Understanding Cancer

What is metastasis?

2006-09-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

The process of cancer spreading around the body is called metastasis. Metastasis occurs in malignant tumours.

As the cells in malignant tumours grow, some get dislodged and spread into the blood and lymph system. They get carried around the body until eventually they get attached to the lymphnodes or another part of the body.

In this new place, they begin to divide and grow, eventually forming a new tumour. These are called secondary tumours or metastases.

Can cancer be contracted?

2006-09-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

Cancer cannot be contracted from someone else who has cancer. Cancer is not contagious and cannot be passed around like the common cold. It is due to a weakened body that is out of control and has gone seriously wrong somewhere.

Can cancer be inherited?

2006-09-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

Cancer by itself cannot be inherited. But a person can inherit a higher risk of getting cancer. This is becasue they inherit from their parents, a damaged version of a gene that in involved in controlling cell division. However, on its own, this damaged gene is not enough to make cancerous cells. Normally, two or three different genes have to be damaged before a cell becomes cancerous. This person must be more careful in terms of exposing him or herself to cancer causing agents. See Nutrition Research Today.

What is cancer?

2006-09-16T04:26:00.000-07:00

Human beings are made up of cells. We have billions of cells in our body. There are many types of cells in our body for e.g. liver cells, brain cells, blood cells and so on. In a normal adult human being, cells only grow and divide slowly and under a very highly controlled system so that they are always the same – both number and function.

Cancer begins when one cell changes and starts growing and dividing rapidly, no longer in control by the body. This one cell divides to give two cells, then four, eight and so on until they form a growing mass of cancer cells - called a tumour.

It has been estimated that thousands of failure to repair or failure of cells to die (apostasis) had to occur over ten to thirty years before a cancerous lump is identified and a cancer diagnosis is made.

This means that you do not “catch” cancer overnight. Cancer is a result of constant abuse or things gone wrong in the body over many years.

Therefore removing the cancerous tissue (by sugery) and attempting to kill cancer cells (by chemotherapy and radiation) is not an effective answer to the cancer problem.

Michio Kushi (The cancer prevention diet. 1993) wrote:

Cancer is not the result of some alien factor over which we have no control. Rather it is simply the product of our own daily behaviour, including our thinking, lifestyle and daily way of eating. Cancer is only the terminal stage of along process of failing to live in harmony with our bodies’ needs and with our environment.

Brenda Hunter, Ph. D., a renowned psychologist and author, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a mastectomy but opted for holistic healing instead of chemotherapy or radiotherapy. In her book: Staying Alive, she wrote:

I have discovered that cancer is a complex multifaceted illness with deep roots that extend not only into our bodies but into our minds and sprits as well. To heal our bodies, we must heal our lives.

Even when we are in the best of health, all of us walk around every day with about three hundred cancer cells swimming among the 30 trillion cells in our bodies. The difference between a person "with cancer" and a person with fleeting cancer cells (healthy person) is that in the latter, the immune system eliminates the aberrant cells from the body before they can damage the body or create a tumour.