Migration is a process in which a section of a population is relocated from their homeland to other places for their various purposes such as employment, settlement, education, and business operations. It can be of inter state, intra state, inter countries, and intra countries.
Let us see how migration can influence the occurrence of cancer.
A scientific report says that, Chinese or Japanese woman who migrated to the United States doubled her risk of Breast Cancer as the risk of breast cancer in the United States is approximately two to four times higher compared to China or Japan. After a few generations the cancer risk for the Chinese or Japanese immigrants would approximate with the white people.
Comparative analysis revealed that occurrence of cancer is lowest for Asian women in Asia, intermediate for Asian immigrants to America and highest for Asian Americans who had been born and brought up in America.
Let us take a look at other cancers. A Japanese man who migrates to Hawaii may have seven times the risk of Prostate Cancer compared to a man who lives in Japan. Whereas the risk of stomach cancer for a Japanese man was five times higher than the Japanese immigrant to Hawaii.
Consolidating all above illustrations, most of the researchers concluded that the cancer rates are highly dependent on the environment, lifestyle and diet. We might rule out that genetic mutations are not the prime reason for the risk of cancer. It is the environment by which human beings live, our diet patterns and lifestyle activities determine the risk of developing cancers.
For the growth of the seed into a plant, soil plays an important role likewise the environment also plays a crucial role in the cancer risk.