Senior citizens, rejoice.
While getting older has long been linked to higher cancer risk, new research suggests that after a certain age, the odds don’t just plateau — they may actually drop.
“The implications of this story could be huge,” Dr. Dmitri Petrov, senior author of the paper and a biology professor at Stanford University, said in a statement. “Maybe aging has a beneficial side to it that we could harness for better therapies.”
Traditionally, cancer rates climb sharply after 50, hitting their highest point between the ages of 70 and 80.
“The standard model of cancer is, with age you accumulate bad things in the form of mutations,” Petrov explained. “When you collect enough bad things, cancer happens.”
You might assume that would make cancer almost inevitable at a certain age, but that isn’t the case. Around 85, the curve flattens and even starts to drop.
