Evidence-based medicine is moving forward by leaps and bounds, and almost everyone has access to sites with correct information - but the word “cancer” remains frightening. Many tumors have long ceased to be a death sentence, especially in the case of early diagnosis. Nevertheless, cancer is surrounded by a huge number of myths, speculations and horror stories - and we tried to refute a dozen of them.
We're having a cancer epidemic right now.
Indeed, in developed countries, cancer occupies one of the first places among the causes of death of the population, catching up only with cardiovascular diseases or even ahead of them. However, cancer is still a fairly rare disease. different types which is diagnosed in only a few dozen out of 100 thousand people a year. The catch is that the tumor develops due to a series of genetic mutations in a single cell - these mutations lead to its non-stop division, bypassing the body's stop signals.
Cells become resistant to apoptosis (their “programmed” death is called), begin to attract new blood vessels to feed the tumor, and also penetrate into other organs and tissues - metastasize. This often takes years and decades. According to statistics, in 77% of people with malignant tumors they occur after 55 years. It is not surprising that in countries where the vast majority of people survive this threshold, oncology is widespread.
People never got cancer before
The term “cancer” appeared in the fifth century BC thanks to Hippocrates. Traces of malignant tumors were found at different times in the mummies of Ancient Egypt, Peru and Chile, in the bones of the ancient Romans, and in medieval cemeteries in England and Portugal. King Ferdinand I of Naples died five hundred years ago of advanced colon cancer, and the noble Scythian warrior, whose rich tomb was found in 2001 on the territory of the modern Republic of Tyva, had prostate cancer.
In other words, cancer has been with people for a long time, and even our distant ancestors did not escape it. On the only known remains of Kanaman man (Homo kanamensis) and another as yet unnamed proto-man, signs of a malignant bone tumor - osteosarcoma - were found. According to the most conservative estimates, about 200 cases of fossil cancer have been described. It is worth making allowances for the fact that many remains are only partially preserved, and targeted searches for cancer are not being conducted in them even now.
People used to get cancer less often
It is difficult to confirm or refute this point impartially. In addition to the fact that medical advances have allowed people to live to see cancer, the widespread spread of smoking and obesity has not improved the situation either. But it cannot be said that cancer was extremely rare in the past. English paleontologist Tony Waldron studied the death register for 1901–1905 and found that the probability of detecting signs of cancer in the bone remains of men was 0–2%, and in women - 4–7%. At the same time, only primary bone tumors can be found in the bones - this is less than 0.2% of all cancers, as well as metastases of some other types of cancer. Soft tissue tumors in remains of which only the skeleton is preserved are, as a rule, no longer possible to detect.
Later, scientists from Munich obtained the same results: using special equipment, they found five cases of cancer among 905 skeletons in Egyptian necropolises and thirteen cases in 2,547 remains in a medieval cemetery in Germany. An interesting conclusion arises: although life in Ancient Egypt and medieval Europe was different, people suffered from cancer in the same way.
Cancer looks younger
From a statistical point of view, this is true: according to a recent report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, their prevalence in children has increased by 13% over the past twenty years. But everything is not as simple as it seems - and, fortunately, cancer in children remains an extremely rare disease (about 14 cases per 100 thousand children per year).
Scientists tend to believe that this increase in prevalence is primarily the effect of more accurate diagnosis and high awareness. Perhaps in the future the numbers will increase further: today's data covers 100% of children in North America and Europe and only 5% of Africa and Asia. In poorer countries, childhood cancer is more likely to go undiagnosed.
Wild animals don't get cancer
All animals suffer from cancer: wild, domestic, and especially laboratory animals. Most often, tumors are diagnosed in domestic animals - there are many of them and they undergo veterinary control. In addition, they are often the victims of inbreeding, which increases the likelihood of passing on defective genes to offspring. Wild animals also develop cancer. The population of Tasmanian devils - marsupial mammals from Australia - is on the verge of extinction because their cancer has evolved and is able to spread through bites.
The myth that there are animals that do not get cancer has been widely spread twice. The first time was when scientists noticed that cartilage tissue did not contain blood vessels, and decided that it contained some substances that suppressed their growth. The most important feature of malignant tumors is the formation of new blood vessels, so scientists decided to study the corresponding properties of cartilage tissue. True, charlatans were ahead of them, flooding the market with shark pills: the shark skeleton consists exclusively of cartilage.
For the second time, the scientific community became a victim of the myth. Naked mole rats - small rodents that have a phenomenal life expectancy of up to thirty years - have attracted attention. On this wave, Russian scientists even received a prestigious award for discovering the mechanism of naked mole rat resistance to cancer, but a couple of years later, cancer was found in these rodents as well.
You can get cancer
The extremely seductive theory that cancer is an infectious disease cost the US National Cancer Institute hundreds of millions of dollars almost wasted in the 1960s. In fact, it is now known that there are viruses that can provoke the development of certain types of cancer: the human papilloma virus causes the anus, penis and pharynx, the hepatitis C virus causes liver cancer, and the Epstein-Barr virus causes Burkitt lymphoma.
People can only become infected with cancer through the direct transfer of tumor cells from a donor to a recipient - for example, during an organ transplant. True, two thirds of even such cases end with the immune system of the new host killing the implanted tumor.
The main cause of cancer is chemical carcinogens
At one time, bacteriologist Bruce Ames invented a test to study the effects of chemical substances on the genetic apparatus using bacteria, that is, to determine the carcinogenicity of these substances. Conversations about chemical carcinogens have caused a great public outcry and have affected all industries. True, later Ames partially rehabilitated artificial chemical compounds: it turned out that natural substances can have the same properties. Of the 28 natural substances that a cup of coffee contains, 19 are plant carcinogens. True, they can cause the development of a tumor only in huge quantities, and this is possible only in laboratory animals.
Chemical carcinogens are also justified by the history of the American Pripyat - the town of Love Canal, built on a toxic waste dump. Over a thirty year retrospective study, former residents no outbreak of cancer was detected. Nothing was found among the residents and liquidators of Chernobyl either, except for the more common thyroid cancer in children and adolescents: its development was associated with food contamination with radioactive iodine in the first months after the disaster.
In fact, the main carcinogens have long been known - these are ultraviolet radiation, components of cigarettes and alcoholic drinks. Other important risk factors are obesity and certain infections. Chronic exposure to cigarette smoke and other lifestyle elements are much more important than any parabens in cosmetics, which have only been demonstrated to be carcinogenic in the laboratory.
The Hunza River Valley (the border of India and Pakistan) is called the “oasis of youth”. The life expectancy of the inhabitants of this valley is 110-120 years. They almost never get sick and look young.
This means that there is a certain way of life that approaches the ideal, when people feel healthy, happy, and do not age, as in other countries, by the age of 40-50. It is curious that the inhabitants of the Hunza Valley, unlike neighboring peoples, are very similar in appearance to Europeans (as are the Kalash, who live very close by).
According to legend, the dwarf mountain state located here was founded by a group of soldiers from the army of Alexander the Great during his Indian campaign. Naturally, they established strict combat discipline here - such that residents with swords and shields had to sleep, eat, and even dance...
At the same time, the Hunzakuts treat with slight irony the fact that someone else in the world is called highlanders. Well, in fact, isn’t it obvious that with full right this name should be borne only by those who live near the famous “mountain meeting place” - the point where three highest systems world: the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram. Of the 14 eight-thousand-meter peaks on Earth, five are located nearby, including the second after Everest K2 (8,611 meters), the ascent of which in the mountaineering community is valued even more than the conquest of Chomolungma. And what can we say about the no less famous local “killer peak” Nanga Parbat (8,126 meters), which buried a record number of climbers? And about the dozens of seven- and six-thousanders literally “crowding” around Hunza?
It will be impossible to pass through these rock masses if you are not a world-class athlete. You can only “seep” through narrow passes, gorges, and trails. Since ancient times, these rare arteries were controlled by principalities, which imposed significant taxes on all passing caravans. Hunza was considered one of the most influential among them.
In distant Russia, little is known about this “lost world”, and for reasons not only geographical, but also political: Hunza, along with some other valleys of the Himalayas, ended up on the territory over which India and Pakistan have been fiercely arguing for almost 60 years (mainly the subject remains the much larger Kashmir).
The USSR, to be safe, always tried to distance itself from the conflict. For example, in most Soviet dictionaries and encyclopedias the same K2 (another name is Chogori) is mentioned, but without indicating the area in which it is located. The local, quite traditional names were erased from Soviet maps and, accordingly, from the Soviet news lexicon.
But here’s what’s surprising: everyone in Hunza knows about Russia.
