The Truth About Cancer!?

RopeDrink

Desease which deteriorates cells, can affect many organs of the human body (Most common being lung and heart cancer, aided by the every nasty habit of smoking)

I have no knowledge of Cancer whatsover to be quite honest...

It's one of the most scariest deseases out there... Having already talked with Occy about it, it seems that new forms of each cancer are discovered quite often, making it almost impossible to cure...

It's scary to think (Despite the little chance you have of catching Cancer) that contracting something like that kills you ever so slowly over a long period of time...

HIV and Cancer are horrifying... Can there ever be a cure for either!?

What are the chances / percentage difference of catching it between a non-smoker / smoker?

Smoking has been discussed at length in #fortress.ie before, and sometimes it really wakes you up...

Ronan|Raven

Its the one thing that scares me shtless,

a friend of mine died from it aged 22 i believe, never smoked, ate the right foods etc, its depresssing,

personally I feel cancer is a resuly of mankinds abuses of the earth, chernobly, all the "never happened bomb testing" etc

personally I known a lot od peeps who died of it (old, young)

it frightens me sh.itless the cxhances people have of contracting it

The Black Plague of the 20th/21st century

androphobic

Scary stuff yea..

So many people die from it each year but at the same time there is treatment available if it is caught in time.

Apart from chemo there are biological treatments.. can't remember many details off the top of my head, but my dad has melanoma and he's taking some sort of biological treatments at the moment - injections every second day. I'll look for more scientific names tomorrow evening..

It would be interesting to know figures in relation to smokers and non-smokers who have/had the disease. I guess it's something that we should all be aware of, but govt warnings like "Smokers die young" don't seem to be doing much good.

DadaKopf

My mum died of a brain tumour 3 yrs ago so I know this whole cancer thing first hand. I'm scared ****less of it but I've almost resolved the fact that I'll probably die of it too; Irish people have a 1 in 3 chance of getting it - thats worse than a road accident.

Medicine is advancing every day but money and the lack of genuine will of the pharmaceutical companies and their stranglehold on the universities is stemming real progress.

But in fairness, living causes cancer. Oxygen causes cancer; free radicals corrosive, unstable molecules that rip electrons out of other molecules, from tissue cells often causing their programming to mutuate - most of the time it's ok but sometimes, the natural cancer cells that cause regeneration (mitosis) go wrong and dont switch off and become cancerous. I mean free radicals are caused by smoking and drinking water and oxygen, which is actually poisonous in excess. Basically, you can't escape cancer - it's here to stay. it's just we pollute our bodies more, and electric interference accellerate the levels of mutated cells.

We're screwed - might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Take it from me.

RopeDrink

That reply just made my day...

Really...

TwoShedsJackson

Morose though it may be, I'm afraid DadaKopf is right - about 1 in 4 people develop a cancer at some stage of their lives simply from daily living.

Of course smoking, working in a nuclear reactor etc. increase your chances, but smoking is certainly the killer, I have heard somewhere that there are over 400 differenct chemicals in the average cigaretter filter, including such yummy things as fibre glass.

Now who would normally consider smoking fibre glass? No-one in their right mind.

moist

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by RopeDrink:

HIV and Cancer are horrifying... Can there ever be a cure for either!?
</font>

Well, in conjunction with work on DNA research they have found how particular cancers
effect the DNA molacule, they are looking for other molacules that will, in essance, attach
themselves to the DNA strand and in so doing
distort the strand to such an extent that the
cell cannot multiply.
Thus stoping the tumour from growing.

There is a lot of work to be done and a lot of different strains to work on, but they are making progress.

A few decades/centuries ago they though that "The Consumption" was an incurrable disease, you don't hear much about it these days.

Winning Hand

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by RopeDrink:

HIV and Cancer are horrifying... Can there ever be a cure for either!?
</font>

Actually not many ppl realise how far we have come in helping HIV, AZTs et al can (for those who can afford it) drastically improve the quality of life for those who have the disease, in some cases offering over 10 years of "solid" living.

People are now starting to look on the aids epidemic (dont misquote me here) as a good thing for medical research, with regards to new drugs discovered for non-related illnesses.


As for cancer, horrible disease. As for a cure? Tough to say given the genericity of the disease, I can see its best chance of being completely irradicated is with genetic manipulation. That doesnt exclude "conventional" cures

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

HIV will be virtually impossible to prevent medically- a vaccine is out of the question basically. The HIV virus mutates as quickly, efficiently and with greater variety on the small scale than the flu virus. By the time work on a vaccine is complete- the virus has taken on a different form in the host. In terms of management of the problem- protease inhibition is expensive, but a far better success than anything else that has been brought to bear so far.

Cancer is a tricky one...DNA replication inhibition is a dangerous but theoretically possible means of containing the spread of malign cells- but the end result is theoretically beneficial. The only problem is the chance of setting off a random DNA replication enzyme mutation is quite high- and is too high a patient risk factor for it to be considered as a long-term course of treatment any time soon. Many other advances are being made as I type this however- the angiogenesis inhibition pathway is the most realistic solution in the pipeline atm from what I can fathom from recent studies.

But Dadakopf- to say that oxygen is a cancer-causing agent is specious beyond belief. Most free radicals don't actually contain oxygen because of its electronegative properties. And- nearly all free radicals are man-made...to say that living causes cancer is misleading, although it might be true to some extent given the pollution-ridden atmosphere urban dwellers live in. Sure, water and oxygen are poisonous to excess- but that is very very rarely the cause of cancer. I think you know this- but you present the information in a misleading fashion. Basically- cancer is hugely linked to genetic predisposition, lifestyle choice, and the character of the patient which might lead to positive placebo therapy. At the end of the day- cancer is largely caused by the decisions we make- not the evil oxygen molecules or free radicals floating around. A healthy diet allows most of the free radicals to be painlessly dealt with, metabolized, or simply excreted.

I'll post more information on treatments, plans etc. if people want...it's something that will probably affect each and every one of us at some stage.


Bob the Unlucky Octopus
=Alea Jacta Est=