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What's so wrong with wanting to watch cells go bad? Seems fairly harmless,
right? Truth of the matter is you're facing some pretty nasty stuff called
cancer when cells start behaving badly. Cancer remains America's Number 2
killer and afflicts 50% of all men and 33% of all women (Source: American
Cancer Society).
If you could choose between finding a cure for cancer or a cure for mental
illness, which would have the biggest impact? The cure for mental illness
would affect more Americans than the cure for cancer. In fact, more
Americans are diagnosed with mental illness than cancer. Still, the race for
the cure for cancer is on and in full force.
Which cancer do you think occurs most often in the United States? Breast
cancer has a high rate of occurrence and gets a lot of press coverage. But
skin cancer has the highest number of victims today. Surprisingly, nearly
half of all cancers diagnosed involve non-melanoma related skin cancer.
According a study by the American Cancer Society, the most prevalent cancers
today after skin cancer and breast cancer are:
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Prostate cancer
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Colon and rectal cancer
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Endometriosis cancer
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Kidney cancer
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Leukemia
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Lung cancer
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Melanoma
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Pancreatic cancer
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Bladder cancer
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Thyroid cancer
Is cancer genetic or environmentally driven? While most
cancers are programmed into our genetic makeup, many cancers lie under the
radar and do not rear their ugly head until you expose them to factors that
will set them off. For this reason, if you can avoid certain situations or
behaviors that can subject your system to negative consequences, you may
never know in your lifetime that you carry cells that want to go nuts.
How do cancer cells develop? A cell in the human body is programmed to do
certain functions for you and then eventually die off and be replaced. But
when a cell turns cancerous, it doesn't shut down properly but rather goes
off and multiplies. As these bad cells multiply, they can turn into a
cancerous tumor. The cells keep multiplying and it is very hard to arrest
the cancer and stop this uncontrolled cell growth.
The cancerous cells don't always stay attached to the organ where they first
started to go bad. They can migrate to organs nearby or travel through the
bloodstream to infect another area of the body. Leukemia is the cancer that
travels through the bloodstream.
There are two ways to get rid of cancer. The first is never to get it in the
first place. By living properly and taking care of yourself, you can
eliminate most of the risk factors for cancer. Some of the risk factors for
developing cancer are smoking, lack of physical exercise, stress and
exposure to harmful chemicals. If a person gets cancer, treatment options
have come a long way in the last fifty years. Surgery to remove the
cancerous tumor is usually an option. Surgery is generally followed by
chemotherapy or radiation treatments.
If you have risk factors for cancer, think about changing your habits. For
more information about cancer go online to the American Cancer Society web
site.
Written and Copyrighted by Canute Dionu, the webmaster for
Un Cancer. To get access to his library of articles, click here: http://www.uncancer.com/
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