Cancer risk appears to decrease actuarially after the ninth decade because atherosclerosis risk increases at a faster rate.

“It's interesting, actuarially, by your 10th decade, your risk of cancer starts to go down. Although, and I discuss this with my patients a lot, My explanation for that is that atherosclerosis ratchets up faster than cancer. And it's not that cancer is going down. It's that heart disease is dominating.”