How Does Cancer Control Your Body?

What is cancer? 

By Abraham Safirstein

The first thing to understand is that cancer is not a virus or bacteria that you “catch” or get.  Cancer is developed over time through very specific processes of cellular degeneration.   Cancer does not develop as a result of a chemotherapy, surgery or radiation deficiency.

All the cells in our body go through a lifecycle.  If cells become damaged, they can be repaired or destroyed by our immune system. Cells reproduce so new cells can replace old cells and then they are removed through apoptosis (programmed cell death and disposal). Cancer is the uncontrolled multiplication of abnormal cells when tumor suppressor proteins (like the p53 gene) are turned off.

How Does a Cell Become Cancerous?

All cancers start from a single cell that undergoes many changes. Some of those changes are permanent alterations to the DNA called mutations.    For an abnormal cell to thrive and multiply, numerous defenses have to be torn down.  But if a cell does manage to get past our defenses and start multiplying out of control, it can form a mass of abnormal cells called a tumor.  Malignant or cancerous tumors can spread into surrounding tissues, damaging nearby cells or organs.

Cancer develops because our immune system was not able to do its job of removing and disposing of damaged cells. In most cases, this is a result of a lack of essential nutrients.

I picture my immune system as my army in a war to preserve my health, and cancer is the enemy’s army that is trying to kill me. My army -the immune system- is well trained and armed for the job, and it keeps shooting at the enemy and killing its troops efficiently. One thing though, I better supply my soldiers with all the ammunition they need, otherwise, they will be easily overcome and G-d forbid I will eventually get killed.

The ammunition is the proper supply of vitamins, minerals, proteins and essential fatty acids (omega-3) which must be provided to my soldiers for them to protect me and kill my enemy before he kills me.

To learn about what can cause a cell to become cancerous click on the links below: