Name: When you're diagnosed with cancer, you break bad
Uploaded: 2026-03-26T16:30:25.000Z
Duration: 4 min 13 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hey bestie, my mom has cancer, what do you want her to steal from the Louvre?

I've already called dibs on the Regent Diamond.

According to the study "Breaking Bad: How Health Shocks Prompt Crime," a cancer diagnosis increases the probability of committing a crime by 14%.

It doesn't have to be jewels, I can ask her to grab you, like, the Mona Lisa or something boring.

Economists use a massive dataset of the entire Danish population, focusing on 386,317 individuals diagnosed with cancer between 1980 and 2018.

By linking health records with criminal registries, they track the behavior of these patients against a control group.

Oh, and they all immediately committed crimes after getting cancer?

Actually, in the year following a diagnosis, crime rates among patients dipped.

Because, as the researchers noted, undergoing cancer treatment is physically strenuous and forces a cancer patient to visit or remain at the hospital for long periods of time.

Yeah, I guess you can't commit crimes from bed.

But two years after diagnosis, the probability of violating the law surges past baseline.

The effect intensifies over the next few years and persists for more than a decade.

Okay, but what if the people getting cancer are just, like, career criminals returning to old habits?

Cancer drives individuals with clean records to break the law for the first time.

I wonder if this is linked to the rational criminal theory, popularized by economists Gary Becker and Isaac Elric in the 1960s and '70s, positing that criminals aren't necessarily bad people, but

rational actors who weigh the potential rewards of a crime against the probability of getting caught and the severity of the punishment.

I mean, a cancer diagnosis alters every variable in this equation.

I mean, the researchers found that the urge to break the law was stronger among those who lacked financial buffers, such as home equity or a spouse's income.

If they lose their ability to earn legal income, illegal revenue streams are suddenly much more attractive.

And this study centers on Danish people who have access to free, universal healthcare.

I mean, imagine what might happen in the United States.

We don't have to imagine when we have science, bestie.

In the United States, researchers found that 42% of patients deplete their entire life's assets within two years of diagnosis, and

cancer survivors are more than twice as likely to file for bankruptcy.

What is worse is that, based on data from 2007, 62% of all bankruptcies in the United States resulted from medical debt, and

78% of those filing for bankruptcy because of medical debt did have health insurance coverage.

I want her to not just bring me all the crowns at the Louvre, but

Also, holy shit, I'm so sorry about your mom.

I didn't say, "Oh my God." We should talk about that first.

One of my recent breakthroughs in therapy was to clarify my values.

So my therapist pointed out when I'm not living in alignment with my values, I am, wait for it, unhappy.

And I feel like, you know, I'm not sure what exactly I thought my values were, but

on paper they're actually kind of boring.

They're like, balance, contribution, movement, kindness.

But then when we started looking at every sector of my life, I was really able to see that what was bringing me the most joy and peace were the things where my values were actually being met.

And it was great because now I can evaluate anything, right?

Like a job, a relationship, a friendship, an opportunity, through my values checklist to get clear on if it's good for me or not.

And it's helped me see myself and my life with more clarity, and

it's been really helping me navigate 2026.

If you're interested in a fresh perspective this year, I highly recommend starting therapy.

And thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring today's episode.

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