TWO CAPTAINS
Many locals respectfully call the Baltit fort, which hangs from a cliff above Karimabad, “the castle”. It is already about 700 years old, and at one time it served the local independent ruler as both a palace of peace and a fortress. While not devoid of impressiveness on the outside, Baltit seems gloomy and damp from the inside. Dimmed rooms and poor furnishings - ordinary pots, spoons, a giant stove...
In one of the rooms there was a hatch in the floor - under it the world (prince) of Hunza kept his personal prisoners. There are few bright and large rooms, perhaps only the “balcony room” makes a pleasant impression - it offers a majestic view of the valley. On one of the walls of this room is a collection of antique musical instruments, on the other - weapons: sabers, swords. And a saber donated by the Russians.
In one of the rooms hang two portraits: the British captain Younghusband and the Russian captain Grombchevsky, who decided the fate of the principality. In 1888, at the junction of the Karakorum and the Himalayas, a Russian village almost appeared: when a Russian officer Bronislav Grombchevsky arrived on a mission to the then world of Hunza Safdar Ali. Then on the border of Hindustan and Central Asia The Great Game was underway, an active confrontation between the two superpowers of the 19th century - Russia and Great Britain. Not only a military man, but also a scientist, and later even an honorary member of the Imperial Geographical Society, this man had no intention of conquering lands for his king. And there were only six Cossacks with him then. But still, the talk was about the speedy establishment of a trading post and a political union. Russia, which by that time had influence throughout the Pamirs, now turned its gaze to Indian goods. So the captain entered the Game.
Safdar received him very warmly and willingly concluded the proposed agreement - he was afraid of the British pressing from the south.
And, as it turned out, not without reason. Grombchevsky's mission seriously alarmed Calcutta, where at that time the court of the Viceroy of British India was located. And although special commissioners and spies reassured the authorities: there was hardly any need to fear the appearance of Russian troops on the “top of India” - the passes leading from the north to Hunza were too difficult, and, moreover, covered with snow for most of the year - it was decided to urgently send a detachment under the command of Francis here Younghusband.
Both captains were colleagues - “geographers in uniform”; they met more than once on Pamir expeditions. Now they had to determine the future of the ownerless “Khunzakut bandits,” as they were called in Calcutta.
Meanwhile, Russian goods and weapons slowly appeared in Hunza, and even a ceremonial portrait of Alexander III appeared in the Baltit Palace. The distant mountain government began diplomatic correspondence with St. Petersburg and offered to host a Cossack garrison. And in 1891, a message came from Hunza: the world of Safdar Ali officially asks to accept him and all the people into Russian citizenship. This news soon reached Calcutta; as a result, on December 1, 1891, the Younghusband mountain riflemen captured the principality, Safdar Ali fled to Xinjiang. “The door to India is slammed shut on the Tsar,” the British occupier wrote to the Viceroy.
So, Hunza considered itself Russian territory for only four days. The ruler of the Hunzakuts wished to see himself as Russian, but never received an official answer. And the British gained a foothold and stayed here until 1947, when, during the collapse of the newly independent British India, the principality suddenly found itself in territory controlled by Muslims.
Today Hunza is governed by the Pakistani Ministry of Kashmir and Northern Territories Affairs, but fond memories of the failed outcome of the Great Game remain.
Moreover, local residents ask Russian tourists why there are so few tourists from Russia. At the same time, the British, although they left almost 60 years ago, still have hippies infesting the territory.
APRICOT HIPPIES
It is believed that Hunza was rediscovered for the West by the hippies who wandered around Asia in the 1970s in search of truth and exoticism. Moreover, this place has been popularized so much that even ordinary apricots are now called Hunza Apricot by Americans. However, the “flower children” were attracted here not only by these two categories, but also by Indian hemp.
One of the main attractions of Hunza is the glacier, which descends into the valley like a wide, cold river. However, on numerous terraced fields they grow potatoes, vegetables and hemp, which is smoked here and added as a seasoning to meat dishes and soups.
As for the young long-haired guys with the words “Hippie way” on their T-shirts - either real hippies or retro lovers - they are in Karimabad and mostly gobble up apricots. This is undoubtedly the main value of the Khunzakut gardens. All of Pakistan knows that only here do the “Khan’s fruits” grow, which ooze aromatic juice while still on the trees.
Hunza is attractive not only for radical youth - mountain travel enthusiasts, history buffs, and simply those who simply want to get away from their homeland come here. The picture is complemented, of course, by numerous climbers...
Since the valley is located halfway from the Khunjerab Pass to the beginning of the Hindustan plains, the Khunzakuts are confident that they control the route to the “upper world.” To the mountains, as such. It is difficult to say whether this principality was really once founded by the soldiers of Alexander the Great, or whether it was the Bactrians - the Aryan descendants of the once united great Russian people, but there is certainly some mystery in the appearance of this small and distinctive people in their surroundings.
He speaks his own Burushaski language (Burushaski, whose relationship has not yet been established with any of the languages of the world, although everyone here knows Urdu, and many speak English), professes, of course, like most Pakistanis, Islam, but a special one. sense, namely Ismaili, one of the most mystical and mysterious in religion, which is professed by up to 95% of the population. Therefore, in Hunza you will not hear the usual calls to prayer blaring from the speakers of the minarets. Everything is quiet, prayer is a personal matter and time for everyone.
HEALTH
The Hunza bathe in icy water even at 15 degrees below zero, play outdoor games until they are a hundred years old, their 40-year-old women look like girls, at 60 they maintain a slim and graceful figure, and at 65 they still give birth to children. In summer they eat raw fruits and vegetables, in winter - sun-dried apricots and sprouted grains, sheep cheese.
The Hunza River was a natural barrier for the two medieval principalities of Hunza and Nagar. Since the 17th century, these principalities were constantly at odds, stealing each other’s women and children and selling them into slavery. Both of them lived in fortified villages. One more thing is interesting: the residents have a period when the fruits have not yet ripened - it is called the “hungry spring” and lasts from two to four months. During these months they eat almost nothing and only drink a drink made from dried apricots once a day. Such a fast has been elevated to a cult and is strictly observed.
The Scottish doctor McCarrison, who first described the Happy Valley, emphasized that protein consumption there is at the lowest level of the norm, if it can be called normal at all. The daily calorie content of Hunza averages 1933 kcal and includes 50 g of protein, 36 g of fat and 365 carbohydrates.
The Scotsman lived in close proximity to the Hunza Valley for 14 years. He came to the conclusion that diet is the main factor in the longevity of this people. If a person eats incorrectly, then the mountain climate will not save him from illness. It is therefore not surprising that the Hunza neighbors, living in the same climatic conditions, suffer from a wide variety of diseases. Their lifespan is half as long.
McCarrison, returning to England, carried out interesting experiments on a large number of animals. Some of them ate the usual food of a London working-class family (white bread, herring, refined sugar, tinned and boiled vegetables). As a result, a wide variety of “human diseases” began to appear in this group. Other animals were on a Hunza diet and remained absolutely healthy throughout the experiment.
In the book “The Hunza - a People Who Know No Diseases,” R. Bircher emphasizes the following very significant advantages of the nutrition model in this country:
First of all, it is vegetarian;
- a large amount of raw foods;
- V daily diet vegetables and fruits predominate;
- natural products, without any chemicals and prepared preserving all biologically valuable substances;
- alcohol and treats are consumed extremely rarely;
- very moderate salt intake; products grown only on domestic soil;
- regular periods of fasting.
There are other factors that favor healthy longevity. But the method of nutrition is undoubtedly very significant and decisive here.
In 1963, a French medical expedition visited Hunza. As a result of the population census she conducted, it was found that the average life expectancy of the Hunzakuts is 120 years, which is twice as high as that of Europeans. In August 1977, at the International Cancer Congress in Paris, a statement was made: “In accordance with the data of geocancerology (the science of studying cancer in different regions of the world), the complete absence of cancer occurs only among the Hunza people.”
In April 1984, one of the Hong Kong newspapers reported the following amazing case. One of the Hunzakuts, whose name was Said Abdul Mobut, who arrived at London Heathrow Airport, bewildered the emigration service workers when he presented his passport. According to the document, Hunzakut was born in 1823 and turned 160 years old. The mullah who accompanied Mobud noted that his ward is considered a saint in the country of Hunza, famous for its long-livers. Mobud has excellent health and sound mind. He remembers events well since 1850.
The locals speak simply about their secret to longevity: be a vegetarian, always work physically, constantly move and do not change the rhythm of life, then you will live up to 120-150 years. Distinctive features Hunzas as a people with “full health”:
1) High ability to work in a broad sense words. Among the Hunzi, this ability to work is manifested both during work and during dancing and games. For them, walking 100-200 kilometers is the same as for us taking a short walk near the house. They climb steep mountains with extraordinary ease to convey some news, and return home fresh and cheerful.
2) Cheerfulness. The Hunzas laugh constantly, they are always in a good mood, even if they are hungry and suffering from the cold.
