What is Cancer?

spiderweb

spiderweb

Final Approach
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My father died of it. My grandmother did, too. My wife's aunt has it, my teacher has brain cancer.

I have to admit I am getting a little bit ****ed off at the indecisive way it has been explained to me--and I have a higher degree.

Frustration comes from the fact that there are so many types of cancers, I wish they'd be called different things. When I hear the word, "cancer," I might as well be hearing "bad thing that may or may not kill a person."

So, a challenge to the biologists, MDs and Vets on the board: Explain what cancer is in 100 characters or less. For bonus points, explain why the "cure" is so elusive (Nixon said it would be cured 40 years ago).
 
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spiderweb said:
My father died of it. My grandmother did, too. My wife's aunt has it, my teacher has brain cancer.

I have to admit I am getting a little bit ****ed off at the indecisive way it has been explained to me--and I have a higher degree.

Frustration comes from the fact that there are so many types of cancers, I wish they'd be called different things. When I hear the word, "cancer," I might as well be hearing "bad thing that may or may not kill a person."
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I can't answer your question, but IMHO the prevalence of cancer since the mid-to-late 20th century is related to atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.

The government will never admit any correlation. Recently, however, we have been seeing evidence of the radioactivity that we have all absorbed, through articles that are tangentially related to the explosions of hundreds of nuclear bombs in our atmosphere, upwind from our major population centers.

Here's a recent one that discusses how scientists can detect counterfeit wine because of the added radioactivity that has blanketed the earth since 1950.

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news...Wine--It-Has-Fewer-Radioactive-Particles.html

One can only imagine the impact on human health of radioactive fallout that actually blanketed our entire planet. I'm no doctor, but I know that my research shows that no one in my family died of cancer before the 1970s. Since then, every, single family member -- my mom, dad, aunts, and uncles -- have ALL died of one form of cancer or another.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But the weather patterns from the Nevada testing grounds would have carried the fallout almost directly over Wisconsin, where they all lived.

Cancer is the scourge of our time. However you define it.
 
Cancer is your immune system gone awry. There are various forms of cancer, but they pretty much involve the immune system going nuts , producing tumors, and eating healthy tissue as if it were a disease.
 
Actually, I beg to differ with Henning on this. Cancer is NOT an immune disorder. Cancer is a mutation of cell genetics that ends up with two major factors: abnormally fast/invasive growth and the ability to self sustain itself (causes your other tissues to feed it with blood flow, etc..).

Eating other tissue also isn't indicative of cancer. Usually it crowds out the normal cells. In some cases there are chemicals secreted by the cancerous cells that do interfere with other normal cell physiology.

Within the large definition of cancers there are hundreds of different subdivisions based on just what kind of mutation has happened, where it happened, how it's spreading, ...
 
The body is a machine composed of self assembling components. Some of the components are too busy reproducing to read the blueprint.
 
Gary F said:
The body is a machine composed of self assembling components. Some of the components are too busy reproducing to read the blueprint.
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That's a good way to put it.

Years ago, I read an article about cancer in Scientific American.

Though a long time ago, it left me with two impressions:

1) It said, rather than ask, "Why do we get cancer?" we should be researching "How is it that we don't get cancer all the time?"

2) Why? Because every cell in your body is a miracle in its ability to replicate. The most mundane body cell can trace it's ancestry back to the very first life on earth through an unbroken chain of earlier cells that have replicated. Now, after billions of years of successfully replicating, a cell finally given a signal, "You can stop now". And live out it's life as the type of cell it was destined to be. In that light, the tiniest malfunction in the "stop multiplying" signal, maybe a single gene error, can result in runaway replication and growth.

Any biologist or oncologist can feel free to refine or correct this simplified version. It simply stuck with this layman.

As an aside, right now about a half dozen of our friends and friend of friends, and two pets are all battling cancer.

