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I get so scared and sad when I read these articles. I always wonder "could it be prevented?", sure, you know you shouldn't smoke, you shouldn't be overweight an

I get so scared and sad when I read these articles. I always wonder "could it be prevented?", sure, you know you shouldn't smoke, you shouldn't be overweight and you should do at least 15 minutes of exercise every day, but does it really help? I bet a doctor would know better than anyone else how to live a healthy life, so this obviously begs the question: could cancer really be prevented?

kayoone 13y ago
Hardly. Even if you are perfectly healthy you can still develop some form of cancer. You see, theres people smoking for 40 years living on to be 80+ and other non-smokers who develop lung cancer at 35. Or be run over by a car, or have a heart attack or whatever. Of course you could be super cautious with everything, do checkups of everything every year, but in most cases thats a gigantic waste of metal energy, money and time when you are young and you might also develop hypochondriac mental issues. Could it be prevented ? Sure, like almost any kind of premature death could have been prevented, but that doesn't help much.
has2k1 13y ago
According to the professionals of the field, there is little hope for ever preventing cancer. For a protein life that has sufficient complexity, cells have to divide/replicate to maintain the life of the protein machine, e.g a human body. Stuff can go wrong with the division/replication, it can be inaccurate in so many ways but what matters most is that the replicates can also replicate. Some cells die before they attempt a single replication. This could be due to a disease attack, vulnerable imperfect replicate, plus plus. As long as those that get to replicate can make up the numbers for those that die early. Cells that are resilient and can replicate fast and frequent enough before they die tend to pass on forms of this attribute to their imperfect clones. With time, many types of cells in the whole protein body get to attempt replications faster and faster. Pure natural selection at work -- a concrete example, smoking kills lung cells, so for the lung cells to maintain their numbers they have to replicate early enough in their life time and frequently. Most environmental pressures seem to force the biology of the cells in this direction, which increases the likelihood of replication eager cells aka cancerous cells. That is why at this moment in time, prevention seems bleak.

kayoone 13y ago

Hardly. Even if you are perfectly healthy you can still develop some form of cancer. You see, theres people smoking for 40 years living on to be 80+ and other non-smokers who develop lung cancer at 35. Or be run over by a car, or have a heart attack or whatever. Of course you could be super cautious with everything, do checkups of everything every year, but in most cases thats a gigantic waste of metal energy, money and time when you are young and you might also develop hypochondriac mental issues. Could it be prevented ? Sure, like almost any kind of premature death could have been prevented, but that doesn't help much.

has2k1 13y ago

According to the professionals of the field, there is little hope for ever preventing cancer. For a protein life that has sufficient complexity, cells have to divide/replicate to maintain the life of the protein machine, e.g a human body. Stuff can go wrong with the division/replication, it can be inaccurate in so many ways but what matters most is that the replicates can also replicate. Some cells die before they attempt a single replication. This could be due to a disease attack, vulnerable imperfect replicate, plus plus. As long as those that get to replicate can make up the numbers for those that die early. Cells that are resilient and can replicate fast and frequent enough before they die tend to pass on forms of this attribute to their imperfect clones. With time, many types of cells in the whole protein body get to attempt replications faster and faster. Pure natural selection at work -- a concrete example, smoking kills lung cells, so for the lung cells to maintain their numbers they have to replicate early enough in their life time and frequently. Most environmental pressures seem to force the biology of the cells in this direction, which increases the likelihood of replication eager cells aka cancerous cells. That is why at this moment in time, prevention seems bleak.