3) Exceptional durability.“The Hunzas have nerves as strong as ropes, and thin and tender as strings,” McCarison wrote. “They never get angry or complain, don’t get nervous or show impatience, don’t quarrel among themselves and endure physical pain, trouble, noise, etc. with complete peace of mind.”
Why, given that many people live in the same harmful conditions and have equally bad habits, nevertheless, not everyone gets sick?..
There are no incurable diseases, there are incurable people.
The human body itself is the healer of its own ailments.
Hippocrates
One of my good friends, with whom we studied at medical school, and now she is a doctor with 25 years of experience, shows great interest to natural alternative treatments.
She was the first person to whom I sent my written chapters for review. After reading my previous chapter on cancer theories, she asked me a question that was so true and relevant that I decided to change the outline of this book a little and insert the current chapter.
Who gets cancer?
Why, despite the fact that many people live in equally harmful conditions and have equally bad habits, nevertheless, not everyone gets sick?
Sometimes we see that someone clearly “abuses” and does not get sick, for example, unfortunate children who do not yet have many visible bad habits or obvious healthy image life, receive this terrible diagnosis and burn out like matches from this disease.
Why do the rich who have access to food get sick? good nutrition, healthy living conditions and excellent specialists, and a homeless person who lives in terrible conditions and eats something unknown is more likely to die from cirrhosis or an accident than from cancer?
In the last chapter, I talked about the importance of various external factors and our perception of these factors on the “expression” of genes, their turning on and off.
Understanding this new concept has given us the opportunity to take a new look at the world around us, at ourselves and at our interaction with this world.
Our life and we are not programmed by our genes. We ourselves have control over the work of these genes, thus determining our health and the reality around us.
But what role does genes play then? After all, it can’t be that they don’t play any role in our lives at all?
In reality, our genes still have a very important role to play. In addition to the fact that they are the “blueprints” according to which all the proteins in our body are built to support life, they make us individual, different from each other.
Genes not only determine eye color, hair color, nose shape and other physical traits, they also determine the individual characteristics of our physiology: our metabolism, the strength of the immune response, the level of efficiency of a particular body system.
Our genes, for example, determine what level of toxins the liver can tolerate, how effectively the body fights oxidative stress, and how effective the body’s cleansing system is. Genes can also determine in what proportion our body can take energy from various sources.
It is these individual characteristics (processes) that determine who gets sick and who does not, given the same exposure to various toxic factors, stress and lack of nutrients.
For example, almost all children over the age of 1 year receive the MMP vaccine, which contains the substance thimerosal . Several studies have shown that high levels of mercury in this substance cause autism in children. But autism does not affect all children, only those whose innate liver ability to deactivate mercury is reduced.
A similar example is with another common complication of vaccination - autoimmune diseases.The pathogen contained in the vaccine is grown on specific tissues. This can be human embryos, animal kidney tissue, animal myelin (a substance that forms the sheath of nerve fibers).
The vaccine always contains particles of these tissues, to which antibodies are also formed in children’s bodies. How accurate and abundant the child’s “humoral” immune response is also depends on his innate ability.
Sometimes antibodies produced in large quantities attack similar body tissues, causing autoimmune diseases. This can affect the kidneys, central and peripheral nervous systems, cells of the intestinal mucosa, etc.
Children's exposure to toxins begins in the womb.
Researchers have found more than 200 different household and industrial toxins in the blood of newly born babies. It is obvious that even when various organ systems are just developing in the fetus or are just beginning to function, they are already exposed to toxic substances in the mother’s blood.
Let's look at what kind of toxins a mother can transmit to her fetus.
There are a large number of them, and we are not talking about obvious pests: alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. I will mention only a few highly toxic substances that can cause serious defects in the developing fetus and appear in the first months and years of life.
If the mother has amalgam fillings, which consist of 50% mercury, then mercury molecules constantly enter the blood and pass the placental barrier. Mercury is one of the most powerful neurotoxins, and if it enters the blood of the fetus, it can lead to serious disorders.
It is possible that this (along with vaccines that contain thimerosal and other toxins such as formaldehyde) may be the cause of the steadily growing childhood oncology of the central nervous system (gliomas, brain astrocytomas).
Another powerful and very common toxin today is BPA. (or bisphenol A) and PVC, which are found in household plastic - bottles, dishes, wrapping film, etc. Being synthetic hormonal substances similar to the human hormone estrogen, they disrupt the normal hormonal balance in the body, causing infertility, cancer and hormonal pathologies.
Another dangerous toxin, hormonal disruptor and carcinogen are phthalates, which are contained in deodorants, shampoos and other hygiene and cosmetic products.
All of these and hundreds of other household and industrial toxins are capable of passing the placental barrier and, depending on the individual tolerance of the organs and tissues of the fetus, can cause significant harm, which can affect the child’s health both immediately and years later.
Many children will tolerate the effects of these toxins asymptomatically, and only in adulthood their body, compared to others (all other things being equal), may fail prematurely or become more susceptible to various pathological conditions.
Some children may develop oncology, the location of which also depends on the individual characteristics of their physiology, determined by their genes.
This same physiological individuality of the body is responsible for how the adult body reacts to one or another harmful factor.
Thus, the same factors can cause damage to different tissues in different people, and therefore different diseases.
It should also be said about those people whose health will not be noticeably affected due to the body’s natural or acquired ability to resist harmful factors.
It is convenient for official medicine to blame oncology, especially childhood cancer, on genetic disorders.
Imagine what a scandal would erupt in society if a faithful servant of the media establishment suddenly decided to write about numerous studies proving the connection of the above household toxins, vaccinations and food additives in the genesis of cancer and other serious diseases.
This would cause a complete economic collapse.
The food, chemical, and medical industries would be paralyzed by having to stop production of virtually all products, and in addition they would also be the target of multi-billion dollar lawsuits.
They would be followed by all the regulatory agencies that turned a blind eye to bogus research and facts, as well as the majority of politicians who accepted subsidies from corporations and responded with loyal service.
So, we have looked at how our physiology, determined by our genes, can determine how much a person will suffer from harmful factors, and also how these factors cause different diseases in different people and at different times.
There is another mechanism that needs to be explained to fully understand why some people can eat “plastic”, empty foods like fast food for years without dying from severe vitamin and nutrient deficiencies.
They are not affected by scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) or beriberi (vitamin B1 deficiency), and they do not die from exhaustion. Statistically, less than 1/3 of them will develop cancer during their lifetime (although many will acquire other chronic diseases).
This is roughly how the German researcher Lothar Hirnese explains it.
Imagine that the human body is a large container that must be filled with energy every day, much like a gas tank in a car. The only difference is that the car can only be fueled with gasoline, but we can replenish energy from three sources at once: food, light (the environment) and our thoughts.
Thus, if one source disappears or decreases significantly, the other two can compensate for its deficiency.
This may explain why those people we talked about who live on unhealthy, nutrient-deprived fast food don't always get sick. If they can successfully use other energy sources, then they will maintain their normal level life activity.
For simplicity, here is a diagram of these sources:
Power Energy - 1/3
Energy of Light (Nature) - 1/3
Energy of Thought - 1/3
Unfortunately, not all of these sources are equally effective for a particular person. Not everyone can generate so much mental energy through meditation or prayer that they can survive on meager rations.
Also, not everyone can spend so much time in nature and get so much energy needed from it that they can eat meager food, which has been deprived of nutrients as a result of heat treatment, and continue an active lifestyle.
And even best diet will not be sufficient to maintain healthy energy levels for a person who does not have access to other sources of energy.
Only by using all three sources will we achieve the optimal energy level for maintaining an active, healthy lifestyle, as well as for recovery if the disease has already arrived.
For some, only 40% of achievable energy is enough to maintain health, others need at least 70%.
However, as we live, we accumulate a lot of toxins, many of our organs no longer function at optimal levels, and as we age, it becomes increasingly difficult to obtain enough energy for normal functioning.
Every disease takes energy.
A cancer cell, for example, absorbs 60% of the energy.
Also in our lives many energy “vampires”, such as, negative people, negative thoughts, poor nutrition.
We ourselves must be responsible for maintaining normal energy levels, for replenishing them and preventing losses.
Thus, we can even live into old age eating poorly, but once we get sick, it will be irresponsible to allow ourselves to eat poorly and neglect other sources of energy.
By the way, it is now possible to explain the comments of many people that their grandfather or grandmother smoked until they were 90 and did not get lung cancer. Or that their uncle or aunt ate butter with spoons and ate fatty sausages all their lives and lived to a ripe old age. Therefore, all this cannot be so harmful, and you can continue to “live for your own pleasure.”
Indeed, someone can smoke or eat poorly for 50–60 years. But what is not usually mentioned in the conversation is what these grandparents, aunts and uncles did right.
