Cancer Prevention

Michael Lam, MD, MPH
www.DrLam.com

Introduction

The events leading up to cancers often take place long prior to the clinical detection of the disease. It is a disease skewed towards old age. The median age of a U.S. cancer patient is 70. According to the National Cancer Institute, the odds of getting cancer after age 60 is 16 times greater than before age 40.

Cells in our body are dividing 24 hours a day. Bad mutations are few, but they do happen. When enough mutations have occurred, the result can be cancer. In fact, we are all walking around with millions of pre-malignant cells. If we live long enough, we will come down with one form of cancer or another. Advancements in technology have increased life expectancy in industrialized nations to almost 76 years. Cancer is quickly replacing cardiovascular disease as the number one cause of death in the United States.

The lifetime chance of getting cancer of the colon is 6%, prostate 17%, breast 14%, and lung 7%. At the same time, proper diet, supplementation, and lifestyle changes can reduce cancer of the colon by up to 50%, prostrate by15%, and lung by 90%. Dr. Gabriel Deldman, Director of the American Cancer Society, sums it up well by saying, "We don't need years of research. If people implement what we know today, cancer rates would drop. It's that simple."

Unfortunately, cancer chemoprevention research is 10-15 years behind cancer treatment research. It makes more sense to treat pre-cancerous lesions than to wait for people to develop fully blown cancer.


How Cancer Develops

We now know that cancer cells are developed in 3 phases:

1. Initiation (Phase 1): When something (such as a free radical or carcinogen) alters a cell's genetic makeup, causing the cell to divide more frequently than it should. 
   
2. Promotion (Phase 2): When the damaged cell goes into uncontrolled growth.
   
3. Progression (Phase 3): When the tumor builds itself a blood supply network through angiogenesis and invades surrounding tissue.