Prevent Cancer And Fix What Aging Ails You (eBook)

INTRODUCTION

MOLECULAR MEDICINE NEW INSIGHT INTO CANCER SOLUTIONS, AGING AND YOUR HEALTH.

LEARNING ABOUT CANCER
is knowing the inner workings of our bodies.

THE ROAD TO CANCER PREVENTION
leads to good health, especially in older age.

Cancer is the most important disease of the 21st century, responsible for more deaths than any other illnesses, and recently surpassing cardiovascular diseases. History has recorded, in the past centuries, plagues, wars, pneumonic infections and more recently cardiovascular sclerosis, in the form of heart and cerebral infarctions, as the main killers of humankind. In this century, the toll on the human population will be taken by malignant diseases. The control of diseases carried by rodents and mosquitos, improvements in hygiene, availability of clean water, vaccines and the discovery of antibiotics eliminated most of the communicable disease epidemics. Ageing population and modern life-styles have seen a rise in cardiovascular diseases which are slowly surpassed by the rise in cancer. The major illnesses affecting humankind in the past reflect the changes in the environment, hygiene, nutrition, aging population and advances in medical care. Are the current major diseases the canary in the coal-mine? Are these illnesses telling us that something about our life-styles and changes around us? Is cancer a reflection of changes in our bodies and in the environment? The science in cancer prevention points to some intriguing ways that our body responds to our environment and how the lethal scourge of malignancies can be prevented, and moreover, it shows the link between the environment, our bodies, chronic diseases of old age, including cancer, and aging itself. Medical sciences advanced in tandem with the breakthroughs in technology, physical sciences and organic molecular chemistry, allowing the understanding of human health from the classical gross anatomy to the cellular dimensions and today to the molecular interactions which provide new paradigms to many unexplained aspects of cancer, chronic diseases and aging.

The recent projection by the World Health Organization, shows a 70% increase in cancer incidence in the next twenty years. This is in part due to an aging population, a changing environment, urbanization and increase in certain types of cancer. Improved detection and diagnosis have increased the recognition of the disease in instances that would have gone undiagnosed in the past. This means that most everyone of us will be affected by cancer in our lifetimes. Incidentally, most numbers of reported cancers do not include the common skin cancer, usually not lethal, however, does affect the integrity of our skin. Advances in the medical arts and sciences have provided dramatic cures, and yet, one would expect that the death rates would be abating. In few parts of the world, the death rates of colon, breast and lung cancer are slightly lower than couple of decades ago. In the global perspective and for most, both the incidence and mortality of several cancers are increasing. In the US, cancer is the leading cause of death for population over the age of 60, overtaking death from cardiovascular disease in the year 2,000. Managing and caring for cancer patients is daunting not only for the family, but also for entire society. Emotional distress, and disruption to daily living routine are common in families with a member afflicted with cancer. In addition, in most families, the burden is compounded by lost income, decreased quality of life, and enormous monetary expenses.

In the U.S., cancer will cost 130 billion dollars yearly, nearly 20% more than expenditures for the second killer disease, cardiovascular disease. The rate of increase of expenditures will exhaust the current economic outlays for health allocations in most countries. The dire outlook for the fight against cancer demands a new approach to control the disease.

