Journal Entry #8: Cancer

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Cancer

During our biology unit a few days ago, we learned about cancer. We learned what cancer is, how it develops, what the possible causes are, and what treatments are available for it. I knew some of the things that we learned in class, for example, I knew that cancer was unregulated mitosis (division) of abnormal cells. From the class discussion and lesson on cancer I learned quite a bit that I did not know. I learned that cells become abnormal because sometimes the DNA isn’t copied correctly into the new cell. When this happens, usually the cell will repair its DNA, or if it cannot be repaired, the cell dies.
However, sometimes the cell doesn’t die, and it continues to grow and undergo mitosis. Cells remain in interphase if the neighbouring cells signal that division is not required. Cancer cells don’t stop mitosis; they continue dividing and soon there is a large group of them called a tumour. There are two types of tumours, Benign and Malignant. Benign tumours stay together and have little or no effect on surrounding cells or tissues. Malignant tumours interfere and can even destroy surrounding cells and tissue. Metastasis is the process of tumours or cancerous cells spreading from original location to other parts of the body.

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Treatments and Causes

If cancer is detect early enough, and the tumour is benign, doctors can usually remove the tumour with surgery. For other cases, for example tumours that cannot be reached through surgery or malignant tumours, doctors can only prolong the patient’s life by a certain amount of years by using other treatments like chemotherapy, radiation, and biophotonics (new treatment). We have not yet discovered a cure for cancer and we don’t know what exactly causes the DNA problems to occur, however we do know of things which can increase our chances of developing cancer. Carcinogens are chemicals known to cause cancer; an example of a carcinogen is asbestos, which used to be used frequently in insulation. Lifestyle choices, such as what you eat also increases chances of developing cancer. For example, the China Study found that people who ate more meat developed the most chronic disease and those that ate plant based food (or vegetarian for short) were the healthiest. After learning this, I was even happier that I am vegetarian since I now knew that I had a lower chance of getting cancer than someone who was non-vegetarian!

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Cellphones and Cancer

In class we also saw a video about cell phones and its possible relation to cancer. There have been many studies on this issue and most of the studies funded by cell phone companies showed that there was no relation, while other independent studies showed that there was a relation. The video also talked about how scientists and researchers are underfunded or their funding is completely cut off if they find and publish results that go against the sponsoring company’s wishes. From the video I learned that there is a lot of controversy on this topic, and since I believe in the motto, “better safe than sorry,” I will try to reduce my cell phone usage. I will also try to keep my phone about a centimetre or two away from my head while talking to reduce the amount of radiation. Recently I am also trying to keep my cell phone in my backpack rather than my pocket whenever I can. Hopefully, soon we will know for sure whether there is a link between cell phones and cancer or not, and if there is a link, hopefully scientists will come up with a safer alternative to cell phones.