Perhaps they spent a lot of time in nature and were active, or had a strong positive mindset, went to church and prayed a lot.
Maybe them individual feature there was the possibility of more complete replenishment from other sources.
Perhaps, when they fell ill, they sharply changed their behavior during the period of illness and thus compensated for lost energy.
They could very successfully identify and eliminate the causes of energy loss from life.
It is clear that these people could compensate for the insufficiency of one energy source with others.
However, when a person has cancer, the cancer cells take up a lot of energy, and therefore it will be irresponsible to lead the same destructive lifestyle. We urgently need to get rid of other energy losses(smoking, alcohol, poor diet, stress) and be fueled by all three main sources:
- healthy eating,
- activity and nature,
- positive thoughts and meditation.
In conclusion I would like to say a few words about the energy source “light” (nature). We need a certain electrical charge to function properly. This gives us a large number of free electrons, with the help of which millions of processes take place in our cells.
Medicine usually reduces all physiological processes in the body to chemical reactions.
In reality, physical processes occurring due to electric charge, potential difference, electromagnetic fields, wave oscillations are responsible for a much larger number of processes in the body, act faster and much more efficiently than chemical ones, nevertheless, medicine continues to treat us with chemicals.
It is already known that our cells can convert light into energy. There is a technology called “earthing”.
With the help of “grounding,” athletes heal injuries much faster. Those who sleep grounded report a noticeable decrease in inflammatory processes in the body, increased energy and activity.
The easiest way to ground yourself is to walk barefoot on the ground and lie on it.
Thus, electrons enter our body, create the necessary charge and a favorable physical environment for the optimal functioning of the body.
There are other physical factors necessary for our body. One of them is earth wave vibrations. When a person is healthy and happy, the frequency of vibrations of his body is similar to that of the earth.
For optimal health, we need to feel these vibrations of the earth.
Of course, they are not available in the “paved jungle” of a large metropolis. That’s why we need to go out into nature more often and literally come into contact with it.published . If you have any questions about this topic, ask them to the experts and readers of our project .
P.S. And remember, just by changing your consumption, we are changing the world together! © econet
Why do people get cancer? IN last years There is enough evidence from scientists and psychologists that cancer is based on psychosomatic causes. And now we will learn about them.
I found great material in the Internet. I would like to introduce you to him. Read and draw conclusions.
Very often, cancer is preceded by the feeling that no one needs you, that you are not in demand either at work or in the family. And people who, during illness, struggle with this feeling and set specific goals outside of their illness, often, having overcome the illness, live richly and for quite a long time, says Alexander DANILIN, psychotherapist PND No. 23, host of the “Silver Threads” program on Radio Russia " He spoke about the psychosomatic causes of oncology and the possibility of overcoming the disease.
Does it all start with the feeling that you are no longer the salt of the earth?
As a psychotherapist, I can talk specifically about psychosomatic problems, that is, about how mental experiences can cause one or another somatic reaction. Of course, any illness, even a simple cold, changes our life plans, sometimes significantly, sometimes not, and a person experiences some kind of anxiety. But these are already consequences, and psychosomatics considers all forms of cancer as the primary manifestation of a person’s reluctance to live. Reluctance internal, hidden, unconscious.
It is clear that cancer is not suicide, but there are many forms of human behavior that, in essence, are slow suicide. For example, binge drinking or smoking. Teenagers who start smoking secretly may not know, but any adult smoker knows that it is highly likely to lead to tumors, yet many continue to smoke.
Maybe something has changed now, but 10 years ago, when I regularly visited the oncology center, oncologists smoked a lot. When I came to the center, smoke was coming out of all the doors of the pulmonary department in clouds.
– I’m also a smoker, although I understand that I’m taking a risk. How to explain the smoking of doctors who deal with the consequences of this habit every day? I think this is where the doctor’s ambitions lie. Like, I’m a doctor, I can overcome this disease in myself, everyone can’t, but I can. And there is undoubtedly an element of such ambition in my smoking. On the other hand, smoking is pseudo-meditation, an opportunity to withdraw into oneself. This is a separate topic, now I would like to talk about emotional experiences.
I came into close contact with oncology in the nineties of the last century, when almost all of my wife and I’s parents died from different types tumors. As you remember, then life in the country changed dramatically. I noticed that many people then experienced fear (not despair, but fear), and I began to understand that my father, father-in-law, mother-in-law, somewhere deep down in their souls, did not want to live in the new world that was offered to them.
For most people, their status in life and self-identification are very important. This is especially important at our age, on average. We understand that life does not end yet, but begins to move toward sunset, and at this time it is especially important for a person to understand who he is, what he has achieved, whether he can indicate his status with the words: “I am a famous doctor” or “I am a famous journalist,” etc. .d. The word "famous" here has great importance for many - even if they hide it, people want such an adjective, meaning the measure of their influence, to exist.
Any existential problem can only be expressed in metaphor. For this situation, the words of Christ seem most appropriate to me: “You are the salt of the earth.” They sank into my soul from the first reading of the Gospel. I believe that cancer overtakes a person who begins to feel that he is no longer the salt of the earth.
We all know that salt adds flavor to food. But before the era of refrigerators, it also helped food preserve - there was simply no other way to preserve food. Therefore, in all cultures, salt has been a symbol of care. By exchanging salt, people emphasized their closeness and ability to protect each other. So, when a person feels that his creativity, the fruits of his labor are not needed by anyone or that he has no one else to preserve, very often he develops a tumor.
For example, my grandmother was the keeper of a large family - I kept in touch with both my second and fourth cousins. She always felt like a keeper, and indeed after her death the family fell apart, and contact with many distant relatives was lost. That is, to feel like the salt of the earth, it is not necessary to be widely known or in demand, but at least at the level of the family, the closest people - parents, husband, wife, children, grandchildren or friends - everyone needs it. And I don't think it's appropriate to talk about pride. Cancer overtakes both the proud and the modest and humble people. I prefer the “salt of the earth” metaphor.
And it is very important for a person of a creative profession - a writer, an artist, a composer - to understand (even if he pretends that he doesn’t care) that he will be read, watched, listened to for a long time. Artists (in the broad sense of the word) who believe in this often live long, but those who hope that a written book, painting, or music will immediately bring fame often get sick and die relatively early.
Of course, some kind of kind feedback is needed at least from someone: from a wife, husband, children, from those with whom you have connections. But often in reality, especially today, everyone is so absorbed in their own affairs that they don’t even have time to say a kind word to another that even though he retired, we remember and appreciate his “role in history” - his contribution to science or art or caring for family.
Not everyone can change with life
The feeling that you have ceased to be salt appears in different situations: for some it is associated with retirement, for others with a work decline, a creative crisis. In the 1990s, when Yeltsin actually closed the KGB - large cuts were made there, some departments were liquidated - a huge number of “black colonels” found themselves outside the system, outside the office (they could be lieutenant colonels, and even majors, but that’s not the point ). They took care of them, offered to open companies or hired them as deputies in already opened ones, in general, as far as I know, they settled in quite well.
But there is a huge difference between the life of a colonel or lieutenant colonel in the KGB engineering department and the life of a director or deputy director of a company. The life of a director or deputy director of a company is constant bustle, running around, organizing, sales and resales, in general, all the delights of our so-called business. But not everyone can do this. In principle, not all. I don't know if I can. And then these people suddenly began to split into drug addiction and cancer patients - either they became drunkards, or they developed tumors.
Of course, not everyone got sick, but a lot of them – there was an outbreak, the oncologists themselves told me about it. The situation is clear. These people, almost the only ones in the country, lived, if not under communism, then certainly under socialism. From the very beginning of their service, they had a completely predictable career, a relatively short wait for an apartment, a car, vouchers to good sanatoriums - in general, clear and quite profitable rules of the game. They received not much more than ordinary Soviet employees, but thanks to the preferential supply system they were spared from the bustle of life on which we all spend a significant part of our time.
And suddenly they returned to this bustle against their own will. For many this turned out to be intolerable. It's not a matter of pride, it's not a matter of painful pride. I talked to many of them; some, of course, had pride, but not all of them. The problem is not rabid pride, but the fact that they did not fit into this world, could not understand the relationships in it. I had to change something in myself in order to become a new person - a member of the consumer society. Few people were able to cope with this task.
This is one example. My dad was a real believer Soviet man. An engineer, non-party, he did not have any benefits, lived only on his salary, but sincerely believed that the Soviet government was the best in the world. Unmercenary, completely devoid of pride, always acted according to his conscience and taught me this.
And in the mid-1980s, when I was already living separately, he read Rybakov’s “Children of the Arbat”, which had just been published in Friendship of Peoples, called me at night and asked me, my 25-year-old son: “Sasha, it really happened ? Is what he writes true?”
