Yeah, like Lance Armstrong or, for the Americans, Brian Piccolo. Or any of these people.

Note at the bottom of that page (outside of the sports category) people such as Skylar Neil, who died of cancer aged 4. Sounds a lot like the lifestyle caused that one.

Testicular cancer is 'enjoyed' by about 1 in 450 people here and the doctors that treat it claim there is absolutely no correlation with lifestyle. If I believe my television then 1 in 3 will at some point have some sort of cancer.

She's the daughter of Motley Crue drummer Vince Neil, who has never had cancer.

I'm sorry, I'll start editing wikipedia's list of famous people who have had cancer to include all people. If you have a better suggestion than "people famous for being good at sport" to rebut your 'only' then I'd like to hear it. Perhaps you have access to some sort of list of everyone who's ever had cancer? Your entire opinion seems to be based on:

"I've never known anyone personally to die of cancer who was healthy"

Not that I'm suggesting a 20 year old hasn't seen all that life has to see, but you seem to be ignoring all of the facts and statistics.

Shockingly, The American Cancer Society seem to think that 2/3rds of fatal cancer is lifestyle related.

But perhaps when you said "you are extremely unlikely to get cancer" you meant "you have only just over a 1 in 10 chance" (female) or "you have only just under a 1 in 6 chance" (male)? And by "in the vast majority of cases" you meant 66%?

EDIT:

The American Cancer Society's statistics (warning: PDF).

Summary:
1 in 2 for males from birth to death, 1 in 3 for females.

How can people argue about this, unless they really are saying the same things in different words?

Lots of people get cancer, including those who live the "proper" way. Those who do things that are known to cause cancer (smoking) get it more. Seems pretty obvious to me...

The sad thing is that the way people figure out that something causes cancer is to notice 40 years later that everyone who does X ends up with cancer.

The bottom of their cancer statistics PDF to which I linked says this:

Source: DEVCAN ... http://srab.cancer.gov/devcan/

The source is the government, not the cancer foundation - they are merely republishing the statistic for press purposes.

Your statement that causes so much offence was:

"Proper care of your body will prevent cancer even if you come into contact with carcinogens on a regular basis. Cancer is only a problem for people who are regularly exposed to carcinogens and are of poor physical health."

"back a couple of posts" you clarified:

"People get cancer, but in the vast majority of cases it is mostly due to lifestyle."

Obviously this disregards your original claim that the combination of both carcinogen exposure and poor physical health is to blame for all problematic cancers and is therefore to be applauded as a correction.

Given that you're now saying "you are extremely unlikely to get cancer" means "you have a more than 1 in 10 (female) / 1 in 6 (male) chance" then I don't think we disagree any longer.

That said, perhaps you'd like to explain how your statement fits with males being about 50% more likely to develop cancer than females?

No. It can be dismissed immediately as untrue. Recap the statistics quoted and sourced to date:

A healthy lifestyle can help prevent around 2/3rds of fatal cancers.

1 in 2 males will experience cancer.
1 in 3 females will experience cancer.

Assume that prevention of fatal cancers is equivalent to prevention of non-fatal cancers, due to lack of statistical sources.

So, 1/3 of 1/2 of males will experience cancer despite taking "proper care". I would not say that 1 in 6 (almost 17%) getting cancer meets your claim of "will prevent cancer". Similarly 1 in 9 (about 11%) for females.

Of course, you may attack my slightly lose statistical basis to reach this conclusion. In which case you must accept either:

(1) that statistics are not available
(2) that better statistics are available (and you have them)
(3) that better statistics are available (but you cannot find them)

In which case:

(1) you must accept you are speculating wildly
(2) your statistics will reveal the true picture
(3) your statement rests purely upon your own credibility on those statistics

EDIT:
The quote you should have used and stuck with was sure not "[p]roper care of your body will prevent cancer" but "proper care of your body will significantly reduce the risk of cancer".

No, as I edited to my previous post - probably after your new one had appeared, I agree with this statement:

"proper care of your body will significantly reduce the risk of cancer"

But not this one:

"[p]roper care of your body will prevent cancer"

I do not agree with your claim that there is a direct connection but I accept a strong correlation.

EDIT:

if you can make sense of it, http://srab.cancer.gov/devcan/ is probably quite helpful!

It's preventative, it doesn't prevent. If I sold mud guards for bikes with the following advertisement:

"mud guards will prevent mud from hitting your bike"

What do you think might happen to me?

Males may be more likely to develop cancer because our reproductive organs continue to function more or less until death, whereas females undergo menopause; all that rapid cell division and hormone transfer is probably prone to causing a few mistakes once in a while, especially as a person ages. Hence cancers of the prostate (but not testicular cancer, which rarely occurs in males over 40, apparently) may be more likely for an older man than cervical or breast cancer would be for older women.

Speaking from my own experience, that's pretty much bull.
I was competing on international level, the guy in the bed next to me was playing handball in the the 2nd league. I really doubt that your physical fitness really is an factor for many of the different types of cancer.

Well, that's how you get fit. You put more stain on your body than it expects, and it adapts.

Leukemia, silly UK-man.

<quote>I don't know if you realize this, but "competing" puts enormous stress on the body. Now just staying fit is a good thing, but actively pushing your system to the limit isn't exactly a good thing.[/quoe]
Well, since I was doing platform diving at that time (me being 15) I doubt that I pushed my "system to the limit" for years. Platform diving is 80$ mental and 20% physical (Give or take 10% )

But I'm sure you have something to back your opinion? Like .. well.. numbers?

Sorry, since you were presenting your opinion as a fact, I thought you might have some numbers.
But if it's just an opinion...