SCIENCE in your LIFE
Cancer? How about Can I Not.
By K.T.
Do you know what really sucks? Learning that you or somebody you love has cancer. Cancer is one of those things that everyone knows is just capital B Bad. But what many people don’t know is what exactly cancer is. Cancer is what happens when your body’s cell growth goes crazy. Cell growth is a constant process of old cells dying and new cells forming.
Your body has a system that controls all of this. Sometimes that process stops working. Cells may grow when they shouldn’t and old cells won’t die. Eventually, a tumor can form. A tumor is a solid mass of cells. This may not seem like a big deal, but having something like that in the body isn’t good.
These tumors can cause pain and stop things from working like that should and get in the way of your body working like it needs to. There are two types of tumors: benign and malignant. Benign tumors just stay where they are and grow, but malignant ones can spread and hurt the rest of the body. Cancer can form pretty much anywhere, even in your eyes or blood-cells.
Everyone has something called DNA, which is genetic material that makes you who you are. Cancer can be caused by things that damage your DNA, like smoking and tanning beds. Cancer can be genetic too, so if people in your family has it you’re more likely to get it too. If you have a family history of cancer, you should talk to your doctor and learn what signs to look out for and what annual tests you can take to keep an eye out for your health.
Cancer is a complicated subject that can be super hard for people to understand even though although everybody knows somebody who has had it. Trust me, knowing somebody you love has cancer is the scariest thing in the world, and not knowing much about it can make the whole process seem worse. So while learning about cancer doesn’t make it any less terrifying, it can at least inject some reason into a scary situation.
National Cancer Institute. 2015, February 9. “What is Cancer?” Retrieved from:
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer
Please send any questions or comments to Dr. Spitzer (spitzern@marshall.edu )
Note: Any opinions expressed in these articles are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent those of Dr. Spitzer, the Department of Biological Sciences, or Marshall University.