User:Czarmarine

Cancer and bad luck

Cancer is one of the most researched and talked about subjects of the century. We find many studies, hypothesis, and conclusions as it has recently been said that many  cases of cancer are plain bad luck, published by two recognized researchers Dr. Tomasetti and Dr. Vogelstein in the journal science. They exclaimed that not all cancers may be due to Hereditary and/or environmental conditions.

It may come to you by great surprised but they attributed that 65 percent of cancer incidence to random mutations in genes that can drive cancer growth. It is mainly found in the division of tissue stem cells in which, many different organs have more cell divisions per year than others, for example: The large intestine has more stem cells than the small intestine dividing more than 73 times a year compared to 24 times. The opportunity for mutations resulting in cells that keep dividing are higher to become cancerous.

Hereditary and environmental factors do play a big role but many humans are at times exposed to the same conditions and not all get the same result so therefore they see it as “Bad luck” patients want to know the reason why they have cancer as a cause and effect rationalism but not all the time could they have done anything to avoid their condition. As Tomassetti said “ They like to believe there’s a reason and the real reason in many cases is not because you didn’t behave well or were exposed to some bad environmental influence, it’s just because that person was unlucky. It’s losing the lottery “.

A study of 31 cancer types found that 22 of them could be simply due to mutation of cells! Leaving the blame to stem-cell biology and random mutations. The argument to the rest cancer types is that some organs are more prone to hereditary and environmental conditions than others and how do we know if we could prevent winning the cancer-free lottery. Dr. Kenneth Offit, Chief of Clinical Genetics at Memorial Sloan Center in Manhattan said that about half of cancer deaths could be avoided, the most powerful intervention to decrease your chances of getting cancer is know yourself, your family history  and make healthy choices for your life. I would add to this by quoting Socrates “ Let food be thy medicine”.

From the other side of the world a response to this study came from The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Lyon, France. Expressing a disagreement on the fact that ignoring hereditary and environmental awareness may damage the actual foundation of cancer occurrences and this may mislead the public to detract the efforts to identify the causes of the disease  and effectively prevent it. There is always a chance for people to develop cancerous cells but not out of plain bad luck as claimed by Tomassetti’s hypothesis. Dr. Christopher Wild emphasized and added that most cancers are frequently found based on different populations and geographical conditions. Explaining that the characteristics  of many cancers are consistent with a major contribution and lifestyle exposure, as opposed to genetic variation or chance ( “bad luck”).

In conclusion they all agree in one thing and that is that the probabilities and chances of getting cancer can be avoided and  the bad luck of  getting cancer does dwell in a way due to environmental, hereditary, and genetics of  human life. Studies continued to advance in the race to master the disease and we can contribute by not taking chances and knowing when to play the lottery by choosing the environment and the way we eat just as picking  numbers for a chance to win a cancer free life lottery.

Cesar Gil / 2015

News sources

http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2015/01/02/Biological-bad-luck-blamed-in-twothirds-of-cancer-cases/?style=biz

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/health/cancers-random-assault.html?_r=0

Scientific article

Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein. 2015. Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions. 347:78-81.

Controversy

Jennifer Couzin-Frankel. 2015. Backlash greets ‘bad luck’ cancer study and coverage. Science 347: 224

International Agency for Reasearch on Cancer. http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2015/pdfs/pr231_E.pdf. January 13, 2015. 2 Stewart BW, Wild CP, editors (2014). World Cancer Report 2014. Lyon, France: International Agency for Research on Cancer.