‘So that’s why some of us are thinking that those may well have something to do with it,’ said Dr Deming.
And most times, you know, people look at me and they’re shocked that I have stage four cancer,’ she told DailyMail.com.
It’s a colorless, odorless and nearly undetectable gas LIVING BEYOND CANCER: Dr Deming’s weekly spin classes, where people with cancer can come exercise for free.
These habits are second only to smoking in raising cancer risk, Dr Deming said.
As a state, Iowa ranked fourth highest in the nation for binge drinking in 2022.
This state is referred to as the agricultural powerhouse of America.
However, Iowa has gained a darker reputation of late, as the state with the fastest growing rate of new cancer cases is now Iowa.
It is projected that this year in Iowa, there will be 21,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed, and 6,100 people will pass away from the illness.
Even though the population has only increased by 11%, that is more than twice the rate of new cancer cases compared to 40 years ago.
Although the state’s high alcohol consumption has been widely attributed to the trend, local physicians believe that Iowa’s cancer epidemic may also be partially caused by the very chemicals that support the state’s agricultural sector.
In Iowa, DailyMail.com spoke with residents, including those who had experienced cancer firsthand or whose communities had been affected by the illness, as well as medical professionals fighting what they are calling an epidemic.
CANCER-SURROUNDED: Maureen Reeves Horsley, a nurse practitioner in Northern Iowa, said she is aware of six neighbors who are suffering from local pancreatic cancer.
VICTORIOUS CYCLE: Maria Steele, a central Iowa resident and retired nurse practitioner, enjoys riding her bike extensively. She has been given a year to live after receiving a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis.
71-year-old Maureen Reeves Horsley is an advanced registered nurse practitioner in Palo Alto County, which from 2016 to 2020 had the second-highest cancer rate in the United States and the highest cancer rate in all of Iowa.
She claimed to have grown all too familiar with the illness having treated locals since the 1980s.
Her sister tragically passed away from breast cancer at the age of 27, which was an uncommon occurrence at the time. Yet, she claimed that the story has become more widespread in recent years.
One of the deadliest types of cancer, pancreatic cancer, affects six of her neighbors. Already, some have passed away. Although alcohol is associated with pancreatic cancer, Ms. Horsley stated that none of them drank.
She is aware of about twenty others who are undergoing treatment for different types of cancer at this time. Her community worries that chemicals used in farming could be partially to blame.
Iowa stands apart from other states in terms of the “amount of [agricultural] chemicals per square inch” and the proportion of its population employed in agriculture, according to Dr. Richard Deming, medical director of the Mercy Cancer Center in Des Moines, which treats patients from all over the state.
According to the 2022 Census, Iowa’s 30 point five million acres of farmland support 153,000 farmers and bring in $783 million annually.
Each year, the state uses 11 PPP billion of fertilizer and 237 million pounds of weed killers. That represents a third of all agricultural chemical use in the nation annually and more than any other state.
Corn and soybeans are the state’s two most important crops, and both call for substantial amounts of fertilizer and pesticides.
Iowa leads the nation in pig farming as well, according to the USDA. This means that the state generates a lot of manure and nitrates, which are chemicals linked to cancer.
According to Dr. Deming, “that’s why some of us are thinking that those may well have something to do with it.”.
“We live in a time where cigarette manufacturers can refute the existence of a cause and effect relationship,” he continued. I believe that a lot of us believe that cause and effect will eventually be discovered. We wouldn’t be surprised. if it turns out they are carcinogenic. ‘.
Born and raised in Iowa, Maria Steele,67, works as a nurse practitioner in Cedar Rapids, the state’s second-biggest city.
A week before Christmas in 2019, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. She had worked in emergency medicine for her entire career, but she soon retired.
As the tumors had spread to her brain and bones, her doctors informed her that it was incurable and inoperable.
Her prognosis was estimated to be one year or less.
Mrs. Steele had a healthy, active lifestyle and didn’t spend her childhood around smokers.
“To be honest, that’s why it was so shocking,” she said in an interview with DailyMail.com.
TREATING THE SURGE: In the state capital of Iowa, Dr. Richard Deming practices oncology and oversees a charitable organization. He sees patients from all around the state.
She has completed a cross-country bike tour from Florida to California with her spouse, who is an avid cyclist.
They had no idea what might have caused her cancer to be discovered. That is, until her daughter started researching radon on Google.
When uranium, a chemical element present in rocks and soil, is abundant in a particular region of the country, radioactive radon, an odorless, colorless gas, is released from the Earth.
As per the Iowa Cancer Consortium, radon affects approximately 72% of homes in Iowa and has the highest average levels of any state, six times higher than the national average.
The state’s natural uranium begins to decay underground and seeps into the ground.
From there, it may seep through tiny gaps left for wiring, service pipes, or foundation cracks in a building, where it may accumulate unnoticed.
The radioactive gas causes irritation and cell mutations in the lungs when it is inhaled. The EPA states that it is the leading cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers in the US.
After breast and prostate cancer, lung cancer is the third most common cancer in Iowa.