Not to derail, but I wonder how proponents of "Intelligent Design" reconcile this with such an obvious design flaw. Though cancer rates may be up, there's good evidence it's been with us at least through recorded history.
 
Gary F said:
The body is a machine composed of self assembling components. Some of the components are too busy reproducing to read the blueprint.
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"

Best answer yet..


I was going to say that Cancer is: Uncontrolled cellular reproduction and proliferation, with varying levels of cell line maturity. Short answer: 12 words.

Your cells normally follow their DNA blueprint. When they dont follow it, they are supposed to kill themselves (apoptosys). When that doesnt happen your own immune system is supposed to recognize and destroy the abnormal cells. When neither of those happen effectively then you manifest the symptoms of your particular flavor of cancer.

But Gary's answer is the simplest for laypeople/non-medical types.
 
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And for what its worth, in the medical community, we DO call it by its specific variant or proper name. Its laypeople who use the term Cancer as a catch all descriptor and make it sound like a simple disease.
 
FastEddieB said:
Not to derail, but I wonder how proponents of "Intelligent Design" reconcile this with such an obvious design flaw. Though cancer rates may be up, there's good evidence it's been with us at least through recorded history.
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Who says it's a "flaw"? Maybe there's a purpose for cancer, as well...whether we like the results or not.
 
LDJones said:
Who says it's a "flaw"? Maybe there's a purpose for cancer, as well...whether we like the results or not.
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If it only took out jerks and ***holes I might agree. I lost my dog to angiosarcoma a couple of months ago. Cancer is bad, very bad. I've seen way too much suffering to think there could be any benefit.
 
The reasons tumors take so many different forms is because there are so many different tissues. The vast majority of tumors are epithelial in origin, arising out of tissues such as the skin and lining of the gastrointestinal tract, where we encounter most of the chemical agents in the environment. That said, the tumor that arises from a flat epithelium is going to look very different that one that grows from a liquid medium such as the blood. They will act differently, and be genetically different as well due to the expression of different genes. For example, most thymic lymphomas are started by T-lymphocytes, transient and easily destroyed members of the immune system. The progenitor cells are easily killed, thus the tumors are easily knocked out as well. Contrast that with melanoma. Melanocytes, the cells that "go bad" in melanoma, are tough bastards. They protect us from UV radiation by making melanin, the brown stuff that makes our skin dark. AS such they are highly resistant to radiation and very hard to kill. Thus melanomas are very dangerous tumors and very hard to kill.

I can't prove that todays tumor prevalence isn't due to nuclear testing but I have strong doubts. Occam's razor would point to our longevity and caloric sufficiency. If you starve most mammals the one thing you don't get is tumors.
 
steingar said:
If you starve most mammals the one thing you don't get is tumors.
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Which reminds me of Colin Campbell's study mentioned in his book The China Study. At Cornell University they could turn tumor growth off and on in rats simply by changing the amount of dairy protein they were fed. The 5% group had no tumors and lived longer, the 15% got cancer and died. Switching diets between the groups stopped tumor growth in those that had been eating more protein and started tumors in those who had been eating less.

dtuuri
 
Gary F said:
If it only took out jerks and ***holes I might agree. I lost my dog to angiosarcoma a couple of months ago. Cancer is bad, very bad. I've seen way too much suffering to think there could be any benefit.
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Well, there is genetic mutation, granted difficult if the cancer kills you before you pas on the mutation. Then there is also population control. We keep treating and preventing the low suffering ways to die, nature has to find something to take you at your time.

How many who die of cancer were spared some other death prior?:dunno:
 
Being someone who has cancer (multiple myeloma) I found this discussion very interesting. Thanks to all who responded
 
dtuuri said:
Which reminds me of Colin Campbell's study mentioned in his book The China Study. At Cornell University they could turn tumor growth off and on in rats simply by changing the amount of dairy protein they were fed. The 5% group had no tumors and lived longer, the 15% got cancer and died. Switching diets between the groups stopped tumor growth in those that had been eating more protein and started tumors in those who had been eating less.

dtuuri
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There is now a movement (albeit small) for people to live in a condition of caloric insufficiency. They're easily spotted as they are all painfully thin. The thought is cancer resistance and longevity. Turns out the way you increase longevity in most animals is through nutrition. Indeed, human centenarians have a particular variant of a nutrition master control gene.

