their being markers of reduced risk of late first exposure to aetiological agents. The present data cannot distinguish between measles and total infections but are consistent with a specific protective effect of measles in school age children.” [They found that infection with measles during childhood cuts the risk of developing Hodgkin’s disease in half (OR = 0.53)]

Leukemia

From Wikipedia – Leukemia is a group of cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal white blood cells. These white blood cells are not fully developed and are called blasts or leukemia cells. Symptoms may include bleeding and bruising problems, feeling tired, fever, and an increased risk of infections. These symptoms occur due to a lack of normal blood cells.

Day care in infancy and risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia: findings from UK case-control study
“These results support the hypothesis that reduced exposure to infection in the first few months of life increases the risk of developing acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.”

Early life exposure to infections and risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
“Study results on daycare attendance, birth order and infections during the first year of life are consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to infections early in life is associated with a reduced risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).”

Article about a 2018 paper: Childhood leukemia linked to lack of childhood infections
“For the immune systems to function properly, it is imperative that the babies are exposed to bacteria and viruses right from infancy.”

Colon and Rectal Cancers

The following article is about a study published February 2017, about how colon and rectal cancer rates in younger age groups have been increasing significantly since the 1950s.
Colon and Rectal Cancers Rising in Young People

While there is no evidence this could be linked to vaccination or not having febrile diseases, it is perhaps significant the rise started for the generation born in the 1950s, who were the first to participate in the mass vaccination programs beginning in 1953. The rate also rose a lot for those born around 1990, the period when immunisation schedules in the first world sharply expanded and autism and allergy rates took off—autism is strongly associated with bowel issues.

Cardiovascular disease

Association of measles and mumps with cardiovascular disease: The Japan Collaborative Cohort (JACC) study
“Measles and mumps, especially in case of both infections, were associated with lower risks of mortality from atherosclerotic CVD.”

 

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