Children's idiot question of the day...

Richelieu

By all means bump this but it really doesn't deserve any attention as a serious medical question.

A friend asked me on a bus recently in a moment that will probably appear on 'overheard in Dublin' soon enough, if you eat a bowl of cancer, do you get cancer??
I had no answer!

Does anyone know if you eat a bowl of cancer (cancer cells or whatever) can you get cancer???
Can you even eat a bowl of cancer???

madrab

.........

surely your stomach acid would destroy all the cell or your body would reject them & puke them up


but i stick with my original .......

hullaballoo

If you eat a bowl of strawberries, do you turn into a strawberry?

nachos

Richelieu wrote:

Does anyone know if you eat a bowl of cancer (cancer cells or whatever) can you get cancer???
Can you even eat a bowl of cancer???

I don't think so. Cancer cells are a body's own cells that have mutated, but they aren't destroyed as the immune system recognises the cancer cells as belonging to its own system. If you were to eat a bowl of cancer (presumably someone else's cancer), the immune system would identify these cells as a foreign body and destroy them. That is if the stomach acid doesn't get them first.
I'm open to correction on this!

Binomate

It kind of sounds tasty.

*Oul_Doll_Cork*

Heres for another stupid question!...

What does cancer taste like??

Ewwwwwww!

seamus

nachos wrote:

I don't think so. Cancer cells are a body's own cells that have mutated, but they aren't destroyed as the immune system recognises the cancer cells as belonging to its own system. If you were to eat a bowl of cancer (presumably someone else's cancer), the immune system would identify these cells as a foreign body and destroy them. That is if the stomach acid doesn't get them first.
I'm open to correction on this!

^^What he said.
Cancer is a result of spontaneous mutation in a cell's DNA. Our cells mutate quite often, but usually these cells die and are replaced by normal cells. Cancerous cells mutate and grow abnormally, but they don't die and aren't rejected by the body since they're recognised as being part of the body. Since cells are self-replicating, in the case of malignant tumours, the cells continually reproduce their mutated DNA, and each new cells grows as abnormally as its ancestors. It's actually quite a specific set of mutations which are required in order from cancer to promulgate.

Since cancer is not an infection of the body by a foreign element (though it has been known for viral or bacterial infections to trigger cancerous growth), then eating someone's cancerous cells would not cause cancer. You'd simply digest them as with any flesh.

Someone else can probably fill in anything I've said incorrectly.

Wiki

madrab

seamus wrote:

You'd simply digest them as with any flesh.

how much flesh do you eat???

Richelieu

still wouldn't eat a bowl of cancer infected flesh though...

Richelieu

I think someone can lock this now? ahem :P

seamus

madrab wrote:

how much flesh do you eat???

Never eaten a steak or a chicken breast? Flesh.

madrab

thats not the point, canibal!

hullaballoo

Locked, Richelieu banned for sticking out his tongue at a supermod