What Causes Cancer?

[Elahiya]

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/what-causes-cancer.html


What causes cancer? When you think of all the things that are known or assumed to be cancer-causing and put them together–the list is pretty daunting. This summary comes straight from the book Cancer: 101 Solutions to a Preventable Epidemic (New Society Publishers, 2007) by Liz Armstrong, Guy Dauncey and Anne Wordsworth.
This list does not claim to represent a complete summary of the contributing factors; but it is an indication that are many more factors than we usually think about. The good news is that many are avoidable. What do you think of this list? Do you take issue with any of the items here? Are there other items that you would add?
Lifestyle and Diet Factors
• Smoking and second-hand smoke.
• Diet–too much meat, not enough fruits and vegetables.
• Suntanning.
• Absence of UV sunlight in some regions, reducing cancer-protecting vitamin D.
• Obesity, and lack of regular exercise.
Other Food Factors
• Processed food such as nitrosamines, aspartame, some food colorants.
• Bovine growth hormone in milk.
• Some salt-cured, pickled, and smoked food.
• Sugar and alcohol consumption.
• Absence of cancer-protecting compounds in food not grown organically.
• Food contaminated with pesticides and herbicides.
Occupational Hazards
• Workplace exposure to carcinogens including solvents, heavy metals, radiation, pesticides, diesel fuel, benzene, asbestos.
Radiation
• Solar UV radiation from ozone depletion.
• Ionizing radiation from diagnostic x-rays, especially CT scans and mammograms; nuclear medicine, radiation therapy.
• Electromagnetic radiation from power lines, cell towers, cellphones, electronic devices (both wired and wireless).
• Ionizing radiation from uranium mining, nuclear power plants, atomic bomb tests, depleted uranium.
Air Pollution
• Carcinogens such as benzene, diesel vehicle exhaust, coal-fired power emissions, asbestos fibres, industrial chemicals, incinerators, pesticides, soot, wood dust, indoor air pollutants.
Water Pollutants
• Carcinogens such as chlorine by-products, industrial chemicals, heavy metals, pesticide residues, fluoride, arsenic, hormone-disrupting chemicals, coal-fired power wastes.
Toxic Products
• Toxic chemicals in household products such as cosmetics, fire-retardants, non-stick agents, solvents, cleaning products, building products.
• Plasticizers such as bisphenol A and phthalates in various plastic food containers, water coolers and bottles, children’s toys, teethers, dental sealants, canned foods.
• Some drugs including immunosuppressants, birth control pills, hormone pills, hormone replacement therapy, androgenic steroids, anti-depressants, proton pump inhibitors, behavior modifying drugs and drugs used to treat cancer.
Natural Carcinogens
• Foods contaminated with fungal aflatoxins.
• Various phytochemicals in food.
• Chewing betel nuts.
• Radon gas leaking into buildings.
• Cosmic and solar radiation.
Infectious Agents
• Infectious agents such as hepatitis B and C, HIV, human papilloma virus.
Reduced Immunity
• Toxic substances that weaken the immune system’s ability to fight cancer.
Endocrine/Hormone Disrupters
• Endocrine disrupting chemicals in air, water, and consumer products.
• Increased exposure to a woman’s (endogenous) estrogens.
• Loss of darkness related to rotating shift work, reducing cancer-protecting hormone melatonin.
Other Factors
• Windows of vulnerability: Exposure to toxic substances pre-conceptually, in utero, during infancy, during puberty.
• Family history of cancer–shared habits, shared pollution, shared genes.
• Parental and grandparental exposure to contaminants, causing faulty epigenetic expression.
• Poverty.
• Living near toxic sources.
• Genetic variability–some people are more vulnerable than others.

[missbettie]

everything causes cancer. i might as well smoke.

[veganwitch]

^that's depressing...the last thing I should be looking at.

[missbettie]

:( <3 ^

[Risker]

None of those things cause cancer. They can increase your chances of developing it but not cause it.

[snivelingchild]

...um, that might be true for some of the things on the list (vit D deficiency) but most of those substances directly cause cancer cell formation and growth in your body. Most people have cancerous cells in their body all the time, and the body is constantly fighting them. You get a tumor when you have too many cancer-causing circumstances and not a strong enough system to fight them all off. Then they form into tumors.

