Can we cure cancer?
Fabio, a first time visitor to Genetics and Health has asked me the age old question ‘Can we cure cancer through genetic innovation?’
Millions of hours of research has gone into finding cures for cancer but in my humble opinion, a cure for cancer is some way off. That said, I firmly believe that cancer will, in the next few years, become a chronic disease and managed and treated accordingly - a bit like diabetes or hypertension (high blood pressure). Advances in early detection and drug targeting and delivery will mean doctors will be able to treat this disease while a person continues with their everyday life. We are already seeing cancer survival rates improving and there is no reason why this trend won’t continue.
A more radical perspective is that cancer may well be here to stay. Stripping the disease down to its bare basics, it is only a set of mutations in the biochemical and metabolic pathways which make cell development go haywire and speed up. Mutations are how living organisms including humans evolve and adapt to our environment and lifestyle. Without these adaptions, we would not have survived. Food for thought!
Elaine Warburton
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POSTED IN: Genealogy and DNA, General Genetics and Health, Genetic Engineering, Genetic Future, Genetic Ingenuity, Genetic Testing, gene therapy
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2 opinions for Can we cure cancer?
Barry Starr
Oct 15, 2007 at 6:16 pm
My thought is that cancer is here to stay. As we live longer and longer, the odds of getting cancer will keep increasing. See http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=136 for an extended remix of my thoughts on the subject.
Steve Maul
Oct 16, 2007 at 5:02 pm
I believe that cancer prevention is a more attainable agenda at this point in time and nutrition is at the core of it all. Reverting to more natural, non-processed food diets and the intake of dietary supplements like flax seed can contribute to this end.
Learn more about flax seed and its cancer prevention properties from this site:
http://www.goldflaxseed.com
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