Quote Originally Posted by rooter View Post
I think its fair to say that nobody really fully understands cancer.
If somebody did then we would have a cure by now.
Clearly we know there is a connection between some things and cancer.
Sun exposure and skin cancer, smoking and various cancers, alcohol and various cancers, HPV which is sexually transmitted and cervical and oral cancer.
And I totally agree we should adopt behaviours to try and avoid those cancers.
But sometimes cancer is just fucken random or genetic or whatever.
My little brother died of leukemia/blood cancer.
He was a beautiful boy and I miss him every day of my life.
My uncle was a crazy cool dude and died of lung cancer and he never smoked a cigarette in his life.
Shit happens.
I don't want to pontificate here about cancer in layman's terms, but here is a brief summary. There are tens of thousands of scientists that understand it. The real issue is "cancer" is parts of the body going haywire and reproducing cells in a strange way (it is a person's own body cells), then these deformed cells grow because they feed on the blood supply from primitive blood vessels that evolve around the cancer cells to feed it. In short, cancer is not a foreign body invading a person's (patient) body.

The challenge for science is two folds:

a. understanding the triggers that get cancer started. For example, smoking and alcohol, but this always depends on the quality and health of the body's immune system. In most cases of cancer, it's understood today what the likely triggers are. It is not a mystery. Stress is one cause. Another cause is the microscopic plastics humans eat and inhale because in the West we use a lot of plastics (from food wrappers to containers,..... )

b. treatment of cancer is complicated because when the genie is out of the bottle, reprogramming the body's processes that create/reproduce cells is very difficult still. Hence why most treatments use the nuclear bomb strategy (chemo and radiation therapies), but gene therapy is evolving.

Key ways to keep the immune system strong: no alcohol (it's a poison, period), no smoking or other social drugs, no or minimum sugar, and reduced calorie intake of food. People that cut down 30% of their food intake live longer than those who indulge in food.