Cancer, the scary illness that ranks as one of the highest lifetakers worldwide. This post will provide an overview of the disease, and future posts will discuss the mechanism of radiation in relation to it.
What is it?
Cancer can occur when normal cells in your body become damaged. A healthy cell carries instructions on how to replicate itself, and when these instructions become corrupted in a certain way, the cell can begin to replicate itself indefinitely. This unstable growth causes a tumor to form. Because the tumor is made of cells typical of your body, your immune system has a hard time identifying and defending against them.
Not all of these tumors are considered cancerous. Some cells reproduce very slowly, or are in locations where they cannot spread to the rest of your body, and are thus considered benign. The most dangerous forms of cancer are those that effect cells which reproduce themselves very quickly (eg bone marrow) and can spread easily (through your blood or lymph system).
What causes it?
There are many causes of cancer, making it very difficult to predict. One example, smoking tobacco is well known as a cause of cancer. This is because tobacco contains many "carcinogens", which are substances known to cause damage to cells. Carcinogens may be chemicals that bind to DNA, radioactive elements, or some substance that has the capability of causing physical damage to a cell. Tobacco is known to carry both chemical carcinogens as well as small amounts of polonium 210, a radioactive element.
Other factors in cancer risk include solar and other natural radiations, diet, and certain viruses. However, there is no guarantee of cancer from any source. This is because damage to a cell causing cancer must effect a very particular part of the DNA, specifically that involving cellular reproduction, in a very particular way. So, while damage to your cells may be very common, the chance of cancer is effectively random. In science, the fancy term for this is "stochastic".
It's interesting that cigarettes contain radioactive components aside from all the other shit they're already have. I wonder what the percent of Po-210 is in an average cig. Hmmm.
ReplyDeleteI actually wrote a blog about cigarettes and their radioactive elements. In discussion it seemed like the radioactive effects were kind of downplayed but they are actually kind of scary. The isotopes come from the radium either in the ground naturally or added by tobacco farmers in part of the fertilizer. This then proceeds down the radium series and I believe is absorbed into the plant and coats it. Which is then smoked and inhaled in somewhere down the line. The scary part is it is both Po-210 and Pb-210 which have decent length half-lives. Po-210 is an alpha emitter (horrible to have inside of you) and Pb-210 a beta. Also the problem is that tar that builds up in the lungs when people smoke way too much. What also gets trapped in the tar? Those radioactive isotopes. Now you have a decent half-life isotope, some of which are alpha-emitters, trapped in tar in your lungs, giving you a very localized dose with poor biological removal. Keep on smoking? Keep on trapping those elements and multiplying your dose.
ReplyDeleteAccording to a paper submitted to and published by the National Library of Medicine, diet may account for 30% of cancers in developed countries. More specifically, obesity can drastically increase risk for a whole slew of cancers. A varied diet, including many grains, fruits, and vegetables can help to lower chances of getting gastrointestinal tract cancer.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12243933
A recent publication and announcement by the World Health Organization declares processed meat part of a cancer-prone individual's diet. Although this paper and announcement may attempt to draw conclusions, there is still much for us to learn about the impact of diet on cancer.
Wow I never realized cigarettes had radioactive components. It's well known that they contain multiple harmful chemicals but I bet if more people knew about the radioactivity, they may be a little more scared to smoke. While shadowing in nuclear medicine there was a woman in for a PET scan. After being injected with the dose, a patient has to wait 90 minutes before actually being scanned. This particular woman was one of the ones who had all of the questions about the radiation being injected into her and wondering about how it could hurt her. After she was told she had to wait for 90 minutes, all she wanted to do was go sit outside and smoke. This new knowledge makes this story a lot more ironic than before.
ReplyDeleteI never knew about the radioactive components in cigarettes! I think it's absurd how scared people are about medical sources of radiation but cigarettes, sun exposure, and diet can all affect the likelihood of someone getting cancer in their lives. It just goes to show that people perceive a greater risk from factors they cannot affect when the opposite may be true and the things they can change (but don't want to) may be the things that put their lives in danger.
ReplyDeleteI think that most people don't really know what causes cancer, only that it's bad. This is a great post summarizing the growth mechanisms of cancer in simple terms. If someone ever asks about the basics of cancer, I will probably send them here!
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