Marilyn Harris:
> I guess what I am trying to ascertain was whether Paleolithic man's
> lifespan
> was too short (for whatever reason) in order for cancer to take hold.

The short answer is no. As was explained, not all Stone Agers died before
36. Also, some cancers can take hold even before then.

> Now,
> from what I seem to gather about cancer is that it is a very slow-to-
> develop
> multi-stage disease which takes years to manifest in symptoms. 

Cancer is not a single disease, but a category of diseases that share the
same characteristics, such as inflammation
(http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_1_1x_Chronic_Inflammation_Lin
ked_to_Cancer.asp) and a cascade of cell division. Some cancers develop very
rapidly.

> So if
> paleoman on average died fairly young (for whatever reason and
> unimportant
> in this query), he would therefore have rarely succombed to the
> disease.

I believe the best way we have of determining whether Paleolithic people
developed cancer at the rates moderners do today is to 1) examine modern
hunter-gatherers and hunter-horticulturalists and 2) examine wild animals in
nature, especially other primates. My understanding is the evidence so far
indicates that cancer rates among traditional peoples and primates in nature
are lower than those of industrialized peoples, as was indicated in earlier
posts. 

If the cancer rates of captive and pet animals fed biologically
inappropriate diets were also examined, they should also reveal higher
cancer rates than their wild counterparts. That's the beauty of any
scientific model like Paleolithic/evolutionary nutrition--it provides an
explanatory framework for a host of phenomena and enables one to make
certain predictions which can then be tested. So far the tests have
supported the validity of the model. 

The short-lifespan objection is the most common objection to the Paleo diet
and has been frequently raised and answered, so you will find plenty of
discussion of it in the archives and elsewhere on the Net as well (the
article at beyondveg.com I provided a link to is excellent, for example).

> However, if it is in fact a disease of civilization and not age-
> related,
> then my question is moot, I guess. 

It is indeed (though that doesn't mean that EVERY case of cancer is caused
entirely by diet--it just means that diet is likely a major factor in many
forms of cancer).

> The latest books that I have read
> indicate that food plays a major preventative role therefore supporting
> the
> view that it is a modern or civilized disease.

Correct. It's not an entirely new concept. Paleolithic nutrition confirms
the diet-cancer link that was already known. The contribution of
Paleonutrition to the study and prevention of cancer is that it reveals a
stronger link than most realized, and indicates which foods are the
likeliest culprits. It also connects other dots--for example, it reveals (as
you suggest) that most cancers are part of a larger phenomenon known as "the
diseases of civilization" or "evolutionary discordance" or what I call
"modern foods (and lifestyle) syndrome."