“You Can be a VICTIM of cancer, or a SURVIVOR of cancer. It’s a mindset”
Overview
4th February is known for the World Cancer Day not just to remind people, but to raise awareness across the world. Cancer is deadly disease cause due to the uncontrolled growth of the cell in the body of humans, this can be caused by abnormal function or genetic inherited disorders. Approximately 8 million people die from cancer every year, around 10 people per day are diagnosed with cancer, and around around 450 people survives from cancer every day with the help of eminent work by doctors and researchers. This appears as the fight against cancer has raised the data graphically in terms of awareness, cure, early detection and prevention of cancer. The World Cancer Day is one the most visible event when individuals, people from different group and organizations gather to spread awareness against cancer to make it a global and major health issue. Cancer is not just a disease,else it also cause multiple diseases that destroy the human metabolism. In many countries like Ethiopia, Uganda, Lao, Afghanistan, people are not well aware with problems of cancer. This lack of knowledge carries a stigma that is difficult to bear for the society and the for nation.
What is cancer ?
Cancer is severe fatal disease caused by abnormal, uncontrolled growth of cells in the body. These abnormal cells grows continuously to form a tumor. Tumor can be of two types: Malignant and Benign, the cells of malignant tumor spread across the body by invading whole tissues and organs whereas Benign tumor remains at one place. The most visible reasons behind the cause of cancer is heredity disorders that pass on to generation to generation.
Different Types Of Cancer
Cancer can affect any tissue or organ of the body, like breast, kidney, liver, lungs, brain, blood, etc. There are different kind of cancers, the most prominent types are:
- Breast Cancer
- Lung Cancer
- Cervical Cancer
- Ovarian Cancer
- Prostate Cancer
- Skin Cancer
Multiple organs means multiple symptoms of cancer. The abnormality in cells are the results of different types of causes.
How Cancer is Caused ?
There are many causes of cancer that are responsible for uncontrolled growth and abnormality:
1. Genetic Disorders
Heredity is one of the major issue behind the abnormality caused by cancer. The genes which are responsible for the growth and development of specific tissues and organs can cause abnormality to the cell functions. The particular cells that lack in function are because of improper arrangement of genes in the system. These genes transfer from parents to their children hence this phenomenon is processed from generation to generation.
2. Excess of Alcohol & Smoking
The alcohol & smoking are major habits of todays lifestyle, including party, hangouts, etc. Consuming excess of alcohol and smoking is the sever cause of organ damage like lungs and liver are affected. The human body is very sensitive to the toxins and other factors that carries toxins. The excessive consumption of alcohol results the accumulation over the liver and hence blocks the function of that particular organ. The toxins present in the cigarettes like nicotine causes abnormality to cells and damage to cells.
3. Exposure to Radiation
Radiation can be produced by some source or obtained naturally such as UV rays, whose continuous exposure can cause skin caner. The areas where radiation is the part of research and source for different industries are highly exposed to the deadly side affects that causes cancer.
4. Chemicals & Toxins
The chemicals can be found in different kind of products like cosmetics, medicines and different food products. The chemical are those unnatural source that are sensitive to our body, excessive use of any type of chemicals can damage the cell at functional level. It can also cause mutation in genes. The presence of toxins in the product can cause disorders at genetic level that further results in cancer.
Primary Symptoms of Cancers
After knowing the different causes of cancer, its necessary for an individual to know the primary symptoms of cancer so that the person can do the needful as soon as the cancer is detected. Some of the common symptoms of cancers are:
- Increase of the size of particular organ and tissue in the body, known to be a kind of tumor.
- The continuous feel of pain in particular area where tumor has grown.
- The abnormal function of kidney , liver, lungs and other body organs, if any of them stop their function can be the cause of cancer.
- Production of out growth on the skin and production of any type of fluid from that out growth.
- Loss of appetite, fatigue, unnecessary sweating, chills, fever, malaise, etc.
Early Detection
Once the symptoms appeared the, detection of cancer is required in order to predict the stage of the growing tumor. Different ways of detection has been invented to diagnose the cause:
- X-Ray
- Biopsy
- Bone Marrow
- Endoscopy
- Complete Blood Count
- MRI
- CT Scan
How to Prevent Cancer ?
To prevent cancer is the major issue out of the global health priority. Thousands of research are going on in order to treat the cause and several out of those have cure cancer successfully. The major treatment options in todays date is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is the way to provide radiations to the tumor site on different intervals, depending upon the stages of cancer. Apart from medications, several Ayurvedic treatment are available that can heal the cancer.Some of the basic preventive measure that can reduce the risk of cancer:
- Healthy Diet
- Regular Exercise and Yoga
- Avoiding Alcohol & Smoking
- Minimizing the exposure to Radiation
- Healthy Lifestyle
A journey from diagnosis to treatment of cancer can be a reason to ones anxiety, though affects the whole life. In order to suffer the pain one should care about the life style he/she is living and raise the awareness in the society.