If you can put something on cells in a lab, and grow cancer cells, than that thing causes cancer.

[Risker]

^ I stand corrected. What I should have said is that no matter what you do, if you live long enough you'll develop cancer regardless.

Some of it seems a bit suspect to me though...



• Absence of cancer-protecting compounds in food not grown organically.
• Electromagnetic radiation from power lines, cell towers, cellphones, electronic devices (both wired and wireless).
• Plasticizers such as bisphenol A and phthalates in various plastic food containers, water coolers and bottles, children’s toys, teethers, dental sealants, canned foods.


I don't think these are proven.

[snivelingchild]

bisphenol A has a TON of proof behind it. Look at studies that test blood traces of it in people (and infants) with cancer. It's absorbed when food and beverage are stored, and especially heated in most plastics (different plastics contain different amounts of it). When plastics are sent to land fills, it even enters groundwater, and even the water supply, depending on where the landfill is placed.

"Cancer-protecting compounds" are antioxidants in all fruits and other foods, organically grown or not. However, pesticides are linked to cancer (not proven by eating non-organic foods, but proven in larger amounts). It is also proven that pesticides reside in non-organic food (in different concentrations depending on the food, and you can find traces of pesticides in people's blood. It is jsut not certain how well, if at all, these substances are stored up or released from the body. Therefore, theoretically, eating pesticide ridden food can "lead to" cancer, but I would say it introduces carcinogenic substances to the body in much smaller amounts that other things.

Electromagnetic radiation does adversely affect the body....in large amounts. In places where they have massive amounts of power lines in poor villages, some studies show more instances of childhood cancer. However, this is not a situation present in 1st world nations. I would call that another thing that causes cancer "in theory," or, IMO, it is cancer causing, but not more, by itself, than the body can handle....if that makes any sense...which when reading back it doesn't too much....but that's the way words kind of shit out of my mouth.

Anyway. definitely research bisphenol A. You will find a LOT of SHIT on that crap. I think it works more on changing the amount of hormones in your body, because it's shown to increase estrogen in men. It's all about how trace things add up in your body over years. So, yeah, one tiny thing might not be "bad for your health," but a lifetime of things add up when substances are loaded up in human tissues. Just think of how fish have tons of heavy metal that is absorbed when you eat it. It's because they have "lifetimes" (quoted for being killed prematurely to be eaten) of eating sea plants with tiny amounts of heavy metal from water pollution. Anyway, I'm babbling, and have probably stopped making sensical connections in word and thought a while ago. meh.

[buttons]

"Cancer-protecting compounds" are antioxidants in all fruits and other foods, organically grown or not. However, pesticides are linked to cancer (not proven by eating non-organic foods, but proven in larger amounts)."

The level of anti-oxidants in a food doesn't necessarily translate to the level of anti-oxidants 'passed on' through ingestion of said food (I'm ineloquent!)'

"In places where they have massive amounts of power lines in poor villages, some studies show more instances of childhood cancer. However, this is not a situation present in 1st world nations. I would call that another thing that causes cancer "in theory," or, IMO, it is cancer causing, but not more, by itself, than the body can handle....if that makes any sense...which when reading back it doesn't too much....but that's the way words kind of shit out of my mouth."

Apparent 'cancer clusters' don't always necessarily indicate that sommet in the vicinity is causing the illnesses. Causation v.Correlation, really.

I have no strong ancestral history of leukaemia/exposure to radiation/'bad' diet etc. I have come to believe that I got cancer...because I did. These things just happen.


*chugs down green tea and reapplies sunscreen:p*

[buttons]

This article is a good, pertinent example of bad usage of the word "causes". I'd like to see the peer-reviewed studies upon which he bases his claims!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/health/health/article1843718.ece

[Gorilla]

drugs used to treat cancer

drugs used to treat cancer actually give you cancer? :confused:


Radon gas leaking into buildings.

as i have found out from having land searches done for selling my house, this stuff is everywhere, at least round here.


Cosmic and solar radiation

not much you can do to avoid that!


Genetic variability–some people are more vulnerable than others

exactly.

[Stu]

...

And so, to sum up:

Natural - good;
unnatural - bad.

