The charity Cancer Research UK recently published a great piece titled “Don’t believe the hype – 10 persistent cancer myths debunked”.

The article takes a common-sense approach, backed up by the latest scientific findings, to discussing some of the most common myths that surround the disease. These include the beliefs that acidic diets cause cancer, that sharks don’t get cancer, and that there’s a secret cure for cancer that’s being suppressed (something I’ve written about before, too).

I don’t know how these myths get started, but they’ve been around since I can remember, and they seem to propagate faster than ever through Facebook and other channels. I find that the Cancer Research UK website is usually a great starting point if you want to fact-check a claim about the disease. I also highly recommend the book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee; I’ve been in cancer research since 1998, so I knew much of the science described in the book, but not the story of how we gained this knowledge of the disease. It’s a fascinating read.

Check out the full Cancer Research UK article here

Full disclaimer: I did my PhD at a Cancer Research UK-funded facility, but have had no formal connection with the charity since 2002. I just really like their website and podcast 🙂