Smoking. The gentle, luxurious intake of the smoke from a burning plant of the variety Nicotiana tabcum, one of the family N.O. Solanaceæ. First introduced into England by Sir Francis Drake, but prior to this it was taken to France by Joan Nicot, a Portuguese who brought if from Haiti. Now everyone is trying to force us to discard this long history and go smoke-free! Why, I ask? Think of all the benefits of smoking.
Skin cancer is a term used to identify cancerous cell growth on the epidermis of a person, but it really breaks down into three types. Melanoma skin cancer is by far the most deadly one. When people discuss skin cancer, they are really talking about a general term that applies to cancerous problems with the skin. There are actually three subcategories of skin cancer – basal, squamous and melanoma. Melanoma is by far the deadliest.
How does gene therapy work? Gene therapy is a procedure for treatment of mesothelioma cancers by altering the expression of a person’s genes in line a therapeutic goal. The objective and aim of gene therapy is centred on rectifying disease at DNA level and to compensate for the abnormal genes. How does replacement gene therapy work? Replacement gene therapy displaces a mutated gene, most often a tumor suppressor gene, and replaces it with a normal copy of that gene which function to control cell growth and division. The p53 gene, the most known and common gene altered in cancer has turned out to be a prime target for replacement of gene, and has been successful in preventing cell growth, preventing angiogenesis that is the development of a tumor’s blood supply, and to induce apoptosis.
I have just spent a delightful two weeks with my sister, Joy. Joy is the strong, energetic type who enjoyed a daily run before starting her teaching job. She had recovered well from a total mastectomy due to breast cancer twenty three years ago, and for the last two years had been having regular check ups for polyps in the bowel. While running early one morning, she noted her foot was hurting. It was still troubling her several days later, so she decided to make an appointment with her doctor. The doctor examined her foot and suggested it would be a good idea to have a routine blood test.
Skin cancer is diagnosed more often than all other cancers combined. In 2006, more than 62,000 people in the United States discovered they had this cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. More than 9,000 people died from it. Ultraviolet or UV rays are to skin cancer what smoking is to lung cancer-a highly avoidable cancer-causing agent. Excessive sun exposure is the cause for most of this. Other risk factors include exposure to coal, arsenic or radium, multiple moles, having a fair complexion and experiencing severe sunburns as a child.
There are over one million new cases of skin cancer diagnosed every year in the United States, representing about half of all cancers diagnosed in the country. And skin cancer on a dramatic increase. There are twice as many skin cancers in our population today as there were 20 years ago. Given this rate of increase, chances are about 50/50 that you will develop at least one skin cancer lesion if you live to age 70. This is especially true if you are fair-skinned. While skin cancer can occur in people of all races, those with lighter skin have a much higher risk because their skin contains less of the pigment melanin, which helps protect against an overdose of the sun’s damaging ultraviolet rays, which can lead to skin cancer over time. The effect is apparently cumulative. A body of evidence also suggests that this also applies if you decide to go the “fake bake” route of the tanning salons.
My search for a possible cancer cure began in late 2004 when I found out that my cousin, lifelong friend and running buddy, Jeff Johnson, had been diagnosed as having stage-three melanoma. The cancer had appeared out of nowhere and so it was quite a shock to my cousin and everyone close to him. As luck would have it, I had spent a lot of time the previous four years or so working on my dream of someday posting a website aimed at helping aging baby boomers and others live longer, healthier and happier lives. Naturally, a lot of my research involved searching for ways to ward off and treat diseases and ills such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney and liver disease, and so forth. When I found out about my cousin, I already had a head start on knowing where and how to look, and so I began to redouble my efforts and focus my research more on cancer. As a result of my research, I found a lot of very good information about fighting cancer and other diseases, boosting our immune systems and improving health in general - much of which you may find in my simple “How to Live a Long and Healthy Life” book. However, it was not my research that led me to finding out about the magical, miraculous oleander plant – it was a card game!
Low carbohydrate diets increase risk of bowel cancer I know we are always being told to eat a balanced diet of good food and sometimes get fed up hearing about it, but there really is proof that this information really is beneficial for our good health, whatever our age. Did you know that diets that are low in carbohydrates, such as the popular Atkins diet could increase your risk of bowel cancer? I find this quite alarming as several of my friends have used this diet.
Prostrate cancer is a silent killer. The main reason behind this is that the awareness amongst men about prostrate cancer is low. In fact, men are more aware about breast cancer, a condition prominent amongst women, than about prostrate cancer. A proper understanding of the stages of prostrate cancer will greatly raise the awareness level amongst men. Here are basically five stages of prostrate cancer. Methods of detection and treatments vary according to the stages of prostrate cancer. Stages of Prostrate Cancer
What is the leading factor in the likelihood of a woman developing breast cancer? The short answer…genetics! If a woman has a history of breast cancer or there is a strong history of breast disease in her family then it is advisable to consider genetic evaluation to see if you carry the flawed gene. The test consists of a simple blood test. Although there is testing available to determine whether or not you carry this flawed gene , this test I by no means definitive with any degree of precision that you will get breast cancer.Carrying this flawed gene only indicates that you may have a greater risk than if you did not have it. |