What would be the solution to this new worry?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/674179,night112907.article
life causes death!
Over the years I’ve read/heard that everything causes cancer…too much sleep…too little sleep…peanut butter and jam sandwiches…coffee…too much sun…too little sun…Maybe the best way to go is to take reasonable care of your health by watching your weight and exercising… and forget about worrying what can or can’t happen to you. Every career involves some kind of health hazard…even working alone in an office does.
The article was NOT specifically singling out railroad careers but rather night shifts in general because of the supposedly unnatural impacts on hormonal levels these hours are reported to cause. Frankly, ANYTHING in excess can cause detrimental effects on ones health.
Actually you get thinking about it, train crews are exposed to diesel fumes, coal dust, grain dust, chemicals, fertilizer and who knows what else. I spent 17 yrs working in a flour mill, breathing in all the crap there and on the rr earlier this yr I got off a job where we switched a stinky refinery every night and no telling what got into my lungs. What i’ve been around the last 25 yrs will probably knock a few yrs off later down the line but I atleast try to stay away from junk food fatty and high sugar products and excerise on a treadmill several times a wk.
Just living everyday life causes cancer. With everything that’s been dubbed a potential carcinogen over the years. It’s amazing doctors haven’t told us to spend the rest of our lives in a hermetically sealed bubble. All you really can do is try to stay in the best shape you can. Even then pro athletes still get cancer. Mario Lemieux of The Pittsburgh Penguins has battled Hodgkins Disease off and on throughout his whole career and former Chicago bears running back Walter Payton died of cancer at the age of 45.
A lot of what I have heard though is that cancer is genetic. My mother and my grandmother both died of cancer and from what the doctors said It’s possible for other members of the family to get it too. Basically all you really can do is try to live life to the fullest because you never know when your number’s up.
I dont worry about cancer ( about 75% of my elders died from cancer) i live and dont let the little things get me down, have fun do what you want, and you will be ready when your number is up. ill be doing like my family has done ill be relaxing sipping on my bottle of morphine watching opra… gee just shoot me if i haft to watch opra…
Eh *Dismissive wave.
Ive spent a large part of the years in my Trucking running between 9 PM and Sunrise. Usually the day time was spent waiting to get loaded and the delivery was executed before sunrise the next morning.
If not that, then nights racing the schedules when everyone else is in bed leaving the roads wide open except for other truckers.
According to that article and others I should be ravaged by cancer by now.
I ate like a horse, three big meals per day and still lost weight, I drank coffee like a fish by the gallon and smoked like a chimney 3-5 packs a day. And that was further broken down by manual labor tossing beef, seafood and food products in large boxes up to 120 pounds a peice for anywhere from 20,000 pounds to 48,000 pounds total several times a week in the grocery places. Boy, Im tired.
That was then. Now I barely touch coffee, gained weight and eat perhaps 30 dollars worth a week. Most of it produce or meats and taters; and none of that smoking. Need to be alert to do necessary things in the daytime.
Gosh, Im still here. Minus a few events in the truck where you were not sure if your going to lose your life or someone else’s. Been too many of that.
According to a specific number and list of events in a little corner of my mind I used up 8 of my 9 lives. Maybe more. I flat dont care. When it’s time to go, Im going. Ask me again in 40 years because I might just be too stubborn and onery to go lol.
Nah, life doesnt bother me anymore. Especially after the spouse had cancer of the (Stupid word filter… heres the medical term…) Ductal Carcomia in Situ. a few years ago. We survived that… for now.
I think in general life is much faster for many people today, 14 year olds already going on 30. Things like that. That bothers me because people should live slow enough to enjoy each day as it happens.
Cancer takes years to mature enough to display symptoms or get noticed by medical equiptment. Even if I did get canc
Even talking about cancer can cause cancer…
Do you really want to know? [:D]
We all react slightly differently to different things that cause us unease. That unease is a symptom of stress. Stress causes raised levels of serum cortisol, which, in turn, can lead to a suppressed immune response due to suppressed levels of interleukin II. That product is one of the prime fighters of tumors. So, the logic should be easily followed to its conclusion.
Whatever causes you stress over time (and I mean chronic and elevated stress) can cause you harm over the long term. That is due to how your body reacts physically to the stress, which is in turn a derivative of cognitive and emotional processes in the brain. No matter what the stressor is, our bodies are unanimous in secreting elevated levels or ephinephrine (adrenaline), and adrenaline is great for the “Holy cow, I’m in deep poop!” response, but not great for the guy who has to sit quietly in some lab, or at a consol, for the next several hours and deal with the problem only cognitively. The response is meant to prepare you to fight or to flee, not sit and discuss it.
That is very basic, I hope you understand, but the cancer thing, as far as we know, is very real…for some worse than others.
And that certainly doesn’t discount the effects of toxins in the environment, or the effects of ionizing radiation. They are merely added to the mix.
Nope! Exposure to carcinogenic materials causes cancer ( in some people). Exposure to the “news” on a regular basis will cause nasuea however.
I know…just trying to lighten things up a bit. Exercise and a good diet will put the odds in your favor every time.
Why worry about just that one career, don’t ALL careers have that same chance?
You can eat, live and do the best you can to avoid certain things, but when your
number comes up, it’s up!
To paraphrase something from another post; “Living Causes Dying!”
(and to whomever said that “Exposure to the News” will make you nauseous; AMEN!)
Come on, “everything” causes cancer,even those KCS Belle units say"This product’s emmision may cause blablablablabla…
Speaking of hazards in railroading, I’ve seen pictures taken in repair shops of steam locomotives in various states of repair. Some have had their outer covers removed, and what seems to be asbestos covers the boilers. Also their operating requirements and design must have made them more dangerous than diesels. I imagine every year there must have been numbers of personnel who fell off the walkways and the tops servicing them, an OSHA nightmare. To railroad workers the danger of dying of carcinogens must have been a remote abstraction, if they thought of it at all, as opposed to dying violently through the mishaps that they confronted daily.
Everyone will die from cancer of the rectum from all the Doctors blowing smoke up yours as to what causes cancer.
CHUCK
I dont visit my doc anymore. Sniffles or boo boos get fixed here at home. Just one visit is worth a week’s paycheck and a mound of paperwork for medical insurance. Not worth it.
If I break a bone… sure. Doc can do whatever it takes to fix me up. In fact he will be more than pleased to actually have a patient that requires something of his extensive training or skills, the last time I went to my doc for a boo boo, he flat told me that there was nothing requiring something from him and I was wasting money, time, his time and etc. I did go for a flu shot last month only because insurance took care of it 100% without hassle or paperwork.
While everyone else in my workplace is expected to lose 2 weeks to a month off laying in bed fighting flu I expect to be functional and doing well not running to the medical system everytime there is a sneeze. Phooey.
Excellent point Chuck.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not sounding the alarm, but rather, am on the side of all you skeptics who are tired of hearing the news proclaim one health threat after another. I regard all of these “study findings” as agendas. I only mentioned railroad careers because they are often linked to nightshift work. I know that nightshift workers generally have to work harder to get quality sleep during the daytime when most of the world is active. But I am not convinced that daytime sleep cannot be of the same quality as nighttime sleep if the conditions are properly controlled. I am also not convinced that the hormone melatonin cannot be produced during the daytime.
But when these things come down from the World Health Organization, the threat often grows in stature and credibility as a consensus forms around it. It develops momentum that leads to laws and regulations that end up changing behavior. Sometimes it leads to damage claims and legal settlements. It is interesting to consider how the behavior of round-the-clock industries could be changed to accommodate an asbestos-like threat from working at night.
George Carlin once said that saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small quantities over a long period of time