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Asked by cenniy to Alex, Amy, Andy, Georgia, Ollie on 16 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by meganpickard.
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Amy Reeve answered on 10 Jun 2011:
I am sorry that you have known people who have been lost to cancer.
I am very optimistic that one day we will be able to cure cancer. We need to make sure that our treatments only affected the cancer cells and not healthy cells. And we need to find a way to stop the cancer cells growing. Cancer is caused by cells growing out of control. Once we can do this i am sure a cure will be found.
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Alex Munro answered on 10 Jun 2011:
There is loads of research going on into cancer; and scientists are always finding out new things, pieces of the jigsaw!
Remember that there are lots of different types of cancer; you can reduce your risk of getting some of them by just staying healthy, and looking after yourself, i.e. not smoking (e.g. throat, lung, kidney, stomach, bladder, liver & colorectal cancer), not drinking too much (e.g. throat, oesophageal, liver cancer), maintaining a healthy weight (e.g. colon, breast and pancreatic cancer) and keeping physically active (e.g. colon cancer)…
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Georgia Campbell answered on 10 Jun 2011:
I’m really sorry you’ve lost people to cancer – I’ve lost people to it too (it is sadly so common that a lot of people will be affected this way), and it know it’s very hard. I agree with Amy though – I think we can be optimistic that we’ll find cures in the future.
There are different types of cancer (Alex has mentioned a few), and we might need different cures for different cancers – just like different viruses need different medicines. There are some things that different types of cancer have in common though – like the way they get the nutrients they need to grow – so finding medicines that target these could cure lots of types of cancer.
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Andy MacLeod answered on 16 Jun 2011:
Hello cenniy. I’m sorry you’ve lost people. I recently lost my aunt to cancer, and know how hard it can be.
As Ollie mentions, there’s all sorts of research going on to find out why cancer happens. The general picutre is that it happens when a cell loses control of the normal cell cycle checkpoints and divides out of control. This will happen when the cell has a number of different changes in the DNA instructions that control cell division. Some of these changes will already be there in the DNA, inherited from the parents, but some will be caused by things that happen outside the body to change the DNA – smoking is a big one there.
There are lots of newspaper articles on so-called “cures” for cancer, but they are often exaggerations, Researchers have found several factors that decrease the risk of developing some cancers in certain circumstances. I’m pretty sure that eventually, we’ll find a cure. It just might take some time. But in the meantime, as Alex notes, we can minimise chances of getting cancer by not exposing ourselves to any environmental risks.
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