Ana did not expect to die at age thirty-seven from colon cancer. Two years after giving birth to her third child, she had been told by her physician that her painful abdominal cramping was mild irritable bowel syndrome, and since her upper GI X-rays were normal, no additional studies were necessary. Reassured, she enthusiastically jumped back into her life as a soccer mom, devoted wife, and Sunday school teacher. That is, until the cough she developed just wouldn’t let up.
Another visit to her doctor led to a chest X-ray and then a CT scan of the lungs. Biopsies revealed the worst: cancer, most likely from the colon. An abdominal CT scan, blood tests, and a sigmoidoscopy confirmed that the primary location was the colon and that the cancer had also spread to the liver and ovaries.
A lot of cancer patients in the same position wonder How did this happen? Could it be cured-or treated? What about chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and their side effects? What was the best cancer center in the country? Who. was the best doctor to treat it? Could this cancer have been prevented?
Our bodies are composed of over one hundred trillion cells, each of which is a sort of biochemical factory that produces energy; manufactures proteins, and replicates. Each cell has its own regulatory system controlled by genes on chromosomes within the nucleus of every cell.
Experts describe cancer as a disease caused by genes gone haywire-specifically those genes that regulate cell growth. There is a constant balance in every cell between so-called oncogenes (genes involved in uncontrolled cell growth and proliferation) and tumor suppressor genes (genes that turn off division and replicating mechanisms). When the balance tips in favor of the oncogenes from environmental and genetic causes-cells escape the normal control mechanisms of the body and continue to divide and grow unchecked.
Cancer can involve any organ of the body; the most common fatal types involve the prostate gland, the breast, the lungs, and the colon – the so-called big four-but no organ or tissue is exempt. Cancer claims more than five million American lives each year and accounts for more than 12 percent of the world’s mortality. Lung cancer is the leading cause of U.S. cancer deaths, followed by intestinal cancer.
But the reason is a mystery – why did this cancer malignancy happened to a thirty-seven-year-old lady who worked out, didn’t smoke cigarettes, and had not been overweight-all factors connected with a lower incidence of colon cancer? Has it been connected with her pretty standard American diet, that has been fairly loaded with well cooked meat, saturated fat, and trans-fatty acids? Or to the strain and undermining of her immune system regarding her work and family? Or to several mysterious external factors? All are related to increased risk of colon cancer. Or was there a genetic predisposition that had been triggered by any of the above?
Lifestyle factors that give rise to genetic mutations and cancer, including smoking, excess drinking, insufficient exercise, and diets full of processed meat, saturated fat, sugar, trans-fatty acids, and vegetable oils. Other contributing factors incorporate external pollutants, like impure water, radio waves, toxic waste materials, pesticides and hormones within our food, and air pollutants from industrial sources.
But what impact do these procedures and agents have on cellular material that turns them into ruthless killers? To comprehend this, in addition to the ideal strategy to beat any cancer, we must know the way cancers form, grow, after which seed all over the body.By thousands of experimentally induced cancers in animals, researchers have determined that tumor growth includes 3 distinct but closely connected stages: tumor initiation, tumor promotion, and tumor progression.
Initiation, the very first stage of cancer growth, happens whenever free radicals invade the membrane layer of the cell, the mitochondria, and the DNA in the cell’s nucleus. Problems for the DNA leads to mutations and, if uncontrolled, to the creation of a malignancy.
Products contain: hydrogenated oils (trans fats), which often,along with being a cancer factor, encourage heart condition and abdominal fat; acrylamides, which can be created throughout the frying process; and sodium nitrite (and nitrates), that are put into processed meats, hot dogs, bacon, and other meat that requires a reddish color to look “fresh.” During digestive function, ’sodium nitrite is converted to nitrosamine, that is a carcinogen.
Top Five Cancer-Causing Foods
Hot dogs
Processed meats and bacon
Doughnuts
french fries
Chips, crackers,cookies
The reactive nature of free radicals, and their ability to destabilize almost every molecule they contact, makes them harmful to normal human cells. Free radicals are normal by-products of the cell’s energy-producing mitochondria-much like the exhaust from burning gasoline in a combustion engine. The body has systems to remove them, but to combat the overproduction of free radicals accelerated by improper diet, environmental pollution, and the body’s own normal production, the body turns to antioxidants like vitamins C, E, and beta-carotene to neutralize their destructive effects.
The second stage in the development of cancer is the promotion phase. If the first line of defense fails to prevent the initiation of cancer, cancer cells can proliferate. This is a lengthy and still reversible process in which actively dividing precancerous cells accumulate and enlarge. This phase of rapid cell division is enhanced by inflammation, not only at the site but also throughout the body.
Vegetable oils such as corn and safflower oil, man made trans-fatty acids, and saturated fats found in meat and fatty fried foods all contribute to this silent inflammation.
Progression is cancer’s final and most deadly stage. If all the body’s defenses fail and a tumor begins to grow, it will start to release various growth factors to enhance its own survival. These growth factors stimulate surrounding healthy tissue to make thousands of new microscopic blood vessels to supply the cancerous growth-a process called angiogenesis. Without an ever-increasing blood supply, the tumor dies as its growth outpaces its nutrient supply. But with the development of new blood vessels, the tumor nourishes itself and acquires a pathway to seed other tumors elsewhere in the body.
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