He died of cancer. A world where the truth had turned 180 degrees, required a completely different person, a person of some other faith. Dad, unlike me, didn’t know what Christianity was, and treated it with humor. Such a healthy Soviet engineer. By the way, he was non-party, but believed in communism, in Soviet power. I think he, too, faced the need to become completely different, because his plan of life - on 120 rubles - already in the late 1980s did not allow him to live and, as you understand, it did not allow him to live honestly, in harmony with his conscience.
Despite all the different destinies, both the “black colonels” and the pope required some rebirth. For example, I did a lot of things - oncopsychology, narcology, psychotherapy - but my education and my experience are applicable in all these areas. There was never a need to change everything radically, to become different.
Most of those who came to my oncopsychology groups (we are now planning to continue this practice in Moscow PND No. 23), for various reasons, found themselves faced with the existential need to literally become different in order to get settled in this world (not in the material sense, but in the spiritual or psychological), but did not find the strength for this. And for me, as a psychotherapist (I’m not an oncologist), the main thing in cancer treatment is the goals that a person sets for the future beyond the boundaries of his illness.
It is clear that we are all mortal, moreover, this is necessary for our development and creativity. If we found out that we are immortal (I'm talking about earthly life), we would immediately stop. Why rush if we have an unlimited supply of time? I’ll write a book or a symphony later, someday, but for now I’d rather lie on the sofa.
Death is necessary for us to act. We have an indefinite, but definitely short period of time so that we have time to become the salt of the earth. Therefore, the main thing in the treatment of oncology is to set some kind of goal.
Initially, there can be two goals: caring for other people or creativity, which inevitably includes this caring. Any creativity has meaning when a person creates for others, to give them beauty, to reveal to them something new about the world around them.
I think if there was a real Dorian Gray who put his life into a portrait, he would die of cancer. Because such creativity is fruitless. Creativity to the detriment of people, for example, the creation of a bomb or other weapons of mass destruction, also often has a detrimental effect on health. At least, among our and American bomb creators, many died of cancer, and I think that they got sick not only because of radiation.
The more awareness, the less pain
Surely to many what I say will seem heresy. Although everyone believes that the brain, soul, body are a single structure, and the nervous system controls the whole body. Life confirms the psychosomatic “heresy” - I have seen more than once how people who found purpose and strength to fight the feeling of total uselessness rose up.
For example, a 58-year-old woman, philologist, grandmother of three grandchildren. She had a traditional female tumor, she sat at home and stopped doing anything. I managed to convince her that, firstly, it is not necessary to wait for the children to call - they work from morning to night, and she can dial the number herself, talk, find out how they are doing. Secondly, not only they, but also she is responsible for ensuring that her grandchildren grow up to be worthy people.
If children working from morning to night do not have the strength and time to take her grandchildren to museums, she should all the more use the time she has left to visit as many museums with them as possible, talk about as many favorite paintings as possible, explain why she loves these are the paintings. She listened to my advice, 10 years have passed, and now she is raising her great-grandchildren.
I also had a girl who, at the age of 14, was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor. Her parents put her at home, surrounded her with care, everyone was jumping around her, and I began to say things that were disgusting for my parents: “You are killing yourself. Have you dreamed of being an artist? So don’t sit at home, but go to a circle.”
Naturally, due to her illness, her figure changed, but I was relentless: “Do you dream of love? Try, no matter what, to look so that the boys will like you.” Thank God, her parents supported me, and she lived long enough, dying at 28 years old. I lived a full life, I just don’t want to go into details so that it wouldn’t be so recognizable.
I very often forced young men to write memoirs. He said: “You have your own attitude to life, to today’s events. Now your children are not interested in this, but by the age of 30 they will want to know who they are and where they come from.” The man wrote a memoir and published it at his own expense.
Of course, sooner or later we will all die. The question is whether to live out your life in complete helplessness, disappointment in everything, or until last minute It’s interesting to live, to feel needed by someone.
There is no age or illness when a person cannot pick up a smart book or the New Testament and think about the meaning of life, about specific employment, about specific creativity at this stage of life. If I reflect and find meaning, I tend to live longer. If I don’t want to think with my head, soul or spirit, my body begins to think for me.
Everything that a person did not think through, was afraid of and did not overcome, wanted to express, but did not express, will be expressed in muscle tension, pain and illness. Also in dreams. We don’t have the habit of analyzing our own dreams, thinking about what they tell us, about what troubles we don’t want to realize.
The more awareness there is in human life (in whatever language is closer to you - psychoanalytic, existential, Christian), the less painful it is and the easier death is. Illness is always a kind of metaphor for what we tried to hide from ourselves.
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After examining hundreds of Egyptian mummies, scientists found only one case of cancer and a few other references to cancer in the literature. This proves that in ancient times cancer was a very rare disease, but with the beginning of the industrial revolution a real cancer epidemic began. And this, unfortunately, is not associated with increased life expectancy, since today the number of children with cancer has also increased.
“In industrialized societies, cancer is the second cause of death after cardiovascular disease,” says Rosalie David, a professor in the Department of Biology. “But in ancient times, cancer was very rare. In the natural environment, there are practically no factors that can cause cancer It is a man-made disease and is caused primarily by pollution environment and changes in our diet and lifestyle. "We've collected a wealth of data about the history of cancer over thousands of years, all the way back to the age of the dinosaurs."
Even dinosaurs got cancer, but it happened extremely rarely
The data collected includes the first-ever histological analysis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy - an ordinary person living in BC Egypt. suffered from rectal cancer. In ancient society, in the case of cancer surgical intervention was not practiced, so we can say with confidence that traces of cancer, if there was any, were preserved in the mummified remains and were not removed by surgeons. The absence of malignant tumors in mummies is evidence of the low prevalence of cancer in ancient times. The only new factor since then has been industrialization.
There are very few cases of cancer found in fossils of prehistoric animals, apes and early humans - only a few dozen. Moreover, these are mostly very controversial cases. Although metastatic cancers of unknown origin were found in Edmontosaurus fossils, various malignancies have been documented in monkeys, all of them completely different from the types of cancer that modern humans suffer from.
It is believed that the short life expectancy of ancient people prevented cancer from developing into serious diagnosable diseases. However, people in ancient Egypt and Greece lived long enough to develop severe stages of diseases such as atherosclerosis, Paget's disease and osteoporosis.
Some scientists believe that the fossils do not show signs of cancer because the tumors simply did not survive. However, experimental studies by American scientists show that mummification perfectly preserves the characteristics of malignant tumors.
There were no mentions of cancer in the literature until the 17th century, when the first descriptions of operations to treat breast cancer appeared. First scientific works, distinguishing tumors as a separate type of disease, appeared only 200 years ago. These include descriptions of scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps in 1775, nasopharyngeal cancer in snuff snuffers in 1761, and Hodgkin's disease in 1832.
Symptoms of cancer
What is cancer (disease)
Basically, cancer is described depending on its location in the body; if the disease appears in the gastrointestinal tract, a sharp weight loss occurs, called cachexia, followed by anemia. If cancer affects the liver, a person feels exhausted and metabolism slows down. The localization of the malignant tumor demonstrates the clinical picture; if it is located in the final part of the stomach, symptoms of stenosis will appear. Because of this, food will not enter the intestines. But if the disease appears in the initial part of the stomach, then dysphagia will appear - food will not enter the stomach or will enter, but in small quantities.
Why is it important to confirm/refute cancer symptoms?
There is a chance of curing the disease if it is identified as early as possible and treatment is started immediately. A person can immediately be examined and detect cancer when it has not yet developed and the tumor is not huge. This means that the cancer has not had time to affect other organs, it is not large and can be cured. As a rule, doctors prescribe surgery to completely remove the cancerous tumor; this method can cure cancer in the first stages. It is imperative to begin treatment if skin melanoma is present; it can be removed quite simply if it has not deepened or pierced the inner layers of the skin. But very often melanoma develops at a rapid pace and penetrates too deeply, so it is impossible to carry out any treatment, only if it has not yet deepened. A person has 5 years to undergo treatment if the melanoma is not very advanced.
Five common signs of cancer
You need to understand what the nonspecific symptoms of this disease are. Firstly, a person may suddenly lose weight without any reason, or there will be changes in skin color and acne. Secondly, the presence of any infection is indicated by a high temperature, cancer is no exception. Of course, there are also general symptoms, which apply to all diseases together, but still remember the main symptoms of cancer in order to see a doctor in time.
- Sudden weight loss – Almost all people diagnosed with cancer have lost most of their weight during their illness. If you lose at least 5-7 kilograms without obvious reasons, you need to be checked at the hospital for cancer. This may be related to gastrointestinal cancer.