Following the diagnosis, Mrs. Steele bought testing supplies and discovered that the amount of radon gas in her house was twice what the EPA deemed safe for indoor use.
Following her initial diagnosis, Mrs. Steele has received targeted therapy and radiation, and she has been prescribed medication that she intends to take for the rest of her life.
The prognosis for Mrs. Steele was dire, but she has lived for almost five years. She is currently preparing for her second bike trip across the nation with her spouse.
“I feel fairly well.”. She told DailyMail . com, “And most of the time, you know, people look at me and they’re shocked that I have stage four cancer.”.
The farm in Northwestern Iowa where Ms. Horsley grew up is known as a private well. She grew up drinking from a private well on the property, just like many other people in the state.
Ms. Horsley and her seven siblings were raised on a farm about 210 miles away from Ms. Steele, where they drank water from a private well.
Since then, she has moved several times, and in one of her previous homes, she had a well tested and discovered arsenic—a naturally occurring carcinogen that is a byproduct of deteriorating bedrock.
She could see from this how simple it was to consume tainted water without being aware of it. She stated that this also holds true for agricultural chemicals.
A professor of civil and environmental engineering and the director of the University of Iowa’s Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination, David Cwiertny, told DailyMail.com that pesticides used on crops could find their way into ground water supplies.
Pesticide exposure in general has been related to multiple myeloma, lung, kidney, prostate, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, among other cancers, according to research published by the Canadian Cancer Society. “.
Nonetheless, US scientists consistently maintain that pesticides are safe and claim that there is insufficient evidence to link them to disease.
Although agricultural chemicals can enter water supplies, an EPA representative told DailyMail . com that the chemicals that are permitted by federal regulations are closely regulated.
“EPA regularly reviews currently registered pesticides to ensure they can be used without unreasonable risks to human health and the environment,” the statement reads.
The goal of the registration review program is to guarantee that all pesticides that are registered meet the legal requirement of having no unreasonable adverse effect, even as policies and practices change and risk assessment skills advance. ‘.
Apart from pesticides, agricultural fertilizers and manure produce nitrates when they react with air. These nitrates can accumulate in water and soil and be removed from fields by rain or drainage systems, according to Professor Cwiertny.
Nitrate consumption raises the risk of colon, kidney, stomach, thyroid, and ovarian cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute.
According to Ms. Horsley, she recognizes that farmers have a right to defend their livelihood and may act defensively in response to inquiries concerning the chemicals they use.
Her desire is for farmers to have better information available to them so they can continue doing their work, not to prevent them from doing so.
“People deserve to know the truth,” she stated to this website. It is, I suppose, their decision if they want to submerge themselves in poisons.
“I think it should be informed, but they can smoke, drink, and submerge themselves in chemicals if they so choose.”. “.
She wants more funding and focus from elected officials on the problem and how it impacts rural communities.
Importantly, Dr. Deming warned that while agricultural chemicals deserve greater attention, the rise in cancer is not exclusively attributable to them.
A SILENT KILLER: An estimated 72% of homes in Iowa are estimated to be affected by radon, which is six times more prevalent there than it is nationwide. It is an almost undetectable gas that has no color or odor.
LIVING BEYOND CANCER: Free exercise for cancer patients is offered by Dr. Deming’s weekly spin classes. The group gets together for smoothies after class.
The rising rates in Iowa are also being attributed to radon exposure, a poor diet, and excessive alcohol use.
The last pieces of the Iowa cancer puzzle are exercise and diet.
According to Dr. Deming, the second-highest risk factor for cancer is smoking. He continued by saying that many Iowans consume convenience foods and engage in little physical activity, despite the state producing 10% of the nation’s food supply.
This is also due to the fact that purchasing fresh food is difficult in many of the rural counties in the state where poverty is widespread. Some medical professionals blame highly processed foods for the nationwide increase in young people’s cancer cases.
Liver, breast, colorectal, and throat cancers are also associated with alcohol consumption. In terms of binge drinking as a state in 2022, Iowa came in fourth place nationally.
According to a United Health Foundation report from 2022, in addition to eating habits, over 25% of Iowans say they don’t exercise outside of their regular jobs.
More than 35 percent of the state’s population is considered obese, placing it eleventh in the country for adult obesity.
Approximately one-third of US cancer cases may be related to obesity; the CDC has found a connection between obesity and cancers of the thyroid, ovarian, stomach, kidney, liver, colon, and pancreas.
In Iowa, colorectal cancer ranks fourth in frequency.
Even after a cancer diagnosis, diet and exercise can significantly impact a person’s prognosis, according to Dr. Deming. Proof of that is Ms. Steele.
Dr. Deming founded the charity Above and Beyond Cancer so that his cancer patients could receive free holistic health and exercise classes and to help manage the burden their disease places on them.
Since it’s impossible to cure cancer, many patients give up on trying to do so. Rather, it turns into leading a full life while suffering from a disease.
We nurture things like finding your strength and being grateful. He continued, “And that can happen even with someone who has an incurable cancer that will ultimately cause their death.”.
