ArticleEvolutionary applications2020
Resolving Peto's paradox: Modeling the potential effects of size-related metabolic changes, and of the evolution of immune policing and cancer suppression.
Article in Evolutionary applications, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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17 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Test of the Adaptive Lag Hypothesis of the Evolution of Cancer Suppression and Lifespan in Dog Breeds.Genes · 2026Article
- Shrinking to bird size with dinosaur-level cancer defences: Evolution of cancer suppression over macroevolutionary time.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Peto's paradox's relevance is off the scale.Aging · 2025Article
- The depth of tumor hierarchy and its impact on hypertumor susceptibility.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The Elephant and the Spandrel.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2025Article
- Pet cancer cases and patterns of treatment at a Spanish veterinary teaching hospital: a retrospective study from 2015 to 2024.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2025Article
- Revealing endogenous conditions for Peto's paradox via an ordinary differential equation model.Journal of mathematical biology · 2024Article
- The effect of body size and inbreeding on cancer mortality in breeds of the domestic dog: a test of the multi-stage model of carcinogenesis.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Chance, ignorance, and the paradoxes of cancer: Richard Peto on developing preventative strategies under uncertainty.European journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- On Explaining Peto's Paradox.European journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- Identifying the Risk Factors for Malignant Mammary Tumors in Dogs: A Retrospective Study.Veterinary sciences · 2023Article
- Article
- Cell size, body size and Peto's paradox.BMC ecology and evolution · 2022Review
- Cancer suppression and the evolution of multiple retrogene copies of TP53 in elephants: A re-evaluation.Evolutionary applications · 2022Article
- Increased risk of cancer in dogs and humans: a consequence of recent extension of lifespan beyond evolutionarily-determined limitations?Aging and cancer · 2022Article
- Determining cancer risk: the evolutionary multistage model or total stem cell divisions?Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Resolving Peto's paradox: Modeling the potential effects of size-related metabolic changes, and of the evolution of immune policing and cancer suppression.Evolutionary applications · 2020Article
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1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
The intrinsic risk of cancer increases with body size and longevity; however, big long-lived species do not exhibit this increase, a contradiction named Peto's paradox. Five hypotheses potentially resolving this paradox were modeled using the multistage model of carcinogenesis. The five hypotheses were based on (1) intrinsic changes in metabolic rate with body size; adaptive increase in immune policing of (2) cancer cells or (3) cells with driver mutations; or adaptive increase in cancer suppression via (4) decreased somatic mutation rate, or (5) increased genetic control. Parameter changes needed to stabilize cancer risk in three types of cancer were estimated for tissues scaled from mouse size and longevity to human and blue whale levels. The metabolic rate hypothesis alone was rejected due to a conflict between the required interspecific effect with the observed intraspecific effect of size on cancer risk, but some metabolic change was optionally incorporated in the other models. Necessary parameter changes in immune policing and somatic mutation rate far exceeded values observed; however, natural selection increasing the genetic suppression of cancer was generally consistent with data. Such adaptive increases in genetic control of cancers in large and/or long-lived animals raise the possibility that nonmodel animals will reveal novel anticancer mechanisms.
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