An explanation of how cancers can disappear
Last week, we discussed the American Cancer Society's guidelines on breast and prostate cancer and the notion that some cancer screenings may do more harm than good. It all comes from the idea that people can have certain cancers that may never hurt or kill them.
Some of you responded, well, how is that? We agree, it's a puzzling idea. Most of us have been taught that modern medicine exists to find our health problems and cure what ails us, fast and before it gets any worse. Shouldn't that be the same with cancer?
Well, a NYT story yesterday takes a look at how cancers detected early when they are very small can actually vanish and not cause a patient any harm in the future. Instead of growing worse, some of these cancers get smaller and cause the patient no problems.
Not all cancer experts are sold on this viewpoint. Others have come around slowly:
“At the end of the day, I’m not sure how certain I am about this, but I do believe it,” said Dr. Robert M. Kaplan, the chairman of the department of health services at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, adding, “The weight of the evidence suggests that there is reason to believe.”
The piece is a good explainer for a complex topic. Take a look and let us know what you think.
Baltimore Sun photo
Comments
Corrected for spelling--please post this. Thanks
This phenomenon is well known--it is called spontaneous regression. I was at the National Endocrinology Conference this year at Washington DC and a main topic over there was "Incidentalomas"---hormone producing or non hormone producing tumors detected too early--in the evolving stage--within the endocrine glands by routine radiological procedures ordered for entirely different reasons. What does one do with them was the question and inevitably the answer was a thorough hormonal screening, waiting and watching, intervening only if the tumors grew or started harming the patients with excessive hormone production or with expansion and compression symptoms. This dilemma is nothing new in the endocrine system. A tumor is no more than an inflammatory process at its most lethal point of evolution. We now know that stomach cancer can be caused by the H Pylori bacteria. Chronic prostatitis can be the early stage of prostate cancer. A fibroadenomatous breast can be the nidus for breast cancer. Hormones themselves can hasten the arrival of cancers by attaching themselves to cell receptors and acting as growth factors. Diabetes and obesity are risk factors for cancers because they are both inflammatory states wherein there is much elaboration of growth factors like Insulin like growth factor 1 and 2. So if you are an obese person and on the verge of forming a cancer you change your lifestyle for the better and lose weight to attain normal waist circumference it is not inconceivable that your cancer will regress in response to the decline in growth factors and inflammatory markers in your bloodstream. You reduce your risk for stomach cancer when you eliminate H Pylori from your stomach. Our bodies are in a constant struggle between life and death--each cell is a participant in the struggle for existence . Irreparable DNA damages and gene mutations that accrue over the aging process will eventually manifest themselves if we stress our cells with tobacco, alcohol, drugs, heavy metals, asbestos and other toxins. Cancers can regress though. The body produces natural anti cancer agents--from tumor inhibitory proteins to killer cells that can slough off cancer cells, from hormones that can repair injured DNA to substances that can prevent cancer cells from detaching, migrating or attaching themselves to various organs, from angiogenesis factors that can promote the growth of blood vessels and feed cancers to anti angiogenesis agents, we possess the power to produce what will kill us and heal us simultaneously.
A Doctor
Posted by: A doctor | October 27, 2009 6:20 PM
Healthy eating, prayer and excersize. I am in early stages of breast cancer and will only accept conventional treatments if the above statement doesn't work.....God made our bodies to heal themselves, given the correct raw materials...i.e. - Healthy eating (raw veggies), prayer and excersize. We live in a very poluted environment, toxins are everywhere it seems. Our most basic needs, water & air are poluted by man and man's systems. Man CAN'T IMPROVE ON GOD'S original WORK.
Please do not contact me, if you have an opinion please post it.
Dr. Lorraine Day has very good information on cancer and cured herself of this horrible disease.
God bless you all!
Posted by: Mary | November 5, 2009 4:40 PM