[cobweb]

^ and as you'd be hard pressed to find much left that's really 'natural' nowadays, we're f***ed :undecided:

[mjnewbould]

Just to say - drugs (and other therapies) used to treat cancer are indeed one of the major causes of cancer - (mainly leukaemia and tumours of soft tissue) because they interfere with cell division!
of course to some extent it is unhelpful to discuss "cancer" as if it were one entity; in fact it is a group of thousands of diseases, all of which have a different range of causes.
(One of the parts of my job is to diagnose cancer in tissue samples)

[cobweb]

^
that is very interesting :thumbsup:

i have always said that if i was diagnosed with cancer i would refuse drug therapy or possibly any therapy atall. Lots of my family members have died of different types of Cancer after suffering with both the disease and the hideous effects of 'treatment'. This is one reason i refuse to have further cervical smear tests done.

If you were ever in the horrendous position of discovering you have Cancer, what treatment options would you go for, mjnewbould? :confused:.

[mjnewbould]

Well - I think it is always difficult to know before it happens. I think I would have conventional therapy (surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy etc). Almost evryone does in that situation. Usually each form of cancer has a different therapy defined. the type of cancer may also come into it. In some cases the aim of therapy is cure - in other cases it is palliative. often one would be helping others because all the data from many cancers is collected and this helps define what treatment is to be. My sister died of cancer of the colon (surgery can be curative here - but is in only about half the cases) - she had all the treatment and it gave her four more years of life that were very important to her; she also helped others by opting to try various treatments that were experimental. My husband had a high grade lyphoma in 2000(one always goes for a cure here by a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy). He had his treatment for 6 months and is now considered to be cured. Sorry if I'm a bit technical here

[cobweb]

no, that's fine, it's good, i wish doctors would run through the options properly before making assumptions. I guess i would have a tumour removed but i don't fancy the drug therapies.

[missbettie]

wow mjnewbould, you have been through a lot... <3

[Gorilla]

This is one reason i refuse to have further cervical smear tests done.

i'm sorry members of your family have suffered cancer cobweb, but please - that's no reason to stop having smear tests. smear tests can spot pre-cancerous cells so you can get them treated before they become cancer. treatment doesn't involve drugs and can save your life, cervical cancer is totally preventable.

sorry to sound preachy but i really think you should reconsider. :smoochie:

[cobweb]

i'm sorry members of your family have suffered cancer cobweb, but please - that's no reason to stop having smear tests. smear tests can spot pre-cancerous cells so you can get them treated before they become cancer. treatment doesn't involve drugs and can save your life, cervical cancer is totally preventable.

sorry to sound preachy but i really think you should reconsider. :smoochie:


well thanks for caring Gorilla - i'm trying to find out if one needs smear tests if not sexually active :confused:
but i sometimes wonder what the point is if i wouldn't take treatment anyway, hmm
(*am a bit paranoid due to some very vivid dreams i had*)

[Gorilla]

i know you're not currently sexually active but you could've picked up the virus which causes it in the past and it's been lying dormant. please don't think i'm implying anything about your sex life! i just worry so much about cervical cancer, it scares me a lot - and i hate to think of any woman dying young from it, let alone someone i consider a friend. :)

i realise it's a difficult subject for some people - i can't bear having smear tests but i do anyway because i think it's important. i don't mean any offence though. :heart:

[cobweb]

i'm in no way offended! :)

i have had them before but not since i stopped having sex. I have made 2 appointments and then cancelled them :o.

[Gorilla]

glad you're not offended, i was worried i might sound a bit critical. it's up to you of course but i think the virus can be dormant in the body for many years before pre-cancerous cells develop.

i'm by no means an expert - just concerned for your well-being :smoochie:

[cobweb]

thanks, i never say no to a bit of friendly concern! :bandanna:

[mjnewbould]

Thanks for your concern - Miss Bettie - but I have to say it was other people who went through everything- not me- and because my sister was so brave we got four more years with her. Because my husband went through what he went through I still have him. I'm not sure I would be as brave as they were! Actually it seems that many people find that when it happens to them they just get on with it and do their best for themselves and everyone around them. I suppose its a very common and ordinary sort of bravery really - serious illness is common and something that lots of us will face sometime.