Can You Prevent Cancer?

Can I do something in my life to avoid this dreadful disease?

Most of us would love to know how to prevent cancer completely. Unfortunately, no matter what we each do, no one can completely eliminate their risk for cancer of one type or another. Cancer is a fact of life. However, although zero risk is not a reality, there are many things that most of us can do to minimize our risk for developing many types of cancer. All it takes is thinking about it and deciding to take control of your fate, making important changes which can positively impact your health and your risk for diseases.

Some of the choices we make can help reduce our risk of getting cancer in the first place, while others help to ensure that, if we do get cancer, that the cancer has the least impact on our bodies and lives as possible. Both are versions of what doctors call cancer prevention.

The two most important types of prevention of disease are termed primary and secondary prevention. Both can be used to help minimize your chances of cancer getting the best of you.

Primary Prevention: The easiest form of cancer prevention to understand, primary prevention is simply steps you can take to reduce your risk of getting cancer in the first place. There are things we all can do that will decrease our chances of getting many forms of cancer. Cancers are caused by mutations, damage to genetic material (DNA) in our cells. There are several things that increase the occurrence mutations, including advancing age, genetic factors (ethnicity, family history, etc.), environmental toxins, and habits that expose us to toxins (smoking, drinking alcohol, etc.).

These things that are known to increase ones risk for cancer are known as risk factors. The more risk factors one has for a given cancer, the higher their chance of developing that cancer in their lifetime. These risk factors can be divided in two, into what we call non-modifiable risk factors and modifiable risk factors. Non-modifiable risk factors are those which we cannot change. They include family history, ethnicity, gender, age, and others. Modifiable risk factors are risk factors which can be actively changed. Some important modifiable risk factors for various types of cancer include smoking, chewing tobacco, excessive alcohol consumption, obesity, physical inactivity, low fruit and vegetable consumption, and unsafe sex. These have each been associated with increased risk for one or more types of cancer. Some, like smoking, profoundly increase the risk for many different forms of cancer as well as other diseases.

Risk factors are usually additive, meaning that the more risk factors you have, the higher your risk. Because we cannot change our non-modifiable risk factors, eliminating modifiable risk factors is our best chance to significantly decrease our chances of developing many types of cancer. Therefore, primary prevention is simply making changes to your life, your habits, your activity and your diet which reduce your modifiable risk factors.

Secondary Prevention: Secondary prevention does not help prevent cancer. Instead, it helps to make early diagnosis of cancer so that it can be treated at a stage when treatment has a chance of being effective. We all hear that there is no cure for cancer. While it is true that there is no general cure for all cancer, there are many forms of cancer which can be effectively treated if diagnosed early. Therefore, for many types of cancer, your chances of surviving cancer are greatest if cancer is caught and treated early. Secondary prevention aims to do exactly that. It doesn't prevent cancer from occurring in the first place like primary prevention, it helps prevent cancer from becoming so advanced that it significantly impacts your life, causing disability and/or death. So what is it exactly? Secondary prevention usually entails screening procedures which help to catch early disease in their early stages. If we do not pay attention to our bodies and what they are telling us, we may ignore signs of disease until it is too late to do anything about it. By screening, we can catch things early.

Common examples of secondary prevention are mammograms for breast cancer, prostate exams and prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing for prostate cancer, and colonoscopy for colon cancer. While there are not simple screening tests that are recommended for all types of cancer, these help to detect some of the most common types. For individuals at high risk for other types of cancer other forms of screening may be recommended. For example, smokers may benefit from periodic chest x-rays or other exams to detect signs of lung cancer. Again, these exams do not prevent cancer from its early stages of development, but they help doctors to catch the early stages before they would have otherwise been diagnosed. Treatment of early cancer at these stages is often much more effective than treatment of more advanced disease.

Between primary prevention and secondary prevention we can all minimize the chances that cancer will take control of our life. While no one can have a zero risk for cancer, each of us has the power to make a positive change in our health and reduce our risks. So take stock of yourself and your risks. Make definitive plans to change aspects of your life in a positive way. Cancer prevention is not perfect, but it is real and works if you fight hard to implement it in your life.

Securing Services of Mesothelioma Attorneys

Mesothelioma is supposed to be rare. Sadly, thousands of people die from mesothelioma on a yearly basis. This is devastating especially to families who are left behind. They suffer along with their loved one just too ultimately lose him or her to the decease. Mesothelioma is one of the most devastating forms of cancer. Usually, when a person presents with this illness and is diagnosed with this type of cancer, their prognosis is usually very bad. At most, they have two years to live.

Unlike lung cancer, mesothelioma is actually caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos. This is so sad because people are typically only exposed to asbestos just so they can feed their families. People who work in factories, mines and shipyards are those who are at major risk. Most of the time, the person afflicted with mesothelioma expects to die. This is why it is important that companies or employers of individuals exposed to asbestos are legally bound to implement measures to ensure their employees safety.

Most of the time, people suffering from mesothelioma have the legal right to compensation from their employers. This is where competent mesothelioma attorneys come in. If you hire an excellent mesothelioma attorney, you can generally expect million of dollars worth of out-of-court settlement. How much do these attorneys get from that settlement? Usually, attorney's fee ranges from 30 to 40 percent of the actual settlement.

