http://www.care2.com/greenliving/what-causes-cancer.html
What Causes Cancer?
What causes cancer? When you think of all the things that are known or assumed to be cancer-causing and put them together–the list is pretty daunting. This summary comes straight from the book Cancer: 101 Solutions to a Preventable Epidemic (New Society Publishers, 2007) by Liz Armstrong, Guy Dauncey and Anne Wordsworth.
This list does not claim to represent a complete summary of the contributing factors; but it is an indication that are many more factors than we usually think about. The good news is that many are avoidable. What do you think of this list? Do you take issue with any of the items here? Are there other items that you would add?
Lifestyle and Diet Factors
Smoking and second-hand smoke.
Diet–too much meat, not enough fruits and vegetables.
Suntanning.
Absence of UV sunlight in some regions, reducing cancer-protecting vitamin D.
Obesity, and lack of regular exercise.
Other Food Factors
Processed food such as nitrosamines, aspartame, some food colorants.
Bovine growth hormone in milk.
Some salt-cured, pickled, and smoked food.
Sugar and alcohol consumption.
Absence of cancer-protecting compounds in food not grown organically.
Food contaminated with pesticides and herbicides.
Occupational Hazards
Workplace exposure to carcinogens including solvents, heavy metals, radiation, pesticides, diesel fuel, benzene, asbestos.
Radiation
Solar UV radiation from ozone depletion.
Ionizing radiation from diagnostic x-rays, especially CT scans and mammograms; nuclear medicine, radiation therapy.
Electromagnetic radiation from power lines, cell towers, cellphones, electronic devices (both wired and wireless).
Ionizing radiation from uranium mining, nuclear power plants, atomic bomb tests, depleted uranium.
Air Pollution
Carcinogens such as benzene, diesel vehicle exhaust, coal-fired power emissions, asbestos fibres, industrial chemicals, incinerators, pesticides, soot, wood dust, indoor air pollutants.
Water Pollutants
Carcinogens such as chlorine by-products, industrial chemicals, heavy metals, pesticide residues, fluoride, arsenic, hormone-disrupting chemicals, coal-fired power wastes.
Toxic Products
Toxic chemicals in household products such as cosmetics, fire-retardants, non-stick agents, solvents, cleaning products, building products.
Plasticizers such as bisphenol A and phthalates in various plastic food containers, water coolers and bottles, children’s toys, teethers, dental sealants, canned foods.
Some drugs including immunosuppressants, birth control pills, hormone pills, hormone replacement therapy, androgenic steroids, anti-depressants, proton pump inhibitors, behavior modifying drugs and drugs used to treat cancer.
Natural Carcinogens
Foods contaminated with fungal aflatoxins.
Various phytochemicals in food.
Chewing betel nuts.
Radon gas leaking into buildings.
Cosmic and solar radiation.
Infectious Agents
Infectious agents such as hepatitis B and C, HIV, human papilloma virus.
Reduced Immunity
Toxic substances that weaken the immune system’s ability to fight cancer.
Endocrine/Hormone Disrupters
Endocrine disrupting chemicals in air, water, and consumer products.
Increased exposure to a woman’s (endogenous) estrogens.
Loss of darkness related to rotating shift work, reducing cancer-protecting hormone melatonin.
Other Factors
Windows of vulnerability: Exposure to toxic substances pre-conceptually, in utero, during infancy, during puberty.
Family history of cancer–shared habits, shared pollution, shared genes.
Parental and grandparental exposure to contaminants, causing faulty epigenetic expression.
Poverty.
Living near toxic sources.
Genetic variability–some people are more vulnerable than others.
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26 comments
add your comment »Good and comprehensive article.
I agree with the other comment that prevention is the key. But that does not help those who already have it.
Ellagic acid, which comes from berries, has been found to KILL and PREVENT breast, pancreas, esophageal, skin, colon and prostate cancer cells. (You can reference: Hollings Cancer Institute at the U of South Carolina research).
The best source of ellagic acid is red raspberries.
If you can’t eat the recommended 1 cup per day, check out our environmentally friendly Raspberry Seed products at http://GoFreeGoGreen.com/SandraNoble
GoGreenNoble aka Sandra Noble
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thanks...
Kabin
Konteyner
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Some of this is great, some is pure tripe.
Author needs re-edgmication.
For example:
1) No human can live without sunlight. Never in human history has the sun every caused cancer. Even an albino cannot "get" cancer from sunlight.
I still look MAYBE half my age. I still get "hit on" by girls in their twenties. I have suntanned religiously for fifty consecutive years, and look positively delicious... because I always make sure skin is wet and then oiled in the sun. It magically erases MANY symptoms.
At sixteen, diagnosed with psoriasis. Today, clear and clean thanks to water, oil, and sun, and ZERO hydrogenated oils, a true enemy of skin.
What's next, smoking? LAUGH OF THE DAY: Do you know, factually speaking, there has never been a reverse double-blind study linking smoking with cancer? Not a one.
Get this: THE ONLY TWO COMMONALITIES OF THOSE WHO LIVE TO 110-plus: 1) Most drink olive oil:
2( 9 OF 11 KNOWN SUPER-CENTENARIANS, INCLUDING JEAN CALMET HERSELF, smoke an 50 to 75 years each.
As for "Just do our best:" We won't miss these people. Instead of 1 in 5000 dying from disease, as in 1900, according to CDC, it is today 4700 of 5000 who die of disease, all because of diet, including steady diet of electrity. EVERY electrical plant in America is surrounded by triple- and quadruple-rate of cancer.
In sum, If others touched it, you'd better scrub it twice. If others cooked it, DO NOT eat it: No one starves missing only one meal. It gets easier.
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First of all, prevention is the key.
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At age 68, I have heard most of my life that a cure for cancer is "just around the corner." If only we give more millions, billions, trillions of dollars to research. How do we know whether the research is on the right track or a dead end? I refuse to give any more money to the cancer societies who solicit gullible citizens.
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Doesn't the slogan "let's find a cure for cancer" just make you angry?? Yeah, like it's some big mystery. Better throw more money into 'research'. Surely that will help. What a joke.
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Help Support the passage of:
Ron Paul bill H.R. 2117 "Health Freedom Protection Act"
And protect all our Constitutional rights in the future. Choose "Disease Prevention" and we will save billions in the U.S. alone.
http://www.citizens.org/action-alerts/take-action-now-health-freedom-protection-act-reintroduced
Support Bill H.R. 2117 "Health Freedom Protection Act"
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/Citizens/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1693&t=
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Key to virtually all disese in all the world is the knowledge of "disease prevention" along with its implementation and the reason it does not prevail is "greed" by all industries involved.
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I believe Melissa you seem to have neglected one of the key causes and that is: food irradiation that has been ongoing for decades which destroys many of the needed nutrients that ward off triggering cancer growth.
Lucien Beauley,
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Something i came across recently that looks
worth checking out is the Hoxsey Clinic, URL www.cancure.org/hoxsey_clinic.htm
They say they have a very high permanent remission rate, & the MD's reaction they describe is typical of MD's.
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