Here is What Cancer is, By the Way.

I have to point out this article (and its multimedia incarnation online) from the June 23 issue of Newsweek. The article is cowritten by Robert A. Weinberg - a name I knew sounded familiar to me - the author of One Renegade Cell, one of the books on my reading list. And frankly, after reading this article, I'm not sure I even need the book (but of course I will). This article gives a great, concise, easy to understand introduction to what cancer is, how it starts, and the lifestyle choices that are in our control to lessen our chances of getting it.

One of my initial motivations for starting this blog was that I, a passionate cancer advocate, could not answer this simple question: What is cancer?

I'm getting there though, and I could probably explain it myself, because for such a complex disease, it starts quite simply - but I'll leave it to Dr. Weinberg this time:

"All tumors begin with one renegade cell [and yes, quoting his own book title is what led me to realize who he was]. Initially the cell is just one of about 30 trillion or so in the body. It looks no different from the cells around it, and, like those cells, it divides only if the organ it's part of needs it to divide. Then, even though the organ around it has enough cells, the renegade cell begins to multiply uncontrollably: one cell becomes two, two become four, four become eight, until the descendants are beyond counting."

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? No wonder Nixon declared the War on Cancer in 1971 - a disease that starts with just one stupid, ugly, mutant cell with a bad attitude should be easy enough to cure, right?

Yeah, not so much.

So what can we do, Dr. Weinberg? He says we can stop smoking (duh), eat foods that don't have a bunch of creepy chemicals in them (duh), and get off our butts on a regular basis (duh). This is not news to me, and it's probably not news to you. But apparently Americans can't hear this enough - our most present cancers (breast, colon, prostate) occur at a fraction of our rate in other parts of the world.

This article may not be groundbreaking, but I sure hope a lot of people read it. If my cancer reading has taught me anything, it's that this disease has a nasty way of striking at random and without bias. But there are fundamental things we can do to prevent cancer - and it goes without saying that we need to be doing them.

I suppose I won't be going out for fish 'n chips for dinner after all.