Peto's paradox
Notes on Peto’s paradoxParadox
- The paradox behind why larger animals seem to have lower cancer rates than expected
- It seems obvious that having a greater number of cells would increase the likelihood of cancer; more cells means more opportunities for cell malfunction
- But almost the opposite appears to be true: larger animals appear have an extremely small (and sometimes non-existent) rate of cancer. This is Peto’s paradox.
Hypertumors
- Tumors on top of tumors
- Cancer cells form deadly tumors by being part of large groups of other cancer cells
- Certain types of cells may view themselves as separate from the main group and start forming their own group
- This group is a hypertumor of the original tumor, and will try to redirect resources to itself and away from the original tumor
- This resource restriction can kill off the original tumor, hence cancer fighting cancer
- In theory there may be an increased number of hypertumors in larger animals constantly battling, keeping cancer at bay (and smaller portion of the body)