Causes of Cancer?!
Question: There are many supposed causes for cancer. But, as everyone know, scientists don't know perfecly well the illness' behaveour, nor the real causes. Can anyone tell me some real causes? All I've heard so far are nothing more than simple ideas people "assume".
Answers:
Causes of Cancer
Some kinds of cancer are caused by things people do. Smoking can cause cancers of the lungs, mouth, throat, bladder, kidneys and several other organs, as well as heart disease and stroke. While not everyone who smokes will get cancer, smoking increases a person's chance of getting the disease. Drinking a lot of alcohol has also been shown to increase a person's chance of getting cancer of the mouth, throat, and some other organs. This is especially true if the person drinks and smokes.
Radiation (x-rays) can cause cancer. But the x-rays used by the doctor or dentist are safe. Too much exposure to sunlight without any protection can cause skin cancer.
In many cases, the exact cause of cancer remains a mystery. We know that certain changes in our cells can cause cancer to start, but we don't yet know exactly how this happens. Many scientists are studying this problem
Risk Factors for Cancer
A risk factor is anything that increases a person's chance of getting a disease. Some risk factors can be changed, and others cannot. Risk factors for cancer can include a person's age, sex, and family medical history. Others are linked to cancer-causing factors in the environment. Still others are related to lifestyle choices such as tobacco and alcohol use, diet, and sun exposure.
Having a risk factor for cancer means that a person is more likely to develop the disease at some point in their lives. However, having one or more risk factors does not necessarily mean that a person will get cancer. Some people with one or more risk factors never develop the disease, while other people who do develop cancer have no apparent risk factors. Even when a person who has a risk factor is diagnosed with cancer, there is no way to prove that the risk factor actually caused the cancer.
Different kinds of cancer have different risk factors. Some of the major risk factors include the following:
Cancers of the lung, mouth, larynx, bladder, kidney, cervix esophagus, and pancreas are related to tobacco use, including cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, and snuff. Smoking alone causes one-third of all cancer deaths.
Skin cancer is related to unprotected exposure to strong sunlight.
Breast cancer risk factors include several factors: age; changes in hormone levels throughout life, such as age at first menstruation, number of pregnancies, and age at menopause; obesity; and physical activity. Some studies have also shown a connection between alcohol consumption and an increased risk of breast cancer. Also, women with a mother or sister who have had breast cancer are more likely to develop the disease themselves.
While all men are at risk for prostate cancer, several factors can increase the chances of developing the disease, such as age, race, and diet. The chance of getting prostate cancer goes up with age. Prostate cancer is more common among African-American men than among white men. (We do not yet know why this is so.) A high-fat diet may play a part in causing prostate cancer. Also, men with a father or brother who have had prostate cancer are more likely to get prostate cancer themselves.
Overall, environmental factors, defined broadly to include tobacco use, diet, and infectious diseases, as well as chemicals and radiation cause an estimated 75% of all cancer cases in the United States. Among these factors, tobacco use, unhealthy diet, and physical activity are more likely to affect personal cancer risk. Research shows that about one-third of all cancer deaths are related to dietary factors and lack of physical activity in adulthood.
Certain cancers are related to viral infections and could be prevented by behavior changes or vaccines. More than 1 million skin cancers expected to be diagnosed in 2003 could have been prevented by protection from the sun's rays. For additional information, please see Environment and Cancer Risk.
It Can Cancer Be Prevented-:
Smoking and drinking alcohol cause some people to get certain types of cancer. These cancers might be prevented by avoiding tobacco and alcohol. The best idea is to never use tobacco at all. Cigarettes, cigars, pipes and smokeless tobacco cause cancer and should not be used. People who already smoke should try to quit. Former smokers have less risk of cancer than do people who continue to smoke.
The chances of getting skin cancer can be lowered by staying in the shade as much as you can, wearing a hat and shirt when you are in the sun, and using sunscreen.
We know that our diet, (what we eat) is linked to some types of cancer, although the exact reasons are not yet clear. The best advice is to eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains like pasta and bread, and to cut down on high fat foods.
There are tests, called screening examinations, that adults should have in order to find cancer early. If cancer is found early it can often be cured.
Other Answers:
smoking, drinking, drugs, genes.
Sun, smoking, bad genes, eating lots of fatty foods, the list goes on forever.
Warning the surgeon general has determined living causes cancer there is nothing that can be done we are all doomed.
Well, there are different types of cancer so therefore there are different types of causes for each of them.
Cancer begins with damage (mutations) in your DNA. Your DNA is like a set of instructions for your cells, telling them how to grow and divide. Normal cells often develop mutations in their DNA, but they have the ability to repair most of these mutations. Or, if they can't make the repairs, the cells often die. However, certain mutations aren't repaired, causing the cells to grow and become cancerous. Mutations also cause cancer cells to live beyond a normal cell life span. This causes the cancerous cells to accumulate.
Source(s):
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cancer/CA00003 go to this website it has lots of information :)
Cancer is unregulated cell proliferation. It is debated as to the "causes" of cancer, but there are some molecular facts about cancer. There are proteins and enzymes in the cell that regulate cell division. When these cease to function, cancer CAN occor. These may stop functioning due to a number of things.chemicals, drugs, age, etc. However, the cell also has some mechanisms to stop cancer. Like the gene called p53 located on chromosome 17, is a tumor supressor gene. When something goes wrong in the cell, p53 activates and starts a chain of events resulting in apoptosis, or programed cell death. This usually happens. Unless, p53 is also damaged. So rather that one cellular event causing cancer, it requires multiple things going wrong to cause cancer.
anything done in excess such as smoking, drinking, sun tanning, eating harmfully, etc..
well, it is in the cells. in our bodies we have cancer supressor cells and if something happens and they are not working properly and other cells that have some sort of mutating agent added to them like the sun, nicotene, radiation, and there is nothing to fight off those pathagens, the cell that was affected will continue to produce bad cells or cancer cells and that is what can cause full fledged cancer. the reason it spreads is the place that is confining that cluster of bad cells has become to numerous to contain and breaks away. only one cell needs to move out of the cluster to start the spread. people who have a predisposition to cancer are more likely to be unable to produce enough supressor cells to keep the bad cells in check and will be even more likely if a mutating agent like the sun or tabacco is added.
