Cancer is already a risk in and of itself…they way a person lives, however, can influence and, at times, increase the risk of getting cancer. Now, if you’re asking, is theres a risk for anyone of any age group to contract cancer, then the answer is yes. Just like what DA said, there are factors that predispose a person to have cancer. However, this does not necessarily imply that elderly people are more likely to get cancer as opposed to children, teens, and normal adults. In essence, everyone can be a candidate for cancer. The only thing to consider is, of what nature is the cancer going to be. A good example is leukemia, which essentially is the cancer of the white blood cells. Children and teens are more likely to contract this disease compared to adults, but elderly people can acquire it too.
Cigarette smoking increases the likelihood of a person to contract lung cancer, mainly because cigarette sticks have aldehyde compounds that react with the epithelial lining of our lungs, causing tissue damage and necrosis. Our lungs can regenerate, but constant smoking increases the chance of the cells giving rise to abnormally diving cell lines which have mutations in the genomic DNA, thus leading to faulty DNA synthesis and cell division. Now, you may be wondering why your aunt, even after smoking tons of cigarette sticks and consuming so much packs in her lifetime of smoking, did not contract lung cancer. This is not a surprise as this is analogous to people who never smoke actually are actually the ones who contract lung cancer.
There are a number of reasons. One of which includes your aunt’s metabolism. Even if she does smoke a lot, perhaps she used to consume a lot of healthy foods which balanced the offset of her smoking. Another one is her physiologic make-up; maybe her body, especially her lungs, tolerate the “aldehyde storm” in her lungs, which enables her lung tissues to adapt to the increase in aldehyde concentration and use it to her advantage. Such a case is interesting, because people like your aunt who are in a sense “immune” to cancer have some type of metabolic response that can be used in treating people who have cancer. If that can actually be researched on, it would be a great breakthrough for oncology and cancer patients.
Cigarette smoking increases the likelihood of a person to contract lung cancer, mainly because cigarette sticks have aldehyde compounds that react with the epithelial lining of our lungs, causing tissue damage and necrosis. Our lungs can regenerate, but constant smoking increases the chance of the cells giving rise to abnormally diving cell lines which have mutations in the genomic DNA, thus leading to faulty DNA synthesis and cell division. Now, you may be wondering why your aunt, even after smoking tons of cigarette sticks and consuming so much packs in her lifetime of smoking, did not contract lung cancer. This is not a surprise as this is analogous to people who never smoke actually are actually the ones who contract lung cancer.
There are a number of reasons. One of which includes your aunt’s metabolism. Even if she does smoke a lot, perhaps she used to consume a lot of healthy foods which balanced the offset of her smoking. Another one is her physiologic make-up; maybe her body, especially her lungs, tolerate the “aldehyde storm” in her lungs, which enables her lung tissues to adapt to the increase in aldehyde concentration and use it to her advantage. Such a case is interesting, because people like your aunt who are in a sense “immune” to cancer have some type of metabolic response that can be used in treating people who have cancer. If that can actually be researched on, it would be a great breakthrough for oncology and cancer patients.
0 comments:
Post a Comment