How do people get cancer? Based on a new research, the simple answer is that it just happens.
Cancer is perhaps one of the most-feared diseases in the world, and if you feel the same way, then you have every right to it. Although new statistics by the American Cancer Society revealed that death rates from cancer have gone down over the last 18 years, many still die annually. In fact, in 2015, as many as 1,600 people may succumb to it on a daily basis.
The best defense to any disease is to prevent it, so we ask the question: why do people get cancer? What causes it? What can be done to prevent it?
Over many years, hundreds of studies point to a wide variety of reasons why you can get cancer. One of these is heredity. Although cancer-causing genes do not immediately mean you will have cancer, they dramatically increase your risk. Angelina Jolie underwent a double mastectomy about two years ago when she learned that she carried the breast cancer genes; her mom died of this illness.
However, in a brand-new study by two researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Bert Vogelstein and Cristian Tomasetti, in most cases, cancer happens randomly. In other words, many get it out of sheer bad luck.
By looking into the data of more than 30 different types of cancer, they found out that in 22 of them, cancer developed due to bad DNA mutation. Perhaps during the course of the multiple cell divisions they do, one of the DNAs falter, and the person gets cancer. This usually happens in brain cancer, ovarian cancer, bone cancer, leukemia, and pancreatic cancer.
In other types such as lung cancer, basal cell carcinoma, and colorectal cancer, factors such as your lifestyle and environment can have a more profound effect.