Scientists guess that some causes are:
exposure to too much sun;radiation
having a high-fat diet(fiber is supposed to help prevent cancer
smoking;tobacco
genes
alcohol
This is what I found on a site
*Random fact:Skin Cancer is the most common cancer
Source(s):
many of my loved ones died of various types of cancer(mostly brain and skin cancer) :(
This one is real: Overexposure to heat
Its called Erythema ab igne. It used to be common in the old ages and now its returning as the planet warms up and people put heaters in their car seats, etc.
Any trauma to the body, whether overexposing to heat or cold(chilbeans), radiation, broken bones, any type of external or internal stress can cause cancer in my opinion.
Source(s):
http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/201/300/cdn_medical_association/cmaj/vol-162/issue-1/0077.htm
A little background:
1. What is a gene? A gene is an assembly line that produces a protein. A gene is made out of DNA.
2. What are proteins? Proteins are the major building blocks of cells.
3. What is a mutated gene? A mutated gene is a modified assembly line. A modification can take many forms such as removing an essential part of the assembly line, replacing an important part with a piece of junk, etc. A mutated gene is considered damaged DNA.
Current belief:
What is the cause of cancer? The word cause has two meanings. The first refers to the elements in the environment which impact our body, for instance, tobacco, x-ray radiation, asbestos, other chemicals, etc. These elements are usually called carcinogens. Today, hundreds of substances and mixtures are classified as carcinogens. The other meaning of the word cause refers to the internal element of the body which is the first to cave in under the attack of the carcinogens. Let us call this element our "Achilles heel."
The current belief in medical research holds that most cancers are caused by exposure to carcinogens, and that carcinogens cause cancer by mutating genes. In other words, according to the current belief, the structural integrity of our genes is our Achilles heel, and therefore, the first internal element to cave in under the attack of the carcinogens. This belief is so ingrained that the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), an institute at the NIH, recently stated that "all cancers are based on genetic mutations in body cells." Moreover, a search on PubMed, the search engine for scientific papers in life science managed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), with the keywords "Mutation" AND "cancer" produced 86,490 papers and 12,238 reviews. Mutation hunting is also a big business. Look at the NIH budget allocated to discoveries of genetic mutations, the number of biotech companies chasing genetic mutations, the magnitude of the licensing agreements between biotech and pharmaceutical companies aimed to utilize newly discovered genetic mutations, and the number of stories in the media on genetic mutations and their so-called "link" to disease. However, this huge effort and billions of dollars has produced few discoveries and little benefits to the public. The reason for this limited success is simple. The cause of cancer is not a genetic mutation. Our Achilles heel is not the structural integrity of our genes.
The story of the BRCA1 gene is a typical example of mutation hunting.
The Mystery of BRCA1
Genes, in general, produce proteins, which are the building blocks of cells. The concentration of proteins is tightly regulated. A mutated or physically altered gene produces an abnormal concentration of its protein, which may lead to disease. In 1994, Mark Skolnick, PhD, discovered the BRCA1 gene (BRCA1 is short for BReast CAncer 1). Following the discovery, scientists observed an abnormally low level of the BRCA1 protein in breast cancer tissues. The BRCA1 protein is a cell cycle suppressor, which means that the protein prevents cell replication. This observation created a lot of excitement. At the time, scientists believed that they were on the verge of finding the cause of breast cancer. The reasoning was that breast cancer patients must have a mutated BRCA1 gene, that is, a defected BRCA1 assembly line, which would explain the decreased production of the protein, and the excessive replication of breast cancer cells in tumors.
In the United States, 180,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year. However, the BRCA1 gene is mutated in less than 5% of these cases. In more than 95% of breast cancer patients the gene is not mutated, the assembly line is not defected.
So here is the mystery. If the gene is not mutated in the great majority of the breast cancer patients, why are the tumors showing low levels of the BRCA1 protein? Today, this is one of the biggest mysteries in cancer research.
The BRCA1 gene is not unique. Many normal (perfect shape, non-mutated) genes exhibit a mysterious abnormal (increased or decreased) production of proteins in cancer. Moreover, studies also report abnormal gene expression of normal genes in other diseases, such as atherosclerosis, obesity, osteoarthritis, type II diabetes, alopecia, type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, asthma, lupus, thyroiditis, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and graft versus host disease.
According to Dr. Raxit J. Jariwalla in his European Journal of Cancer paper: (Jariwalla RJ. Microcompetition and the origin of cancer. Eur J Cancer. 2005 Jan;41(1):15-9): "The prevalent view of the nature of cancer holds that it is a complex genetic process resulting from the progressive accumulation of mutations in specific cellular genes, such as proto-oncogenes or tumor-suppressor genes, leading to perturbations in processes involving signal transduction, cell cycle regulation, and/or apoptosis. Genetic instability in tumors has been known for decades, however, the role of genomic instability in causing and promoting tumor growth remains controversial. Furthermore, although many studies report abnormal gene expression in cancer cells, often, no mutations or chemical modifications are observed around the locus of the dysregulated gene(s), suggesting that a genetic alteration is not the initiating event of cancer."
So what is the cause of most cancers?
The answer is available at http://www.causeofcancer.org/
Source(s):
http://www.causeofcancer.org/
http://www.cbcd.net/
Answers: