Q1: Why education level is positively related to cancer rate?
A1: This could be due to quality of life and habit of body check. The educated persons tend to have a higher living standard, in the sense that they could afford better and more entertainments. These entertainments could be at the expense of their health and even the risk of suffering from cancer. For instance, people who have a higher socioeconomic status would travel more frequently, and this might increase their risk of having skin cancer. Also, the highly educated persons are more concerned about their health and tend to have regular body checks. As a result, they may be included in the cancer rate figures when they are diagnosed.
Q2: Why public health spending has a positive effect on cancer rate?
A2: When the government subsidizes people to have body checks, hidden patients with cancer could be identified, and they would be included in cancer rate numbers as well.
Q3: Why people in Eastern countries are less likely to suffer from cancer?
A3: This may be due to differences in eating habit and focus of medicine. First, Western cooking technique is quite different from Eastern technique. When speaking of Western countries, the first thing come to our mind would be the fish and chips, or the cheesy hamburgers. The Western cooking technique is mainly frying. In contrast, in Eastern countries, steaming and boiling are the popular cooking techniques, and most of the dishes would include vegetables. Also, Western medicine focuses on disease recovery while Chinese medicine focuses on disease prevention.