Rookie_MIB :
As for those debating the causes of cancer - I was diagnosed with Hodgkins stage 3 about a year and a half ago. Never smoked, never touched drugs, drank rarely, exercised regularly, no fast food, lo and behold - I had cancer. I was exactly the last person people would have expected to have it. However, I didn't screw around with it either trying different diets etc or crying about it - went right to chemo. Worst six months I've had to deal with - it sucked. Good news - I'm clear and have been so for a year. Four more years of monitoring to go. There's not much rhyme or reason to it, think about what it really is - some cells in your body that go a little haywire and don't shut down their growth when they're supposed to - it can happen to anyone.
Harsh story, glad it went into remission.
That particular form of cancer can be caused by a virus, so in that case living healthy or unhealthy is completely irrelevant anyway.
As for raw foodism, it's another of the many health scams out there. There's a huge industry raking in the cash off people's ignorance or misfortune.
When it comes to the causes of cancer, it's such a mixed bag. Cancer comes in so many different forms, some of which are very well understood and others which are not. It gets even more complicated when you include the other types of diseases that folding@home is contributing to research on, like Alzheimer's.
On a personal note, my father died of colorectal cancer. About 6 months after being diagnosed, he was gone. Today, the advances in treatment would likely have kept him alive for 2+ years, or maybe even indefinitely. We owe that to science, where the smartest people check what works and what doesn't. If I can contribute to that progress in a small way by lending my gaming PC's use to Stanford, I'll gladly do that.