Cancer has become one of the worst possible diseases in today’s world; it affects our body at a cellular level, making our body incapable of defending itself. This disease is so deadly because unlike most sicknesses this sickness converts our own cells into cancer cells that begin proliferating and destroying our body from the inside out. Unfortunately cancer has become so common that there is a cancer for each gender, prostate cancer and breast cancer.
Prostate cancer has become the most common disease among men; this deadly disease will soon overcome an entire gender if this country does not embrace the cures scientists are starting to develop. This specific disease is quickly becoming one of the most common sicknesses in the world and to make things worse there are only five known factors that contribute to prostate cancer and the worst part is we only have control over one of those risk factors. In present day America prostate cancer is believed to affect one in every six males throughout the United States.
These statistics are far from good and we still have not developed a cure for this disease. Think about this; in 2013 more than 238,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and out of these men, 30,000 of them will die from this disease. Unfortunately, a new case occurs every 2. 2 minutes and a man dies from prostate cancer every 17. 5 minutes; it is estimated that there are more than 2 million Americans living with prostate cancer at this very moment.
A non-smoking man is more likely to develop prostate cancer than he is to develop colon, bladder, melanoma, lymphoma, and kidney cancers combined. In actuality a man is 35% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than a woman is to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Prostate cancer has proven to be different from other diseases, and this fact is proven through the many risk factors that apply to every male on this planet. Unfortunately, African American men are 56% more likely to develop a type of prostate cancer than a Caucasian.
This specific matter of race is only one risk factor that we have no control over, another one of these risk factors is genetics. Men that have a first-degree relative (father, son, or brother) with a history of prostate cancer are twice as likely to develop this specific disease. The worse thing is that those with two or more relatives are nearly four times as likely to develop prostate cancer. Another one of these risk factors is our age; every male has a risk of developing prostate cancer with age, especially men over the age of fifty.
More than 80% of prostate cancers are diagnosed in men 65 and older. There are tons of different diseases out there, but cancer has become the most common disease amongst our society. There still has not been any guarantee in the cure or reversal of any type of cancer; even with extensive treatment cancer cells are still able to come back and begin spreading again. What some people don’t realize is that cancer isn’t always about being cured; it can be prevented, slowed down, and even slowly reversed if we treat our body with the right care.
Derek Johnson, a senior research associate and lab manager at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America has focused his life’s work on pairing science, traditional medicine, and naturopathic nutritional supplements. He grew up in Nebraska and now makes his life’s work researching naturopathic nutritional supplements. Today Johnson manages the research lab for the Cancer Treatment Centers of America and is also the senior research associate in their Zion Illinois facility. The lab studies the functional aspect of cancer cells, the genetic and genomic aspect of cancer cells, and the relationship between the tumor cell and the immune cell.
This is a quote directly off a website I was researching from, Johnson states “We’re trying to find agents already known to be useful in some capacity and see if we can repurpose them for another capacity or finding new combinations of treatments that can be used in a synergistic way. ” A perfect example is a mushroom extract; this is known to be an immune stimulator. When patients take the extract, their bodies are fooled into thinking that it has a fungal infection, and that in turn will hype up the immune system by recruiting and stimulating immune cells.
Those immune cells are then attracted to the tumor cells to kill them off. Another quote from what Johnson said is “It’s like a football team; you are making sure your team is trained really well and making sure the other team can’t train at all. ” Within the last two years a pair of scientists at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco had found a compound derived from marijuana that could stop metastasis in many types of aggressive cancer, potentially altering the way this disease will be viewed forever.
Pierre Desprez, a molecular biologist, spent decades studying ID-1, the gene that causes cancer to spread. Meanwhile, a fellow researcher Sean McAllister was studying the effect of Cannabidoil (CBD), a non-toxic, non-psychoactive chemical compound found in the cannabis plant. The pair of scientists collaborated, combining CBD and cells containing high levels of ID-1 in a Petri dish. This is a direct quote from what Desprez said “What we found was that his Cannabidiol could essentially ‘turn off’ the ID-1.).
The amazing thing is that they started researching breast cancer and found that CBD works with many kinds of aggressive cancers, brain, prostate, and any kind in which these high levels of ID-1 are present. Since then the scientists have started this research, they have begun synthesizing the compound in the lab instead of using the marijuana plant, they do this in an effort to make this to-be cure more potent. To be very clear, it’s not as simple as just lighting up marijuana, they explained that it’s impossible to get even close to the required amount of Cannabidoil by just lighting up, which is why they are synthesizing it.
Throughout this essay I have talked about something called risk factors; a risk factor is something that puts us as an individual at risk for developing a certain disease or infection. There are only five risk factors that apply to males developing a type of prostate cancer, but what makes this disease different is that we are only able to control one of those risk factors throughout our entire life. Our diet is the only risk factor that we as males have control over when it comes to the development of prostate cancer, even then no specific study has proven that diet and nutrition have a direct cause on the development of this disease.
There are many studies being done to test which nutrients have what affect on these cancers, but they are still just theories. Here are the other four risk factors that put males at risk for developing prostate cancer. Age: Every male has the risk of developing prostate cancer with age, especially with men over the age of 50. More than 80% of prostate cancers are diagnosed in men 65 and older. Race/Ethnicity: Supposedly Black men have a higher risk of prostate cancer than White men.
They are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer at an earlier age and develop aggressive tumors that grow quickly. The exact reasons for these differences are not known and may involve some type of socioeconomic factors. Family history: A man who has a father or brother with prostate cancer will be at a higher risk of developing the disease than a person who’s family doesn’t have the disease. Hormones and Chemoprevention: High levels of testosterone may speed up or cause the development of prostate cancer.
Supposedly it is very uncommon for a man whose body no longer makes testosterone to develop prostate cancer. It has been proven though that stopping the body’s production of testosterone (this is called androgen deprivation therapy) will often shrink advanced prostate cancer. While all of this information is very relevant to not only curing prostate cancer, but all kinds of cancer, it’s really hard to say how cancer is preventable otherwise. For this specific reason we as individuals must strive to treat our body with the best care possible at all times, our entire life.
When I say our entire life, I’m talking about getting an education in this specific area of health from when we enter into kindergarten, and thereon afterwards. To accomplish this is probably impossible, that is why we must start with the generation after us; our children. When this task is accomplished, America, and even the whole world will begin to live in a healthier, disease free world. In that kind of world, there won’t be millions and millions of unneeded deaths being caused by disease and sickness.
References
This link will provide anyone and everyone with all the information they could possibly need when it comes to Prostate Cancer. •Http://www. medicinenet. netcom/prostate_cancer/article. htm I used two different websites as references when I was doing my research into scientists making a difference with cancer. •http://caledonia. patch. com/articles/caledonia-man-helping-fight-cancer-naturally •http://www. huffingtonpost. com/2012/09/19/marijuana-and-cancer_n_1898208. html The first link shows a Derek Johnson a man born in Nebraska researching.