Question: What chemicals/elements do you think are the main cause of cancers

Michael Kyriakides answered on 19 Nov 2015:

Hi @chocolatepizza72 – I wouldn’t expect elements to be main causes of cancer (unless we are talking about radioactive isotopes) but there are some examples such as beryllium. There are also many specific chemicals which can be carcinogenic (hopefully most of them are out of reach for the common public) and a classic example of a a carcinogen is ethidium bromide which is a chemical scientists used to use a lot in the laboratory to stain DNA but it was later discovered to be highly carcinogenic. With respect to our everyday lives, there are many stories in the newspapers about new carcinogens (cooking oil, red meat, nicotine etc) but i am not convinced yet. My general rule of thumb is that everything can be toxic depending on the dose (as Paracelsus once said) and cancer is a common end result of toxicity.