this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026
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I'm just saying this from memory so I may be wrong, but I think size will be a big factor for reduced cancer in small animals. For whales and elephants they have had to gain extra adaptations to handle cancer which accounts for the difference.
Cancer isn't directly tied to the nu,ber of cells. It's the type. Cancer shows up in places where cells replaced most often. Some cells are long lived, others not so much. The more replication you have, the greater the chance of a mutation that ends up being classified as cancer. So while a whale is huge, a lot of that size comes from things like muscle and fat, which don't replicate once mature (I believe). So the complexity of the human body causes it to have more things that need to replicate, and thus more opportunities for cancer. And then of course, plenty of otther things we do that bump up our chances...
Ah that's an interesting point. Perhaps really we're the big ones then.