"It is believed that the average person gets cancer six times a year," writes Richard Block in his book Fighting Cancer. Block, who cofounded H&R Block and who once had cancer, explains that our immune systems generally destroy the cancer cells without our ever knowing we had the disease. But occasionally, he writes, "something comes along to depress the immune system, which allows these malignant cells to get a foothold and multiply. When the immune system recovers, the cancer is already too well established.” The result? A detectable case of cancer.
Block had been enjoying the prime of his life when his doctor told him he had terminal lung cancer. After a good hard fight, Block was cured, and he now spearheads the R.A. Block Cancer Support Center, one of the largest cancer-awareness organizations in the United States. He, like 85 percent of all new lung cancer patients, smoked. In fact, he had smoked for thirty-five years.
"Cigarettes, cigarettes, and cigarettes," said Dr. Tim Moore, when asked what the major cause of lung cancer is. "Unfortunately," he observes, "people who get lung cancer usually die from it." Actually, cancer death rates in the United States are staying at the same levels or decreasing, the major exception being smoking-related cancer. Cigarettes are blamed for the cancer deaths of 125,000 Americans each year, which comes to about 2,500 a week. Carcinogens in other products are prohibited by federal law. However, because of the tobacco industry's powerful political lobby and the clout of the cigarette vending machine owners, tobacco has been exempted from all safety and health laws relating to carcinogens.
When Jean Young, at fifty-three, was performing her routine breast examination, she discovered a lump that turned out to be malignant. Young underwent a mastectomy and then breast reconstruction. She is now the coordinator for Reach for Recovery, a nationwide program sponsored by the American Cancer Society, wherein volunteers assist mastectomy patients soon after their operations. A volunteer, who has had a mastectomy herself, will come to the hospital or visit the patient's home, complete with exercise recommendations, a recovery pillow and bra, and her own supportive story of recovery.
Young's cancer is thought to have resulted from an imbalance of hormones. Researchers are finding that many types of cancer, including breast cancer, seem to result from such imbalances.
"The causes of breast cancer are clearly related to hormone exposure,” says Dr. Andrew Dorr, senior investigator of breast cancer at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). A high-fat, low-fiber diet has also been found to contribute to breast cancer, as well as to colon cancer. It seems that hormones may be produced in excess in people whose bodies store too much fat.
But it some cases, especially childhood cancers, scientists aren't sure what the initiating factor is. Bandon Brosam died a painful death at seventeen months because of a brain stem tumor with spinal cord involvement. Doctors speculated that the cause may have been extensive X-rays his mother received after an automobile accident eight years before Brandon's birth.
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