What causes cancer?

Hi again!

Seha, another of our local celebrities, 'left us' almost 2 weeks ago - due to lung cancer! .... al-fatiha... and a few days ago, I was informed that a brother-in-law of our local lady chef, has just been diagnosed of lung cancer too - stage 4! Oh dear...

Too many, too often and too frequent we hear of people around us contracting cancer! WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF CANCER?!

Cancer is a deadly disease that afflicts people of all ages and races and vary greatly in cause, symptoms, response to treatment, and possibility of cure.

Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these cells to invade other tissues, either by implantation into distant sites by metastasis or by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion.

A process called staging is used by physicians to describe the extent or spread of a cancer and which helps to determine the most appropriate treatment to be given.Stage I is early stage cancer with no involvement of lymph nodes and no spread of the cancer from its original site (metastases) and Stage IV is advanced cancer, with both distant metastases and lymph node involvement.

Cancer is the uncontrolled growth and spread of cells that may affect almost any tissue of the body. Stomach cancer, Lung and colorectal cancer are among the five most common cancers in the world for both men and women. Among men, lung and stomach cancer are the most common cancers worldwide. For women, the most common cancers are cervical cancer and breast cancer.

The age of peak incidence of cancer in children occurs during the first year of life. Leukemia (usually ALL) is the most common infant malignancy (30%), followed by neuroblastoma and the central nervous system cancers. The remainder consists of lymphomas, Wilms’ tumor, retinoblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma (arising from muscle), osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma. Cancer can also occur in young children and adolescents. Pediatric cancers, especially leukemia, are on an upward trend. Female and male infants have essentially the same overall cancer incidence rates, but white infants have substantially higher cancer rates than black infants for most cancer types.

More than 11 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year although about 77% of all cases are diagnosed at ages 55 and above. In the USA and other developed countries, cancer is presently responsible for about 25% of all deaths. On a yearly basis, 0.5% of the population is diagnosed with cancer. It is estimated that there will be 16 million new cases every year by 2020. Cancer causes 7 million deaths every year—or 12.5% of deaths worldwide.

Cancer is caused by exposure to environmental factors such as tobacco, smoke, radiation, alcohol and certain viruses. While some of these can be avoided, there is no known way to entirely avoid the disease.

Cancer is largely preventable. It can be prevented by providing healthy food, by stopping smoking and avoiding the exposure to and ingestion of carcinogens. Good management of stress is also important!



The chance of cure increases substantially if cancer is detected early.The best approach to healing cancer would be doing it wholistically ie via mind, body and spirit.