The novel approach is prevention. Although an old and well recognized method as noted by prevention of scurvy using citrus fruits and smallpox eradication using attenuated cowpox, cancer prevention is a relatively young medical field. In the ensuing chapters, we will outline the nature of the disease, how achievements in science reveal the subcellular nuts and bolts of cancer development and indeed the inner workings of our bodies on a molecular level. The preventive approaches can alter the conditions in the cell that promote the molecular homeostasis and mechanisms that reverse, stop or slow the development of cancer. Medical and biological sciences has experienced a revolution in advances in knowledge, technology and number new diagnostics and therapies. A surge in technology, computational sciences, genomics, proteinomics and molecular biology have propelled our understanding of cancer at the molecular dimensions. The understanding of the cancer origins allows the identification of the early “pre-cancerous” lesions, thereby starting treatment strategies decades ahead, and adoption of preventive practices that are effective and easy to adopt. As we age, our cellular molecular environment is under greater stress and the need for prevention care becomes more important. Your quality of life will be improved in your senior years with regular housekeeping measures of avoiding carcinogens, dietary changes, and take up more physical activities. Prevention of cardiovascular diseases with blood pressure management, medications lowering cholesterol blood levels, smoking cessation, exercise and dietary changes have made significant impact in lowering cardiovascular deaths. Cardiac health has implemented these measures decades ahead of cancer prevention and have achieved remarkable results. Measures that prevent cancer include straight forward steps that include all the cardiovascular prevention guidelines, and others that address common chronic diseases such as diabetes, dementia, arthritis and autoimmune diseases. In addition, these steps incorporate physical activity and nutrition tips well accepted by health enthusiasts and now proven by studies based on molecular biology. The very underlying causes of cancer, starting with mutations in our DNA, are now been recognized as key reasons for aging and diseases of the aged. These causes are intertwined with changes in the environment and changes in our diet and life activities. Modern life style and urban environment have increased the stresses on our cellular molecular homeostasis, and these changes increase the rate of molecular gene damage and mutations, which then, accumulate in the somatic and stem cells, leading to cell dysfunction including malignant transformation.

Conventional understanding of cancer and other diseases have changed with scientific advances in molecular biology. Medieval physicians based their treatments on the balance of four humors: phlegm, black bile, yellow bile and blood. Although human anatomy was recognized several centuries BC, in Egypt and Greece, not until Vesalius, in 1676, anatomy was studied as a discipline. Microscopic and cellular anatomy, or histology, had to wait for the advances in optics, in the microscope, a century later. Molecular biology bloomed in the mid-twentieth century with description of the structure of insulin, DNA and hemoglobin. Thus, the evolution of medicine from framework of humors, to anatomy and physiology, then, to cellular and microbiology, and today to molecular biology has shown an acceleration in the pace of advances and understanding of body function and diseases. Current medical sciences have led to effective strategies in combating cancer. New paradigms are emerging, based on molecular genomics, genetic epidemiology, and environmental sciences that link our understanding of other major chronic illnesses to that of cancer. Hence, the unifying concept of cancer, chronic diseases, well-being and longevity is emerging that can change our approaches to health care and daily living.

Our bodies are composed of trillions of cells, a marvel of a multicellular organism. However, from a cellular and molecular viewpoint, only a well-balanced eco-system, borrowing from well proven theories of environmental sciences, combined with knowledge of molecular medicine can lead us to well-designed approaches to the cancer problem. Each component, down to your organs, cells, genes and proteins, functions inextricably intertwined with each other and to organisms in and around us, the microbiome. Precise and personalized medicine, commonly referred to the present state of clinical practice, evolved from the paradigm of molecular biology that changed our view of cancer and other illnesses from organ-based malfunction, to a disruption in the homeostasis of our molecular ecology.

Our cells have a certain capacity to adapt to many changes such as growth, aging, trauma and infections. In our life-time, mutations and epigenetic changes can accumulate over decades and lead to malignant transformation. Current studies in molecular biology and cancer prevention shed light in the pertubations of the cellular eco-system conducive to tumorigenesis. Each cancer type and scientific advances have their own story to tell. The stories have protagonists, intrigues, villains and heroes, and happy endings as we are all beneficiaries of the new discoveries. Usually the scientist struggles with clues and riddles and sometimes serendipity reaches out with a helping hand. As Louis Pasteur, authored the germ theory of diseases, in 1864, said: “In the fields of observation, chance only favors the prepared mind.” Our current approaches have fallen somewhat short of expectations. The cure of cancer campaign launched by President Nixon in 1971, and the Moon-Shot program proposed by Obama and Biden, in 2016, are focused on...