Lung cancer is one of the most dangerous diseases which make most of the people suffer. Lung cancer has been noted by the Canadian cancer Society (2010) as the most leading one which affected both male and female in 2010 and out of 24,200 Canadians, 20,600 of them died of lung cancer. Like any other types of cancer, lung cancer is basically caused due to the abnormal growth of cells in one of the body parts, lungs. Although the role of genetics is not very popular in lung cancer but the history of lung cancer in families will lead to the high risk of getting lung cancer.
Moreover if they were your parents, siblings or child then the chances of getting it is more. Genetics are becoming the most unpreventable factor that will lead to lung cancer. It is unpreventable but if it is detected early, it might help us to reduce the risk of developing cancer cells inside the body. There are three main causes of lung cancer besides genetics including lifestyle, environment and infections. Lifestyle has been carried by people in their life, in their activities, and environment. There is a good lifestyle and bad lifestyle that people practice in their lives.
If people follow their good lifestyle then the disease will not happen, but the problem is that many people follow bad lifestyle just because of imitating other people like drinking alcohol, smoking and unhealthy diet. This lifestyle has a bad effect to health especially to lung cancer. Drinking alcohol, smoking and consuming unhealthy diet are the three main factors in lifestyle that leads to lung cancer. The foremost cause of the lung cancer depends on the lifestyle of the people. Drinking alcohol is one of the factors that usually we do not pay much attention.
People think that drinking alcohol is one way to relieve stress and to socialize with friends. Drinking alcohol is usually practiced in different situations which are not limited to one event or activity. People usually do not realize that drinking too much alcohol will cause bad effect to the body especially to the lungs which will lead to cancer. Alcohol in here does not mean that pure alcohol or 100% pure; the percentage of alcohol which contains in the beer that people drinks. People usually do not directly drink alcohol but consume it with the other drinks like beer, vodka, etc.
Each type of these will have a different amount of alcohol concentration. If you consume a great amount of alcohol then the risk of getting cancer also will be higher, if it is consumed continuously. According to Paolo Boffeta, on his research in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, he states that if the consumption of alcohol is more than 30 ml per day, then, it will increase the risk of having lung cancer. It is even worse in the case of a bad smoker; it will increase the risk of having lung cancer, because of the chemical reaction in the body between the smoke and alcohol.
So, by reducing this habit of drinking will generally help to reduce the risk of lung cancer. The lifestyle of smoking is also another factor of getting lung cancer. High intake of smoke results in a high risk of lung cancer to the people who do not smoke. Smokers can be categorized into two types; they are active smokers and passive smokers. An active smoker will have a higher risk of getting lung cancer than a passive smoker. Passive smokers will still have the possibility to get lung cancer and in addition to this if he inhales the smoke continuously, then he will face a higher risk of getting cancer.
An active smoker has the possibility of getting lung cancer but it also depends on the time when he began smoking, how many cigarettes he consumes per day, and how long he has been smoking. The risk will increase if he continues to smoke, but the risk will eventually decrease little by little by the time he stops smoking. The risk of getting lung cancer for both man and woman are the same, although previously it has been said that man has a higher rate to get lung cancer, but nowadays women also smoke, so the rate of woman getting lung cancer is also increasing.
We can reduce the risk of lung cancer by not having the bad habits but still we need to be aware of the second-hand smoking or passive smokers. The other bad factor that will cause lung cancer is the unhealthy diet. It is still related to smoking. Some people generally smoke for the sake of dieting. People who smoke are tend to feel full and they don’t feel hungry, so sometimes people use smoke as a tool to their diet. Also few people are not aware of the relation between the fruit and the smoke that if they consume it together, it will have a bad effect.
According to cancerhelp. org (n. d.), beta carotene, states that fruits contain vitamin, which will help the people in dieting, sometimes will be harmful when it is consumed with smoke. The other bad diet is by consuming an unhealthy food like red meat, processed meat, sausages, bacon, salami, or ham. According to Cancer Research UK (n. d. ), it is proven that people who consume those food as much as 80 grams a day will have a higher risk of cancer. Having a good diet and by consuming a good food and fruits will supply good nutrients to our body which will help to fight against cancer bacteria and reduce the risk of lung cancer.
The second factor which usually causes lung cancer is bad environment. Lungs are greatly affected by bad environment as people use their lungs to breath. So, the environment is a big factor to the causes of the lung cancer. It can be seen that the environment situation getting worse and the air is getting dirtier. It leads to the bad health because people breathe that polluted air. The air we breathe now is dangerous because it may lead to lung cancer because of three reasons which is from the exposure of radon gas, dangerous mineral such as asbestos, air pollution, and second-hand smoke.
One of the problems comes from the exposure to radon gas. Radon gas is a radioactive gas which is present in the soil and it comes out from the crack on the wall or seep of the building. Usually it comes out from the granite. According to emedicine health (n. d. ), radon gas is the second lead which causes lung cancer next to smoking. The gas also can be emitted from the uranium. So, this dangerous gas is very harmful to the lungs, and people are usually not aware of the existence of it. That gas is also dangerous when it was combined with smoke of cigarette and inhaled.
The risk of getting lung cancer will increase since these two gases are the major cause of lung cancer. The other environmental factor is the exposure to dangerous mineral which is asbestos, and other harmful substances. Although asbestos is a natural mineral that is mined from the earth, but still it is harmful when it is inhaled. Its particles have an effect to create lung cancer. Furthermore, if the particles are combined with the cigarette smoke it will become even more harmful to lung and highly increase the risk of acquainting lung cancer. People tend to face this material during work.