Seven Cancer Symptoms That Need Attention
Above we have listed the main nonspecific symptoms, but you also need to know the main symptoms that can help determine the presence of the disease. It’s worth mentioning right away that the symptoms do not occur in all cases, moreover, they are common to other diseases. But you still need to immediately contact a therapist and tell about all the symptoms so that he can prescribe tests and a full medical examination of the body.
- Violations in genitourinary system and stool disorders - chronic constipation or diarrhea often occur, the amount of stool and its color may change, which indicates colon cancer. If you experience pain when urinating and you see blood in your urine, you should consult a doctor immediately. Often there are too frequent urge urination for no apparent reason, which indicates problems with the prostate gland.
Atypical cancer symptoms
Far from the most common symptoms of cancer, which also indicate the development of the disease:
- The appearance of ulcers on the tongue and mouth;
But keep in mind that these symptoms indicate not only the presence of cancer, but also other diseases. In any case, you need to undergo a comprehensive medical examination and find out what the problem is.
Symptoms of cancer of different organs
With stomach cancer, it is impossible to say exactly which symptoms are most dominant, since there are many of them. Very often, doctors diagnose chronic gastritis and other non-serious diseases without doing serious examinations. Usually medications are prescribed that do not cause even the slightest relief. But professionals can comprehensively analyze all the symptoms and identify the presence of cancer; the main system for detecting cancer was introduced by L. I. Savitsky. He compiled a list of mild symptoms and common symptoms for other diseases that can reveal whether a person has a cancerous tumor in the stomach or is a symptom unrelated to the disease.
Main symptoms: nipple retraction and hardening, bloody and unclear discharge from the nipple. Very often cancer is accompanied without pain, but in the presence of mastopathy, the pain appears and intensifies every day.
There are several forms: infiltrative, nodular and ulcerative. Squamous cell carcinoma develops very quickly; to identify it, doctors painlessly cross-check all nodules that are pink or yellow in color. The nodes may have translucent pearl-colored edges with the formation of pigmentation. Tumor formation gradually progresses, and very quickly. But there are forms of cancer that develop slowly; they can develop for years without a person even knowing about their presence. Next, several nodules connect with each other and form a dense and painful neoplasm, which has a dark color. It is at this stage that people consult a doctor.
As in other cases on initial stage There are no symptoms of cancer, but the tumor continues to grow and after a while the intestinal lumen closes. Painful sensations appear, since feces cannot pass freely, this provokes the release of blood and pus. Over time, stool becomes deformed and changes color; in medicine this is called ribbon-like stool. Rectal cancer is compared to hemorrhoids, but with hemorrhoids it appears at the end of a bowel movement, not at the beginning. Subsequently, there is a frequent urge to defecate, frequent discharge of bloody-purulent masses that have a disgusting odor.
It all depends on where the tumor appears. It can appear in the lung tissue or in the bronchus; if a tumor appears in the bronchus, the person begins to cough every day. The cough is dry and painful, after a while sputum with blood appears. Inflammation of the lungs, such as pneumonia, occurs periodically. Because of it, other symptoms appear: chest pain, temperature of 40 degrees, headache, weakness and inability to concentrate.
If the cancer has formed in the lung tissue, then the disease will pass without any symptoms, which only complicates the situation because the person does not undergo a medical examination. If you take an x-ray, you can identify the initial tumor.
Mostly women complain of strange pains and regular bleeding even after menstruation. But these symptoms only indicate that the tumor is gradually disintegrating and the cancer is already in an advanced form. The initial form of uterine cancer does not manifest itself in any way, so women are not examined. Leucorrhoea is also a sign of cancer - an unpleasant watery or mucous discharge that is mixed with blood. Leucorrhoea often has a very unpleasant odor, but not in all cases; sometimes it does not smell of anything. If you have strange discharge, consult a doctor; it is quite possible that the cancer has not yet reached a deep and advanced stage and there is a chance of cure.
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Why wasn't there cancer before?
Bones that clearly show changes characteristic of cancer are found in archaeological finds throughout the history of mankind. Now oncology is more common for one simple reason: its likelihood increases the longer a person lives, and human life expectancy has increased quite significantly. In addition, as mentioned above, most cases of cancer were simply not diagnosed. They began to dissect corpses relatively recently, and X-ray examinations became available to doctors only in the twentieth century. “Consumption,” popular in the 19th century, could be either tuberculosis or cancer of the lungs or any other organ with metastases in the lungs.
Probably, after all, there was cancer before, but it did not occur so often. It has already been said here that life expectancy was shorter. This is true. Many people now get cancer after age 60. And I also think this is also the reason why this disease was less common before. Cancer is often a psychological disease. A person is stressed for several years and gets sick. Previously, depression was less common among people, so there were fewer cancer patients. Although who specifically diagnosed them? The man died and died. And from what? Something was hurting in my chest (stomach, leg, head).
It’s strange that there is such an opinion that people have never had cancer before. This is a deep misconception. Cancer has always been there. They simply could not diagnose this serious and fatal disease before. Now science has stepped far forward, and modern methods diagnostics make it possible to diagnose this disease in the early stages, and modern treatment methods help patients overcome the disease, or at least prolong a person’s life. Be healthy!
Previously when? Cancer has always been there, just what kind of diagnosis did we have? people were dying and didn’t even know why. It’s just that the diagnosis of cancer was not made so often. And life expectancy was shorter; many simply did not live to see “their” cancer.
10 reasons not to be afraid of cancer
Evidence-based medicine is moving forward by leaps and bounds, and almost everyone has access to sites with correct information - but the word “cancer” remains frightening. Many tumors have long ceased to be a death sentence, especially in the case of early diagnosis. Nevertheless, cancer is surrounded by a huge number of myths, speculations and horror stories - and we tried to refute a dozen of them.
We're having a cancer epidemic right now.
Indeed, in developed countries, cancer occupies one of the first places among the causes of death of the population, catching up only with cardiovascular diseases or even ahead of them. At the same time, cancer is still a rather rare disease, different types of which are diagnosed only in a few dozen out of 100 thousand people a year. The catch is that the tumor develops due to a series of genetic mutations in a single cell - these mutations lead to its non-stop division, bypassing the body's stop signals.
Cells become resistant to apoptosis (their “programmed” death is called), begin to attract new blood vessels to feed the tumor, and also penetrate into other organs and tissues - metastasize. This often takes years and decades. According to statistics, 77% of people with malignant tumors develop them after 55 years of age. It is not surprising that in countries where the vast majority of people survive this threshold, oncology is widespread.
People never got cancer before
The term “cancer” appeared in the fifth century BC thanks to Hippocrates. Traces of malignant tumors were found at different times in the mummies of Ancient Egypt, Peru and Chile, in the bones of the ancient Romans, and in medieval cemeteries in England and Portugal. King Ferdinand I of Naples died five hundred years ago from advanced colon cancer, and the noble Scythian warrior, whose rich tomb was found in 2001 on the territory of the modern Republic of Tyva, had prostate cancer.
In other words, cancer has been with people for a long time, and even our distant ancestors did not escape it. On the only known remains of Kanaman man (Homo kanamensis) and another as yet unnamed proto-man, signs of a malignant bone tumor - osteosarcoma - were found. According to the most conservative estimates, about 200 cases of fossil cancer have been described. It is worth making allowances for the fact that many remains are only partially preserved, and targeted searches for cancer are not being conducted in them even now.
People used to get cancer less often
It is difficult to confirm or refute this point impartially. In addition to the fact that medical advances have allowed people to live to see cancer, the widespread spread of smoking and obesity has not improved the situation either. But it cannot be said that cancer was extremely rare in the past. English paleontologist Tony Waldron studied the death register for 1901–1905 and found that the probability of detecting signs of cancer in the bone remains of men was 0–2%, and in women - 4–7%. At the same time, only primary bone tumors can be found in the bones - this is less than 0.2% of all cancers, as well as metastases of some other types of cancer. Soft tissue tumors in remains of which only the skeleton is preserved are, as a rule, no longer possible to detect.
Later, scientists from Munich obtained the same results: using special equipment, they found five cases of cancer among 905 skeletons in Egyptian necropolises and thirteen cases in 2,547 remains in a medieval cemetery in Germany. An interesting conclusion arises: although life in Ancient Egypt and medieval Europe was different, people suffered from cancer in the same way.
Cancer looks younger
From a statistical point of view, this is true: according to a recent report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, their prevalence in children has increased by 13% over the past twenty years. But everything is not as simple as it seems - and, fortunately, cancer in children remains an extremely rare disease (about 14 cases per 100 thousand children per year).
Scientists tend to believe that this increase in prevalence is primarily the effect of more accurate diagnosis and high awareness. Perhaps in the future the numbers will increase further: today's data covers 100% of children in North America and Europe and only 5% of Africa and Asia. In poorer countries, childhood cancer is more likely to go undiagnosed.
