Peto’s paradox’s relevance is off the scale

2025/05/29 by Mirre J. P. Simons · 2 voices
Arts and Humanities · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Philosophy and History of Science #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #History of Science and Medicine

paper · pdf · doi:10.18632/aging.206258

openalex publication_date 2025/05/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Peto's paradox is the disconnect between individual risk of cells to develop malignancy and the absence of a strong increase in cancer incidence with body mass across species. Recently small increases of cancer incidence with body mass across species have been interpreted as a falsification of Peto's paradox. I argue this is a misinterpretation as it is the predicted incredible scale of the increase in cancer incidence with body mass that led to Peto's paradox. The relevance for the biology of cancer and ageing of Peto's paradox is off the scale and remains a highly valid paradigm of study.

Citations

• Lineage selection and the evolution of multistage carcinogenesis
• Cancer Prevalence across Vertebrates
• The end of the genetic paradigm of cancer

Discussions

• #PaperoftheDay: "Peto’s paradox’s relevance is off the scale" DOI ⬇️ doi.org/10.18632/aging.206258 #aging #research #openaccess #peerreview #journal #publishing [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• A nice short paper arguing that a small significant trend between body size and cancer risk is not enough to disprove Peto's paradox. I agree with the author we need null models when we test the effec [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]