So, they should wear a mask during work as it will reduce the possibility of the material from being inhaled to lungs. Moreover, the major thing that will always come to mind when talking about bad environment is air pollution. Air pollution will always pollute the air which is happening anywhere and anytime. A simple example can be the use of vehicle like car or motorcycle. The residual smoke which comes from the vehicle will be dangerous for lungs if it is inhaled by the people.
The residual smoke released from the factories to the air will also bring harmful effects to the people who inhale it. The people who live near the factories are more likely to get lung diseases because of the residual smoke which comes from that factory. The substances contained in the smoke will bring a harmful effect for the human body. People who inhaled that smoke continuously will have higher risk of developing lung diseases than people who do not.
The lung diseases itself like the tuberculosis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease will lead to the risk of lung cancer. One more thing that we should be careful about the environment is related to the lifestyle of some people.
Many smokers do not care about the people who do not smoke beside them. This will lead to the bad effect for the people who inhaled the residual smoke from an active smoker, this situation is called second hand smoke or passive smoker. This smoke, if it is inhaled by the people who do not smoke will bring more dangers and harm their body. The risk of getting lung cancer is higher than the active smokers. So, people who do not smoke should be aware of the risk of being passive smokers in order to reduce the possibility to have lung cancer. The third factors that will cause lung cancer are due to infections.
Infection which causes the body to lower the immunity during sickness will lead to a higher risk of cancer. Infections in human body could lead to many types of disease. The level of effect depends on the area and where the infections happen. At unique case, it could lead to a very dangerous sickness. For example the infection which will lead to the lung cancer because of a lowered immunity, having lung cancer treatment before, past cancer treatment, and due to lung diseases such as tuberculosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease may occupy our body.
Infections inside the body will create bacteria that will help the bacteria of the cancer to become harmful. In the beginning the cancer bacteria will be still. It will not be dangerous and acts normal, but as the time goes, and once it is exposed to an infection, the bacteria evolve and change its behavior to harmful bacteria. It grows because of the infections that the body got earlier; it helps the bacteria to grow that can cause cancer. Lowering the immunity of the people will lead the body to prone to have cancer.
If the person is practicing such a bad lifestyle or live in a bad environment like the one that has been said previously during the low body immunity, then there are more chances of getting lung cancer. The other infections which will lead to the lung cancer are about having had lung cancer before. Cancer diseases are very unique and dangerous. The bacteria which are left behind in the body might hide at first and regenerate to become harmful again. So for the people who have had a lung cancer, they need to take care of the body better than before.
It is the same for any cancer, so in term of lung cancer, the patient need to always do routine check-up to make sure that there is no cancer cell left. The treatment which have been done by the patients might be effective at first and shown that he has been cured. But in case of cancer, if there is a bacterial left there and the patient did not notice, then they can grow again to become a harmful cancer. In case of lung cancer, people need to be careful. Treatment of the cancer and uses of medical equipment are surely need to make it clear that the medical equipment used is sterile and free from any viruses or even cancer cell.
The treatment that is done wrongly also may lead to the spreading of the cancer cell to the other body parts instead of being cured. Its behavior may even become fierce rather than docile. So, a careful treatment is also important to make sure that the cancer cell does not create other infections on the other body part. The infections made by the lung diseases also need to be considered as a cause of advancing lung cancer. Lung diseases such as tuberculosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is type of lung diseases that might lead to lung cancer. These diseases are caused by the bad lifestyle and environment.
People who are having these diseases also may die of such illness. So, a careful treatment must be given so that this disease will not lead to another more dangerous disease. In conclusion, other than having the genetics, you can also prevent lung cancer by following a healthy lifestyle, living in a good environment and avoiding infections. It is known that reducing the consumption of alcohol will reduce the risk of lung cancer. Also if we can reduce smoking or even stop smoking we will surely be able to reduce many other effects like lung cancer and other lung diseases.
Having a good diet also will reduce the risk of having lung cancer. A better environment for living will help a lot in terms of having a good air which is not polluted and free of radon gas and other dangerous substances like asbestos. Also we need to be more careful of not getting lung cancer through infections. There are more chances of getting lung cancer during the low body immunity and having had lung cancer before. In addition to this, we should also be cautious while taking treatment for cancer so that it would not spread and create cancer again.
Diseases like tuberculosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary may infect other body parts. So we need to be very careful. ”Prevention is better than cure”- so let us have a healthy life style and prevent the earth from pollution.
Bibliography Canadian Cancer Society. (n. d. ). Retrieved August 18, 2010, from Canadian Cancer Society: http://www. cancer. ca/canada-wide/about%20cancer/types%20of%20cancer/causes%20of%20lung%20cancer. aspx? sc_lang=en Cancer Research UK. (n. d. ).
Retrieved August 18, 2010, from Cancer Research UK: http://www. cancerhelp. org.uk/type/lung-cancer/about/lung-cancer-risks-and-causes eHealthMD:Your source for truly reliable health information. (n. d. ). Retrieved August 16, 2010, from eHealthMD: http://www. ehealthmd. com/library/lungcancer/LCN_causes. html Jessehand Health Tips and Advice:
Your Trusted Place for Health,Fitness,Nutrition and Cancer Prevention. (n. d. ). Retrieved August 15, 2010, from Jessehand Health Tips and Advice: http://www. jessehand. com/causes-of-lung-cancer/ Medline Plus. (n. d. ). Retrieved August 15, 2010, from Medline Plus : Trusted Health Information for You: http://www. nlm. nih. gov/medlineplus/lungcancer. html.