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| over the past twenty-five years have also shown that despite substantial advances in molecular oncology, progress has yet to impinge on mortality statistics. The focus upon cure of advanced disease rather than prevention of early disease is a major failure of the cancer establishment. 2 |
| Since there are now about eight million Americans living with cancer (breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers account for about half of these cases),3 it is essential for those who take responsibility for their own health to understand the cancer process and how to stop it in its tracks. To the layperson, the material that follows may seem complicated and difficult to understand; however, this information is vital to understanding how the body functions. |
| What is Cancer? |
| On a physical level, cancer is a wild, uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells that can arise in any organ or tissue of the body. Whereas normal cells grow in an orderly, controlled pattern, abnormal cells reproduce themselves endlessly, causing a pileup of cells (a tumor). A benign (noncancerous) tumor has cells that closely resemble normal ones; its growth pattern is generally orderly and serf-contained; it does not invade and destroy normal tissue; it does not metastasize (migrate via the lymph system or the bloodstream to attach itself to distant organs or lymph glands); it usually can be removed completely by surgery and is less likely to recur; and it normally does not endanger life unless it's growing in a tight space, such as the brain. |
| Normally, when old or sick cells die, the body produces just enough new ones to replace them. Apoptosis, or cell death, is a process by which sick cells are recognized and ''allowed'' to die off. Cancer cells are either not sick enough to die, or manage to protect themselves from the normal pattern of cell death. This gene malfunction allows an accumulation of cells to proliferate. When the collected defects finally free the cell from the body's normal restraints on cell growth, the cancer process begins. Tumors develop and often spread by invading other tissues in the body. This is called metastasis. |
| Knowledge of the early molecular events that must occur in order to create cancer has improved rapidly over the past two decades, particularly with the identification of two families of genes that are critical to cancer developmentnamely, oncogenes and tumor-suppressor genes. The development of cancer cells |
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