The saddest thing is we could reduce the number of tumors in humans by half if we could just get them to stop smoking.
 
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Gary F said:
If it only took out jerks and ***holes I might agree. I lost my dog to angiosarcoma a couple of months ago. Cancer is bad, very bad. I've seen way too much suffering to think there could be any benefit.
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Based on your current, finite human perspective, I'd agree. But we don't know what we don't know.
 
steingar said:
There is now a movement (albeit small) for people to live in a condition of caloric insufficiency. They're easily spotted as they are all painfully thin. The thought is cancer resistance and longevity. Turns out the way you increase longevity in most animals is through nutrition. Indeed, human centenarians have a particular variant of a nutrition master control gene.

The saddest thing is we could reduce the number of rumors in humans by half if we could just get them to stop smoking.
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It works if you can do it. I'm just struggling to limit my excess.
 
FastEddieB said:
1) To quote Nike, "Just Do It".

2) To quote Yoda, "Do, or do not. There is no try".
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If you don't try, you have already failed.
(from my high school drill instructor, 1974)

I carry this in my wallet, and I used to put it on the instrument panel when I was a student pilot.
 
LDJones said:
Who says it's a "flaw"? Maybe there's a purpose for cancer, as well...whether we like the results or not.
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Because we live in a world where bad things happen because of lifestyle, habits and hundreds of other reasons, but not the design problem
 
Gary F said:
A robust design would not allow for cancer to occur.
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Unless allowing for the introduction of such serves a higher purpose than just the longevity of specific examples of the specie. As stated earlier, we don't know what we don't know.
 
There is very little natural selection against cancer. Most hit after reproduction is over and further survival of humans is not essential for the herd.
Oh, and when we evolved, we didn't eat nitrite pickled meats and smoke either.
 
steingar said:
There is now a movement (albeit small) for people to live in a condition of caloric insufficiency. They're easily spotted as they are all painfully thin. The thought is cancer resistance and longevity. Turns out the way you increase longevity in most animals is through nutrition. Indeed, human centenarians have a particular variant of a nutrition master control gene.

The saddest thing is we could reduce the number of rumors in humans by half if we could just get them to stop smoking.
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So we should add another exponent to human population growth without providing for their continued existence? Why? To what benefit? Keep a people alive longer so everyone, and the way humanity operates, every living thing, suffers for it?

Medicine is no different from any technology industry, "Should we?" is never given the same consideration as "Can we?". The answer to "Can we?" is nearly always "Yes", we are a technologically brilliant species. The answer to "should we?" is not nearly so ubiquitous.

Until we decide to build the infrastructures required to support the population we have without depleting the resource reserves of what we need to survive, we should not be protecting quantity of life, rather we should focus our medical abilities on improving quality of life for non life threatening issues that cause pain, long term suffering, and restrict the ability to be productive.

Outside of that, we should encourage high risk behavior and remove the safeties from our society until the population gets down to a sustainable level.

Everybody dies, I don't understand why we make such a big issue over saving it. If my dad had died of Prostate cancer a while back, he, and my mom, wouldn't have to be going through the miserable deterioration he is going through now. Saving someone's life from a natural death is not necessarily a kindness.
 
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Henning said:
So we should add another exponent to human population growth without providing for their continued existence? Why? To what benefit? Keep a people alive longer so everyone, and the way humanity operates, every living thing, suffers for it?

