Cancer

Cancer sucks. I know this is not the most elegant phrase to use in speaking or writing but this is the general opinion people have when this topic comes up. And it does come up a lot because more and more people are affected by this disease that we can call the disease of the century. It is bad and it is even worse that not only it affects the body of one person , but it passes onto their genes and can be transmitted to the children of that person. It's bad because it can affect all the organs in a persons body and it shows no symptoms and pain unless it's too late. Cancer is now the third cause of death worldwide after cardiovascular diseases and accident and , as you can see from the picture below, it affects millions of people every year.



If we sum up the number of people who die of cancer every year, we can erase a small country 's population from the face of the Earth. I am aware that this comparison is a bit forced, but it's true. What's even worse is the fact that doctors and scientists and all those who study cancer cannot say for sure what causes it. There are some factors like smoking and heavy drinking or the use of dangerous substances that can be considered as risk factors, but they do not always cause the cancer to appear.

So you do not know for sure what to do to prevent cancer; it can simply come from nowhere and affect a person without any warning. But cancer research are still in progress and researchers hope to find a cure for this disease soon and also find the causes of this disease. They have already made huge progress in this field and they are confident for results of their future activity. Now we know for example that certain kinds of cancers are mainly caused by a certain virus - that is anal cancer, cervical cancer and sometimes oral cancer is caused by the infection with HPV, Human Papilloma Virus, a virus that is transmitted sexually. This gives us a hint of what to do to protect ourselves from getting this infection and from getting cancer.



Then they also proved that over 90% of the lung cancers are caused by tabaco smoking. So if you quit smoking you also reduce the chances of getting this type of cancer and possibly some other types, too. Some chemical ingredients that are used in food processing are also cancerous, but the governments in most countries changed the law in order to protect the population from this threat, so things are being done.

These are small steps, but what's important is that we advance little by little forward in the fight against cancer. I feel compelled to mention the huge importance of the non- profit organizations and foundations that raise funds and organize awareness capaigns and this way they tell everybody that the best way to fight cancer is to detect it in an early stage, so they promote regular medical check-ups and screenings and mammograms.



They even offer free mammograms and other medical tests for some patients and support the cost of the treatment for those who can't afford it. Sometimes they buy new and expensive devices for hospitals and this way the help more and more people get diagnosed faster and earlier and save their lives. So yes, cancer sucks, but we choose to fight it.