Wild animals don't get cancer
All animals suffer from cancer: wild, domestic, and especially laboratory animals. Most often, tumors are diagnosed in domestic animals - there are many of them and they undergo veterinary control. In addition, they are often the victims of inbreeding, which increases the likelihood of passing on defective genes to offspring. Wild animals also develop cancer. The population of Tasmanian devils - marsupial mammals from Australia - is on the verge of extinction because their cancer has evolved and is able to spread through bites.
The myth that there are animals that do not get cancer has been widely spread twice. The first time was when scientists noticed that cartilage tissue did not contain blood vessels, and decided that it contained some substances that suppressed their growth. The most important feature of malignant tumors is the formation of new blood vessels, so scientists decided to study the corresponding properties of cartilage tissue. True, charlatans were ahead of them, flooding the market with shark pills: the shark skeleton consists exclusively of cartilage.
For the second time, the scientific community became a victim of the myth. Naked mole rats - small rodents that have a phenomenal life expectancy of up to thirty years - have attracted attention. On this wave, Russian scientists even received a prestigious award for discovering the mechanism of naked mole rat resistance to cancer, but a couple of years later, cancer was found in these rodents as well.
You can get cancer
The extremely seductive theory that cancer is an infectious disease cost the US National Cancer Institute hundreds of millions of dollars almost wasted in the 1960s. In fact, it is now known that there are viruses that can provoke the development of certain types of cancer: the human papilloma virus causes cancer of the cervix, anus, penis and pharynx, the hepatitis C virus causes liver cancer, and the Epstein-Barr virus causes Burkitt lymphoma.
People can only become infected with cancer through the direct transfer of tumor cells from a donor to a recipient - for example, during an organ transplant. True, two thirds of even such cases end with the immune system of the new host killing the implanted tumor.
The main cause of cancer is chemical carcinogens
At one time, bacteriologist Bruce Ames invented a test that made it possible to study the effects of chemicals on the genetic apparatus using bacteria, that is, to determine the carcinogenicity of these substances. Conversations about chemical carcinogens have caused a great public outcry and have affected all industries. True, later Ames partially rehabilitated artificial chemical compounds: it turned out that natural substances can have the same properties. Of the 28 natural substances that a cup of coffee contains, 19 are plant carcinogens. True, they can cause the development of a tumor only in huge quantities, and this is possible only in laboratory animals.
Chemical carcinogens are also justified by the history of the American Pripyat - the town of Love Canal, built on a toxic waste dump. In a thirty-year retrospective study, no outbreaks of cancer were found among former residents. Nothing was found among the residents and liquidators of Chernobyl either, except for the more common thyroid cancer in children and adolescents: its development was associated with food contamination with radioactive iodine in the first months after the disaster.
In fact, the main carcinogens have long been known - these are ultraviolet radiation, components of cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. Other important risk factors are obesity and certain infections. Chronic exposure to cigarette smoke and other lifestyle elements are much more important than any parabens in cosmetics, which have only been demonstrated to be carcinogenic in the laboratory.
It is not profitable for pharmaceutical companies to invent a cure for cancer
It is impossible to find a single cure for cancer, if only because cancer is the general name for a huge group of diseases. Moreover, breast cancer alone represents hundreds of different diseases. Cancer is individual, just as the body of each individual person is individual, like fingerprints. Today's trend in oncology is the so-called precision medicine, which allows you to select a personal medicine or treatment regimen for each patient based on certain biomarkers.
Billions of dollars are invested in drug development, and it is still profitable for pharmaceutical companies - from the point of view of both finances and reputation. For many malignant tumors there is already effective treatment- but for the reasons described above, it is not suitable for everyone.
We have made no progress in treating cancer.
Over the past ten to twenty years, overall cancer mortality in various age groups has decreased by 1% every year - and this trend is observed throughout the world. The exception was lung cancer in women - the result of the seventies fashion for “female” cigarettes, and liver cancer - the result of the massive spread of infection with the hepatitis C virus.
Cancer cannot be defeated
Of course, it is better to prevent than to conquer. Cancer prevention includes a number of simple requirements: it is necessary to avoid smoking, reduce the consumption of alcohol and red meat, eat enough vegetables and fruits, monitor your body weight, be physically active and protect your skin from sunburn.
In the early stages, cancer is curable, but it is difficult to detect it, since it does not manifest itself in any way. On the website of the Cancer Prevention Foundation, you can take a personal risk test and understand when you need to contact an oncologist. Cancer in later stages often cannot be cured, but in many cases treatment can slow its progression. Oncological diseases become chronic, and people live with them for decades - so in a certain sense, we have defeated cancer.
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About cancer
Cancer is one of the types of malignant tumors (more than a hundred are known various types). Cancer is a malignant tumor emanating (growing) from epithelial tissue cells (mucous membranes, skin). The most common variant is glandular cancer - adenocarcinoma. Malignant tumors arising from connective tissue cells (muscle, cartilage, bones, fatty tissue, etc.) are called sarcomas.
What is cancer
One can judge the diversity of malignant tumors using, say, the example of the pancreas. In addition to “traditional” adenocarcinoma, it can develop: insulinoma, gastrinoma, VIPoma, PP-oma, glucagonoma, somatostatinoma. Also very rarely there are squamous cell carcinoma and sarcomas, and often a carcinoid tumor.
“People” usually call all malignant tumors “cancers.” This is incorrect, as is the use of the term “tumors,” which also carries a very large semantic load. It is more correct to say “blastoma” when talking about a malignant tumor. The same difference can be seen in the English-language literature: cancer (cancer) - blastoma, malignant tumor; carcinoma - epithelial, glandular blastoma, cancer.
However, since this section and the site as a whole are “for everyone,” and not for oncologists, in the future we will use familiar terms for the majority.
What is a “malignant tumor”
A malignant tumor is a special form of tissue growth, a neoplasm that has certain specific properties. Previously (and, in general, many still do) the following were considered signs of malignancy:
2. Ability to metastasize.
3. Invasive, infiltrative, locally destructive growth.
What causes cancer
Who can get cancer
It is not without reason that some oncologists are of the opinion that everyone should eventually get cancer, it’s just that not everyone lives to see “their cancer” (they can die earlier from myocardial infarction, stroke, trauma and many, many other reasons).
Is it worth grieving over this? Probably not, since this is as illogical as grieving in general over the impending death someday in the future. In order to feel a little calmer, you need to carefully study the issues of primary and secondary cancer prevention.
How long does cancer take to grow?
Each tumor has its own growth rate. There are such differences both in organs and in histological types of tumors; the growth rates of the same type of tumor differ in different tumor carriers (age, metabolic characteristics, etc.). The rate of tumor growth directly depends on the doubling time of the malignant cell, since cancer develops almost according to the laws of geometric progression. Despite the great variability in growth rates, there are nevertheless average figures for different localizations.
Stomach cancer, on average, grows slightly faster. It is believed that approximately a year passes from the onset of stomach cancer to its clinical manifestation. Sometimes lightning-fast forms of growth occur - within a few months.
Can cancer be inherited?
As such, direct inheritance of tumors does not exist. However, in some families there is an increased tendency to develop cancer of one type or another. First of all, these are, of course, hereditary diseases such as familial diffuse polyposis, Pates-Yeghers syndrome, Lynch syndrome and some others. In addition, cases of frequent incidence within the same family of stomach cancer, breast cancer and other tumors without inheritance of diseases, which are essentially obligate precancers, have been identified.
However, parallels between the clinical picture and chromosomal changes are not always identified. It is possible that not all variants of genetic changes have been studied (and this is indeed the case), or it is possible that there are other factors that are still unknown to us, but also genetically determined (for example, some genetically determined changes immune system, which may not affect the development of a specific type of tumor, but in general a general predisposition to atypical development.
I have met such patients many times in my practice, who managed to undergo treatment for 1, 2, 3, 4 different cancers and continued to live until the next location with which they came to our department).
A practical conclusion is that if many relatives in your family have had cancer, you should be more wary of your health and periodically resort to some diagnostic methods, depending on the specific situation and state of health. The second conclusion is that if no one in your family has had cancer (does this happen?), this does not mean that you cannot get it, so you still need to be careful about your health.
Is cancer contagious?
The non-contagiousness of cancer is confirmed by studies of cancer incidence among oncologists. This incidence corresponds to the average in its population and area.
Is there immunity from cancer?
As mentioned above, from a thousand to a hundred thousand cancer cells can form in the body per day, however, all of them are destroyed by the body as foreign. It is impossible to divide immunity into any “fractions” - antitumor, antiviral, antibacterial, etc.