Medicine is no different from any technology industry, "Should we?" is never given the same consideration as "Can we?". The answer to "Can we?" is nearly always "Yes", we are a technologically brilliant species. The answer to "should we?" is not nearly so ubiquitous.
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Very true. In many cases it is greed more than technological brilliance that drives medical care.
Henning said:
Until we decide to build the infrastructures required to support the population we have without depleting the resource reserves of what we need to survive, we should not be protecting quantity of life, rather we should focus our medical abilities on improving quality of life for non life threatening issues that cause pain, long term suffering, and restrict the ability to be productive.

Outside of that, we should encourage high risk behavior and remove the safeties from our society until the population gets down to a sustainable level.

Everybody dies, I don't understand why we make such a big issue over saving it. If my dad had died of Prostate cancer a while back, he, and my mom, wouldn't have to be going through the miserable deterioration he is going through now. Saving someone's life from a natural death is not necessarily a kindness.
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Interesting. I think you may be on to something.
 
Gary F said:
A robust design would not allow for cancer to occur.
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Our design is amazingly robust, most of us persist for the better part of a century under conditions in which were were never designed to live.

While I don't disagree with Henning's rant I would point out that few people are in a big rush to die. Moreover, good luck excluding health care to the elderly. Yeah, it makes really good fiscal sense (that's where we spend the majority of our health care dollars as it is) but good luck telling that to tearful relatives.
 
Henning said:
If my dad had died of Prostate cancer a while back, he, and my mom, wouldn't have to be going through the miserable deterioration he is going through now.
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:rolleyes2: In that intervening time your father has added no value to your mom's life, or anyone else's life??
 
steingar said:
Our design is amazingly robust, most of us persist for the better part of a century under conditions in which were were never designed to live.

While I don't disagree with Henning's rant I would point out that few people are in a big rush to die. Moreover, good luck excluding health care to the elderly. Yeah, it makes really good fiscal sense (that's where we spend the majority of our health care dollars as it is) but good luck telling that to tearful relatives.
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I know that. Everyday a few cells go rogue with the potential to develop into cancer but are thwarted by one or more mechanisms. In an ideal body cancer would not form. I see no benefit from cancer. I don't believe it has an evolutionary purpose.
 
Gary F said:
I know that. Everyday a few cells go rogue with the potential to develop into cancer but are thwarted by one or more mechanisms. In an ideal body cancer would not form. I see no benefit from cancer. I don't believe it has an evolutionary purpose.
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Your DNA is proofread with an accuracy on the order of 1 in 1,000,000 errors. Find my a proofreading system better than that anywhere.

Cancer certainly does have an evolutionary purpose. After an organism finishes reproduction it can assist its offspring by getting out of the bloody way so they have one less organism with which to compete for resources. Our species doesn't do that, probably because non reproductive individuals can increase the fecundity of reproductive ones.
 
steingar said:
Your DNA is proofread with an accuracy on the order of 1 in 1,000,000 errors. Find my a proofreading system better than that anywhere.

Cancer certainly does have an evolutionary purpose. After an organism finishes reproduction it can assist its offspring by getting out of the bloody way so they have one less organism with which to compete for resources. Our species doesn't do that, probably because non reproductive individuals can increase the fecundity of reproductive ones.
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What if the old fart has something (like knowledge or skills) to contribute to the survival of the heard?
 
steingar said:
The saddest thing is we could reduce the number of tumors in humans by half if we could just get them to stop smoking.
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And lose all that sin tax revenue? Where is your heart, man? Think of the children!

(And I agree with you BTW.)
 
steingar said:
Your DNA is proofread with an accuracy on the order of 1 in 1,000,000 errors. Find my a proofreading system better than that anywhere.

Cancer certainly does have an evolutionary purpose. After an organism finishes reproduction it can assist its offspring by getting out of the bloody way so they have one less organism with which to compete for resources. Our species doesn't do that, probably because non reproductive individuals can increase the fecundity of reproductive ones.
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The spinning hard drive in your computer can do better than that.
 
Thanks, everyone, for this discussion. I've found it interesting and enlightening!
 
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