Men with ageing immune system more susceptible to cancer: Research

Immune system decline occurs more slowly in women than in men

It has long been known that cancer arises when genes mutate and start producing abnormal proteins, or no protein at all. However, our latest research, published in PNAS, suggests that there is another, equally important mechanism by which cancer arises: an ageing immune system.

We were interested in why the incidence of cancer rises so steeply with age. The conventional wisdom is that it’s due to a single cell in the body accumulating just the right sequence of genetic mutations that transform it into a cancer cell, seeding a tumour.

It takes a long time for six