Cancer in most cases may be the result of biological bad luck rather than of flawed genes or unhealthy lifestyle. It is the random division of cells that makes people more vulnerable to mutations, a study has shown. A formula that plotted the number of stem-cell divisions over a lifetime against the risk of cancer revealed a correlation and explained two-thirds of the cases, according to a research paper published last week in Science. The study, conducted by mathematician Cristian Tomasetti and geneticist Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University, is based on previously published cancer statistics. While the study supports focussing more resources on diagnosing the disease in early stages and on treatments to reduce mortality rates, a comment by the former editor of the British Medical Journal, Dr Richards Smith, that cancer is the best way to die because it gives people the chance to come to terms with their own mortality has stirred up a hornet’s nest. This curious view may have dangerous consequences for the search for a cure.
Cancer remains the enemy within, the silent killer in our bodies and it should be the job of medical scientists to find a solution. If we followed Dr Smith’s misplaced logic, we would still be living in the medical dark ages that followed hit-and-miss methods of diagnosis and treatment. All ailments from a cold to hypertension can be said to be the result of bad luck. But, a helpless surrender to the dictates of fate entails a return to earlier periods in history when an inability to decipher the mysterious ways of life engendered belief in the supernatural.
It is only the development of science that lit up the dark corners of human existence and enabled mankind to devise the ways and means of dealing with the unknown. Mysteries still remain, such as the genesis of cancer. But, dedicated research is bound to remove all ambiguities.
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