[rudimentary_phy]

I was very young, but I remember my grandfather was very afraid to retire from the steel mill where he worked most of his life because those who retired tended to get cancer shortly after and die. Sure enough, a little over a year after his retirement, he got a cold that wouldn't go away, and was diagnosed with cancer and died not too long afterwards.

I've wondered for a long time (based entirely on anecdotal observations) whether some forms of cancer and other illnesses arise more quickly from sudden shifts in daily habit. Sometimes it actually does seem to me like the episode in the Simpsons where Mr. Burns thinks he is invincible.

[michaelcampbell]

> I've wondered for a long time (based entirely on anecdotal observations) whether some forms of cancer and other illnesses arise more quickly from sudden shifts in daily habit.

My suspicion here is that a lot of your grandfather's colleagues "felt the need it was time to slow down and enjoy life" could actually have been the beginning stages of some chronic illness. But that's just a guess.

[rudimentary_phy]

Yes, that would be my guess as well. It’s just something that has stuck with me regardless.

[8fingerlouie]

There has been proven a link between smoking cessation and an increased risk of autoimmune diseases [1].

Maybe something related is going on when you quit working with something like asbestos, and once you "settle down", your body is no longer under constant attack, so cancers happen ?

[1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17153844/

[jabl]

> I've wondered for a long time (based entirely on anecdotal observations) whether some forms of cancer and other illnesses arise more quickly from sudden shifts in daily habit.

Wrt to retirement, it's probably more due to cancer rates in general shooting up in people of retirement age. The body gets less adept at dealing with crap that eventually develops into cancer.

[LambdaComplex]

Were all the retirees retiring at a certain point? E.g. 20 years after starting

[rudimentary_phy]

I would love to have known. I would imagine the steel mill would have a larger turnover rate than other places.

The idea of an impact to the body that significantly disrupts the ability to keep it in homeostasis has intrigued me. It’s likely meaningless and my observations are anecdotal, but I keep my eye out for research on it.

[PlunderBunny]

My father was a University teacher, and he would get a cold regularly between terms - as if the body knew that it couldn’t ’give in’ until the work period was over.

[bamboozled]

This is an interesting phenomenon which I personally experience too.

If I have something really important going on, I basically don't get sick, when I finally kick my feet up, I just seem to get hammered with a bad cold or flu.

I also think it's interesting how my body seems to understand when I can't poop, like if I'm in a train or something without a toilet and just doesn't seem to bother until I tell it it's ok.