Well, this is one of the leading killers in the world, particularly the developed countries. I guess that one the unfortunate problems with modern medicine is that the more advanced it gets, the more it costs. And advances which lead to longer life just means that these people will eventually succumb to other diseases later on which may cost just as much, or more in terms of health care dollars. The good thing of course is that we get to live more productive (and happier?) lives during that interim time. Cancer wasn't such a big problem when the average longevity was about 40-50 years. But now that average longevity is over 70 years in most developing countries, it's a huge problem.
I wonder if we'll ever figure out an adequate cure for cancer. We've conquered many diseases, but this one is tough. The current cure for almost all cancers is the same: surgery. Many surgeons are performing life-saving cancer surgeries every day. That's great. Unfortunately many people have cancer which is inoperable. This is usually a death sentence. Many of us have seen the side effects of radiation and chemical cancer therapy. It's not hard to understand that there are serious side effects when you realize that these therapies are basically poisons! In fact, one chemotherapeutic agent can be used as a chemical weapon! Yes, the basic theory behind these treatments is that the poison works better against cancer cells than your normal cells, so that once most of the cancer is gone, your own body cells will be able to recover. Unfortunately, you can't get rid of it all (usually), so it will eventually come back and kill you.
Clearly a better treatment is needed, and I hope that there are thousands or more scientists out there researching to find it. I don't know too much about it, but I'm hopeful that a molecular biological treatment will eventually come to pass. Until then, we're stuck with surgery to cure our killers. Here are the ones that I think are the most prevalant or deadly:
Lung, breast, prostate, colon, pancreas, skin, stomach, liver, esophagus, lymphoma, kidney, bladder...
Luckily, for some cancers, there are ways to prevent them. So, stop smoking, get your mammograms and pap smears, eat your fiber, use sunblock!!
3 comments:
.. don't eat anything burnt, don't eat fat, control drinking, execise regularly.. honey, you're doing everything except exercise. we have to get back to play tennis or ride bike regularly.
why don't you put down the most prevalent cancer in order in the US vs. in Korea? ..curious.
What do you think about emotional impacts on diseases like cancer? What do you think about the mind-body connection? How do people get lung cancer when they never smoked? Like Dana Reeves. It just seems so random sometimes...
My data comes from this document: american cancer society pdf
Leading causes of cancer death in the USA (in order):
-lung
-digestive tract (in order colon, pancreas, liver/biliary, esophagus, stomach)
-reproductive (in order prostate, ovary, uterus, cervix)
-breast
-bladder and kidneys
-leukemia
-lymphoma
-brain
I don't have the data for Korea readily available. All I know is that liver and stomach are much higher in Japan & Korea than they are in the USA.
Shellz: I'm not aware of any documented evidence for emotional impacts on disease, but it may exist. Cancer is a multi-factorial disease, so there could be any number of reasons why someone could get lung cancer without smoking, and they may never be proven. Random mutation is a possible cause, and that is really totally random, unfortunately.
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