When you suddenly found out that you get cancer, what’s your reaction? Probably cry of disbelief before seeks another specialists’ opinion. You want to know why because you believe there’s a reason – from genetic inheritance to food that you’ve eaten. Some may think it could be due to “karma”, something bad that they’ve done previously, thus they may go seek forgiveness from their Gods.
Forget about God’s punishment or the cigarettes that you smoked since centuries ago. It appears those who get cancer were purely due to – bad luck. In a study published in a journal Science, oncologist Dr. Bert Vogelstein of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and Johns Hopkins bio-mathematician Cristian Tomasetti revealed the amazing discovery.
The researchers found that two-thirds of cancer incidence of various types can be blamed on random mutations and not heredity or risky habits like smoking. Random DNA mutations accumulating in various parts of the body during ordinary cell division are the prime culprits behind many cancer types. They attributed 65% of cancer incidence to random mutations in genes that can drive cancer growth.
Out of 31 cancer types studied, a whopping 22 of them, including leukemia and pancreatic, bone, testicular, ovarian and brain cancer, could be explained largely by these random mutations – biological bad luck. The other 9 types, including colorectal cancer, skin cancer and smoking-related lung cancer, were more heavily influenced by heredity and environmental factors like risky behaviour or exposure to carcinogens.
Tomasetti claimed harmful mutations occur for “no particular reason other than randomness” as the body’s master cells, called stem cells, divide in various tissues. Essentially, this means it’s plainly bad luck that you get cancer, the same way you didn’t strike lottery. However, Tomasetti said the study indicates that changing one’s lifestyle like smoking to avoid cancer risks may help prevent certain cancers, but may not be as effective for others.
Could this be the reason why some heavy smokers could live up to 90 years of age, while those who didn’t may get some sort of cancers and die young? Generally, the study reveals tissues that undergo more divisions – thus increasing the probability of random mutations – were more prone to tumours. Fortunately, the researchers didn’t speculate that you can be transformed into X-Men, such as Wolverine, if cells mutations reach certain level (*grin*).
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January 2nd, 2015 by financetwitter
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Comments
Precisely Tan, and that’s because the treatment was part of “experiment” to verify the effectiveness of new drugs …
Let us start with birth. If you are born in Afghanistan it is bad luck. Likewise everything bad that happens to you can be put to is luck. If the one handed person did not cross the road to visit the second-hand shop he would not have been run over by the bus. Many a time we wonder what would have happened if we had not done what we did.
Cancer is a brutal illness and the treatment is even more brutal. All of us have an ending but some are lucky to learn about our ending after we have lived their biblical life of three scores and ten. Unfortunately, cancer affects all ages and we have to be careful what we say because those with cancer and any other form of illness look up to the experts (doctors) for comfort. They know what is terminal and what is not and do not have to reminded of what will happen to them. Like all terminal illness we hope that those of us who are placed in positions to help should do so without making judgement calls.
I thank the doctor for his views but in matters of life and death divine intervention is still the rule of the day.
What is important is that the casualty are largely cause by treatment not the cancer itself.