What Do You Think Causes Cancer?

Health News Online

July 21, 2009

Filed under: Drugs — Tags: Cancer, Causes, Think, What — admin @ 6:22 am

Over Eating
Little sleep
Poisoning our bodies with medication
over working
over sun exposure
smoking
drugs
alcohol
Stress
Over exercising
<—————————-Care to add on?

Comments (21)

21 Comments

all of the above, add toxic environment.

Comment by bettyboo — July 21, 2009 @ 1:06 pm
Of the list you give, only smoking and excessive sun exposure can in any way be regarded as ’causes’ of cancer.
Some of the others are regarded as risk factors in SOME cancers – alcohol: having more than one unit a day slightly increases the risk of breast cancer, for example. Obesity is a risk factor for SOME cancers.
Risk factors are not causes though.
Stress is not a risk factor for (much less a cause of) any cancer, nor is overworking or over exercising or lack of sleep.
Other supposed causes given here are frankly bizarre – depression, bad habits, hot dogs, ‘unforgiveness’… PLEASE!!
Up to 10% of cancer cases are hereditary.
Smoking has been linked to lung and some other cancers, excessive sun exposure to skin cancers and the HPV virus to cervical cancer.
Other than that we’re still pretty much in the dark as to what causes cancer. Certainly no foods or diets have been proven to cause (or prevent, or treat) any cancers.
Cancer affects the healthy and unhealthy alike; and the most frightening thing about it is that nobody knows why, or what causes it.
It can be less frightening for people who haven’t had cancer to ‘blame the victim’ – that is, to put cancer down to lifestyle factors like bad diet, stress etc – than it is for them to accept that cancer is a largely random disease, cause unknown, that can strike any of us at any time

Comment by lo_mcg — July 21, 2009 @ 6:22 pm
Wow sounds like the country is getting supersticious. Apparently California has warning labels on everything that might cause cancer.
According to my physics teacher, muons (little, smaller than atomic sized particles that are bombarding us all the time from the sun) cause cancer of they hit your cells in just the right way (which is why it doesn’t happen so often and we can’t find one specific cause for it). Muons I believe have little mass, and so are hard to detect.

Comment by Lyss — July 21, 2009 @ 9:13 pm
Anything. It’s “survival of the fittest” at the cellular level. Normal cells have to die at some point, when they receive a chemical signal to die. This is because they are old and need to be replaced. The rate varies, from 3 or so days for your intestinal lining, to a lifetime for nerve cells.
When something alters the DNA of a cell (chemicals, free radicals, radiation, or just random chance), if it changes the genes that allow it to die when told to, it can become cancerous. There are a few key genes that have to change. At that point, the cell keeps multiplying and doesn’t die. Survival of the fittest: between normal cells that multiply and die at a controlled rate, vs cancer cells that multiply uncontrollable and don’t die on demand, the cancer wins. The older people get, the slower normal cells multiply, which gives cancer an even bigger advantage.
So there will always be things that cause cancer. If we wore sunscreen at all times, only ate fruits and vegetables, and had no chemicals at all, we would still get cancer from something else.
Some things to add to your list: chemicals, charred meat (the blackened part of meat when you grill it), genetics, hormones, viruses (like HPV), not eating enough fiber, not eating enough phytochemicals and vitamins.
Lyss: CA doesn’t have specific cancer labels, just health warnings. The biggie is anything with lead in it (even perfectly safe leaded crystal), and there are signs at pools, gas stations, dumpsters, etc, warning about hazards to health and reproduction and whatnot. They were going to have food labels, but nearly every food would have to be labeled so that idea was scrapped.
This is the one for lead: http://www.cambriabike.com/includes/warn…

Comment by jellybea — July 22, 2009 @ 12:59 am
according to my english teacher, hot dogs also cause cancer…but as a scientist myself, i would rather live a shorter, happy life eating hot dogs than live a longer, unhappy life restricting myself for fear of cancer.

Comment by Wordpress Article Autoposter Plugin — July 22, 2009 @ 7:50 am
poisoning our bodies with medication, carcinogenic food (ramen!!), smoking, drugs, alcohol, sun exposure, and microwaves, x-rays, etc.

Comment by ellen degenitals — July 22, 2009 @ 2:02 pm
The gene in a cell being altered so that either the automatic cell death does not happen or the cell divides excessively.

Comment by CuriousM — July 22, 2009 @ 2:37 pm
dude everything causes cancer i think its evolution saying were ******* it up or something.

Comment by MattC — July 22, 2009 @ 7:56 pm
Everything that contains DNA mutateing chemicals…Do some research next time.

Comment by Strike — July 22, 2009 @ 8:14 pm
every human being will get cancer if they live long enough, it is inevitable

Comment by hello — July 22, 2009 @ 11:15 pm
Diet
Hereditary

Comment by JOx — July 23, 2009 @ 5:22 am
the eugenics movement.

Comment by double_f — July 23, 2009 @ 11:33 am
drinking out of plastic
using cell phones
naptha inhalation

Comment by bigclair — July 23, 2009 @ 12:12 pm
depression
bad habits mainly

Comment by Soccersh — July 23, 2009 @ 5:44 pm
unforgiveness

Comment by Banana Pancakes — July 23, 2009 @ 6:06 pm
oxidants and cell damage

Comment by lmezzulo — July 23, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
All of the above. Please add ‘life’ to your list.

Comment by Amkii — July 23, 2009 @ 11:34 pm
well it depends what type of cancer…

Comment by Dreamer — July 24, 2009 @ 4:52 am
lobster men from mars

Comment by Scotland Zeghost — July 24, 2009 @ 8:26 am
it’s in the genes!

Comment by mufasa42 — July 24, 2009 @ 1:29 pm
because your parents gen maybe…

Comment by Nag_z — July 24, 2009 @ 5:41 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.