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Some people get cancer, some people don’t, and exactly why remains in large part a mystery.
Over the years, studies have been conducted that have helped explain why. Research in the 1950s linked cigarette smoking to lung cancer. Later studies linked obesity to certain types of cancer.
But exactly who runs these studies, and who takes part in them, anyway?
Well, 30 years from now, people in the nine counties that make up the northeast corner of Indiana will be able to say they were part of one called CPS-3, Cancer Prevention Study.
Signing up is simple. It costs nothing. You must be between 30 and 65 years old and have never had cancer. If you fit that profile, all you have to do is agree to have your waist measured, give a small vial of blood and answer one questionnaire every two years – for the next 30 years.
The goal is to get 500,000 people nationwide – men and women, different races and nationalities – who are willing to answer questions about their diets, jobs, leisure activities, stress and other factors, all designed to try to learn whether lifestyle and environmental factors play a role in cancer.
But people interested in taking part have a narrow window in which to sign up. If you live in Allen, Adams, DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wells or Whitley counties, your only opportunity will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 13 at the football field at Lakeland High School in LaGrange.
The signup takes place during the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, a fundraiser on the track at the high school.
But people interested in participating in the study don’t have to be part of the Relay for Life. They don’t have to walk or solicit pledges or make a donation, said Marty Hayward, a community representative with the American Cancer Society.
Nationwide, fewer than 50,000 people have signed up to be part of the study.
Those who do sign up will get a questionnaire in about a week, asking all kinds of questions, including "how much did you weigh when you graduated from high school," various addresses where you have lived, dietary habits, leisure activities, place of work and occupation.
Some of the questions will cause you to pause and think. Not everybody remembers how much he weighed his senior year in high school.
The questions will also be specific. Participants won’t be asked whether they eat their veggies. They’ll be asked specific questions about their diet, about how much they exercise, about stress in their lives.
The blood samples that participants give will be stored, Hayward said. Later, if, for example, lots of 40-year-olds from a specific area start getting cancer, the samples from study participants from that area will be tested.
"It doesn’t cost anything," Hayward emphasized. It’s been calculated that over the course of 30 years, participants will spend a total of about 12 hours answering questionnaires.
It’s important that the study get a good cross-section of America, including different nationalities and races. Currently, Hayward said, the study needs more men, but it needs more people in general, about 450,000 more.
It sounds interesting, I told Hayward, but I’m not sure I want to drive all the way to LaGrange.
"It’s only 38 miles," she said.
