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03/06/2007: "Why Cancer?"

I never seem to get this one burning question out of my head. How did I get cancer? No one in my family has it. I am under 50 years old. I have been light to average weight my whole life. I exercise regularly. I was a college athlete and coached high school athletics for years teaching things such as proper diet. And I don’t believe I have been exposed to more than the normal amount of carcinogens. Still, every other man and every third woman in the US will get cancer. So the questions of why me and why now, seem to drive me to read and study in search of the answer.

Naturally, my answer is somewhere in understanding the nature of cancer? Basically, cancer is a temporary malfunction in our DNA. We have 75 trillion cells in our body and they get completely replaced every seven years. Another way to consider it is that 29 billion cells in our body get replaced every day. So cancer is a mutation in cell renewal. We actually produce a few thousand cancer cells each day. In cell division the DNA is copied and passed on to the new cell. The body has a system that keeps the cell duplication under control and checks the DNA for mistakes, trying to fix it. The immune system can also kick in and kill damaged cells.

So cancer results when the genes either don’t stop the runaway multiplication or the DNA check doesn’t function. And the immune system is overrun. Usually finding the highest stressed organ, a cancer tumor can be growing 5 to 15 years before it is detected. DNA is damaged by random mistakes or free radicals. The solution for prevention and recovery is to boost the immune system.