Cancer is one of the most striking diagnoses a patient can receive, and there’s no easy way to handle such terrible news. Luckily, it is not as widespread as many other diseases, and the majority of cases are not associated with infectious diseases. Still, there are many causes of cancer, and we can count on certain bacteria and viruses.
Unlike many other diseases, there’s no vaccine against cancer. Even though there are many survivors, in most cases, it is a life-threatening disease with terrible implications. What can we do about cancer? Prevention is the key, and if we want to reduce cancer risk we need to know the most important causes and the most common types.
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What causes cancer?
Cancer is a multifactorial disease, meaning that there is not a single cause behind each case. Instead, there’s a complex interplay of risk factors and causes playing a distinct role, usually years before it appears in the first place. The most common causes and risk factors are as follows:
Genetics
We have all sorts of genes, and some of them protect the organism against cancer. Cancer is a DNA problem in tumor cells that allow them to multiply without any restraint and very rapidly. This DNA problem is usually localized in the malignant tissue, not in the entire body. But there is also genetic predisposition in some instances, and that’s why cancer sometimes runs in families. Moreover, children who are born without certain protecting genes may quickly develop very aggressive types of cancer, as in retinoblastoma, a variety of cancer that affects the eye in 2-year-old children.