Immunity is a complex, integral system of control and correction of the genetic homogeneity of the internal environment. Moreover, it does not matter at all where the “foreign” genetic material comes from - it comes from outside, or is formed inside as a result of mutational transformations of cells. It is apparently much easier to distinguish those who came from outside, but their own changed cells are harder, they have too much in common with their own, “relatives”.
IN Lately It has been established that dendritic cells existing in the body (probably the ancestors of all bone marrow and blood cells in general) exist in various organs and tissues, as well as in peripheral blood. It is they who, in contact with the tumor cell, receive all the necessary information about the antigenic composition and must convey this information to the T-lymphocyte.
It turned out that in this case it is possible to help the body - by incubating dendritic cells under special conditions and reintroducing them into the body, which is the essence of cancer vaccination (this is a very complex technological process, accessible through the joint activities of several research institutes, but not at the level of an amateurish approach, therefore the well-known statements about Resan are absolute absurdity and deception).
Is cancer related to stress?
But this is a very interesting and debatable question. It did not arise by chance, but because very often the onset of the disease is associated with some kind of experience, stress.
I can assure you from my own experience that almost a fifth of my patients associate the onset of the disease with one or another experience (the death of a husband, wife, son, fire, etc.). Knowing about the timing of tumor growth and the development of the clinical picture, of course, one does not really believe in the psychogenic nature of cancer.
Before “going” to surgery, I was interested in issues of psychophysiology, and in the three-volume description of the laboratory work of Bykov and Petrova, I came across the following experience (or rather, there are many of them, of course, but as an example) - rats developed a conditioned reflex: a bell - an electric shock. On impact electric current Naturally, there was a sharp jump (rise) in blood pressure. After the conditioned reflex had been developed and consolidated, the pressure surge was recorded for one call, without a confirming electric shock.
Have you had cancer before?
Cancer has always existed, just as the possibility of cellular mutation and transformation has always existed. We find references to malignant tumors, specific issues of their diagnosis and treatment in almost all medical manuscripts that have survived to this day (Hippocrates, Avicenna, etc.).
Unfortunately, I cannot now remember exactly the source where I read the following interesting information - during the study of one of the Egyptian mummies, bone metastases were discovered in its bones (at least changes in the structure of bone tissue characteristic of them), which were quite naturally preserved to this day, along with the skeleton itself. In principle, there is nothing interesting that this poor Egyptian had cancer, but the simple fact of discovering such an “ancient” disease is interesting.
Why cancer rates are rising
There are several reasons for the increase in incidence. The most main reason- this is the rapid development of our civilization. As you know, our civilization is technocratic, its development is associated with the emergence of a huge number of new mechanisms, fields, radiation, chemical compounds and other things, which, as it turned out, mostly have a harmful, and often carcinogenic, effect on the human body.
Moreover, civilization consistently and inexorably violates the existing ecological balance, which allowed nature the opportunity to “clean itself”, thereby the pollution of our environment has become even more pronounced and powerful. What we breathe, drink and eat contains a huge amount of carcinogens that our ancestors did not know.
And one more tricky point - after all, not only the primary incidence is increasing, but also the total number of cancer patients (both newly diagnosed and treated) in the entire population, and increasing significantly. And, oddly enough, the increase in the total number of cancer patients is associated with the successes of oncology. It is the prolongation of the lives of cancer patients that leads to the fact that many of them annually, while continuing to live, increase these statistical indicators.
Can we cure cancer?
What cancer treatments are there?
Today, the main types of cancer treatment are surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy (with a particular subtype - chemohormonotherapy). Immunotherapy for cancer has come into force. And not far off, but almost “on the threshold” the new kind- cancer gene therapy.
The surgical method is surgical treatment, direct removal, “excision” of the tumor, with the implementation of a number of specific principles of oncological surgery, which are not known to all general surgeons, and if they are known, they are not always implemented.
Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment method, since the drugs act on tumor cells anywhere in the body. Taking into account the fact that cancer is a systemic disease, and not just a local disease of some organ, chemotherapy is the most appropriate and justified.
Although in cases of early stages malignant neoplasms Surgical treatment, which is still the main method of treatment in oncology, is the most justified and effective today.
How to protect yourself from cancer?
If you have read all the above answers to the questions, then you are probably convinced that there are no and cannot be ways to “protect” you 100% from cancer. However, epidemiological studies in oncology and rich experience in practical oncology have made it possible to identify many existing patterns in the occurrence and development of cancer. All this experience is used to create a whole set of recommendations for the most rational lifestyle, which can significantly reduce the risk of illness.
Since 2017, Germanklinik has provided patients with cancer with free treatment services in Germany and.
Finland occupies a leading position in Europe in terms of treatment results for a number of oncological diseases, for example: - first.
Patients who have been diagnosed with cancer are in most cases faced with the need to purchase various medications.
The clinic provides planned specialized, including high-tech, medical care in inpatient conditions and in a day hospital according to the profile.
Good evening! Girls, I want to hear reviews about knives (I don’t know which ones yet) in St. Petersburg. Let's get ready.
Everything is fine on the CT scan. MRI: 7 lesions are identified. Three disappeared completely after the cyber knife, three were reduced.
My sister was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, bdsk.t2n1m0. They had Whipple surgery and 3 courses of chemotherapy.
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Why is cancer considered the disease of the 21st century? Have people ever had cancer before?
They were always sick. Signs of oncological diseases were also described in Egyptian mummies (not so often, but diagnosing diseases after millennia is not easy). Why has this problem become more relevant now? Many factors. Life expectancy has increased (oncological diseases more often appear in old age); diagnostics have improved and treatment; there is, apparently, a real increase in cancer, although this is quite difficult to assess, but examples from the 20th century show that this is the case (well, a striking example is the increase in colorectal cancer in Western countries due to changes in diet).
No, we haven't been sick before. And why? Yes, because before we simply didn’t live to see cancer.
They were sick, but cancer was not the most common disease in those days. Previously, you could even glue your fins together to prevent a cold. In the 21st century, there are much fewer serious diseases that are difficult to treat, and therefore cancer has taken the lead as the most common.
Is cancer an incurable disease?
The title of the article coincides with the following myth.
Myth 6. Cancer is an incurable disease.
The myth that cancer is an incurable disease is firmly entrenched in people's heads. I return again to the time when this myth arose. The time of its occurrence is not reliably known, but it is quite clear that it happened a long time ago, when the level of development of medicine was still at a low level.
Every year, science manages to advance further and further in studying the principles of construction and the foundations of biochemical processes in the human body. Not all the mysteries have yet been solved, but a lot has become clear over the past 10–15 years. It is very important, especially for cancer, to have a good psychological attitude. As they say, all diseases are caused by nerves. This applies to cancer to a greater extent.
I always talk about the need for urgent action when diagnosing oncology. Why? Yes because modern medicine practically guarantees a 100% cure at the first stage for most types of cancer. Those. If cancer is detected at an early stage of development, then we can safely say that treatment will be successful.
There is a survival rate established empirically.
According to statistics, when starting treatment at the first stage, if, for example, lung cancer, the established survival rate is from 60 to 80%. Here are the real numbers. Keep your fighting spirit. Don't panic. Fight and get into these percentages! Just don't give up. I’ll also tell you the story of such a struggle, from which I myself am impressed.
Another example. The appearance of a malignant tumor in the female genital area accounts for 24% of all cancers. Experience suggests a very high percentage of diagnosing this disease at an early stage. The result is almost 100% cure rate. It is imperative to have it checked regularly.
Believe me, cancer is not a death sentence!
Myth 7. Cancer is better treated not in Russia (Ukraine), but abroad
In fact, this question needs to be clarified at your place of residence. Cancer is a fairly specific disease, so not every city has a specialized cancer center. There are such centers in almost all cities with a population of over a million. This is what we should count on. The statistics are such that every year, for example, in Russia, 500 thousand people are diagnosed with cancer. About 2.5 million people in Russia live with an established diagnosis of cancer.
So the conclusion is this. You can treat oncology in Russia and Ukraine, or you can treat cancer abroad. The cost of treatment is not much different these days. Yes, of course, oncology treatment in Israel is more expensive, but perhaps psychologically it will be better there. And one moment. We have enough big problem is the use of painkillers. The list of available drugs is not very long, and as you remember, there is addiction. Abroad this problem does not exist. This is what you should consider when making a decision.
Myth 8. There was no cancer before
The human body consists of cells. Cells can degenerate and mutate under the influence of a variety of factors. This is the law and it has always existed. This is confirmed by the description of cancer diseases in ancient medical treatises.
If we talk about the number of cancer diseases then and now, then we should pay attention to life expectancy then and now. Even in the times described by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace, a person at the age of 50 seemed to be a very old man. And even earlier, life expectancy was 35–40 years and people simply did not live to the age at which oncology occurs due to changes in metabolic processes.
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