The minute you are diagnosed of mesothelioma or anyone in your family is diagnosed of this disease, it is imperative that you immediately seek the assistance of mesothelioma lawyers or attorneys. There are states that impose conditions to qualify for compensation. This is why you have to immediately seek legal assistance to avoid being disqualified. Talk to several mesothelioma attorneys before you actually settle with one.

Living With HIV-AIDS - Important General Information For a Better Quality of Life

HIV/AIDS is an Immune System Disorder in which the body's ability to defend itself against infections, is greatly diminished. HIV is spread primarily through sexual or blood-to-blood contact. To put this simply, in layman's terms, the HIV virus enters the bloodstream and attaches itself to the service of a white blood cell (the CD4 cell's receptors). The virus then changes its genetic information into that of the white blood cell. The virus cannot be recognized by other white blood cells and is, over time, able to replicate itself into hundreds of HIV viruses. When the HIV virus has used the cellular material of the white blood cell, this breaks open and the new virus can, and does, spread through the bloodstream.

A person infected with HIV can go through four stages of the disease:

1. Primary HIV infection stage
2. A symptomatic latent phase
3. Minor symptomatic phase
4. Major symptomatic phase
5. AIDS defining conditions; the severe symptomatic stage.

Symptoms of Stage 1 are:

• Sore throat, headache, mild fever, fatigue, muscle and joint pains, swelling of the lymph nodes, rash, and mouth ulcerations.
The CD4 cell count is approx. 800-1200 cells/mm3.
Symptoms of Stage 2 are:
• No symptoms occur as this is the latent stage.
The CD4 cell count is between 500 and 800 cells
Symptoms of Stage 3 are:
• Swelling of the lymph nodes/glands in the neck, armpits and groin.
• Occasional fevers, recurrent chest infections.
• Shingles, skin infections and rashes.
• Recurrent mouth ulcers
• Weight loss up to 10% of the person's usual body weight.
• Prolonged, unexplained fatigue.
The CD4 count is between 350 and 500 cells
Symptoms of Stage 4 are:
• Persistent and recurrent oral and vaginal Candida infections (thrush)
• Recurrent herpes infections eg cold sores
• Recurrent shingles infections (herpes zoster)
• Recurrent bacterial skin infections and skin rashes
• Fever that lasts for more than a month, night sweats
• Chronic diarrhea that lasts for more than a month
• Significant and unexplained weight loss
• Abdominal discomfort, headaches
• Thickened white patches on inside of the tongue
• Persistent cough and reactivation of TB
• Opportunistic diseases of various kinds
The CD4 count is between 150 and 350 cells
Symptoms of Stage 5 are:
• Continuous diarrhea, nausea and vomiting causing weight loss.
• Persistent recurrent vaginal candidiasis.
• Cold Sores and oral thrush
• Severe and recurrent skin infections
• Respiratory infections causing persistent cough, chest pain and fever.
• Pneumonia
• Weigh loss, tiredness
• Severe shingles
• Body pains, numbness or 'pins and needles'
• Memory loss, poor concentration, headaches or confusion.
• Cryptococcal meningitis, presenting with fever, headache, stiffness of the neck, mental state change
• Infection causing brain damage
• Painless reddish brown swelling on the skin and mucous membranes
• TB
• Other sexual transmitted diseases (STD)

The CD4 cell count is below 200 cells.

The three main modes/causes of infection are:

1. Unprotected sexual intercourse with an HIV infected person
2. Infection through contaminated blood or blood products
3. Mother - child transmission of HIV via the Placenta, during childbirth OR through breastfeeding.

All these symptoms can be confused with many other illnesses, so the only way to be sure that you have, or have not, got AIDS is to be tested. If you are positive, then you can make a major contribution to your survival and quality of life by getting into an early treatment program in which Immune Enhancement is encouraged.

Killing the Killer Cancer

The number of people who die from cancer each year is more than the addition of HIV/AIDS malaria and tuberculosis combined together.The human body inhibits various forms of grwoth.The benign forms do not have the ability to spread to distant organs is not referred to as cancer. A typical example is the fibroid or uterine fibroma. However the growth of cells that have acquired the property of multiplying and spreading by various means of blood vessels or lymphatic channels to other organs like the lungs or bones are named as malignant cancers. The other human induced causes of cancer include smoking which is associated with lung cancer, Radiation to sarcomas and leukemia and other various viruses. Cancer often implicates a genetic element in the body during its development.

The Oxford Medical dictionary says that in half of all the cancerous developments a gene named as P53 is deleted or impaired which prevents the uncontrolled division of cells in the body, thus disabling the bodies fight against spread of cancer. The p54 is a gene which in the event of mutilation would form a gene called ontogeny which is capable of both initiation and continuation of malignant transformation of normal cells. It probably produces proteins which are growth factors regulating cell division that, under certain conditions become uncontrolled and may transform a normal cell to a malignant cell. Recent trials of gene therapy that involved replacing the ontogeny with the normal version of the gene have had limited success.

A cancer treatment often depends on the type of the tumor, the location of primary tumor and the extent of its spread. Some experts cite the early detection of the disease is the only cure for this disease. Here the cure defiles itself as the state of inability of the abnormal cells to grow and spread in the body.Those remains in the body in a state of suspended animation until death. There have been occasions where an absolute cure can be achieved by the removal of the cancer from the body by surgery. Here the grade of the malignancy can be determined due to the act of defining the stage, type or degree of cellular division. If the cancer is in early stages then it is hoped that almost all of it has been cut or excised and adequate radio therapy to the area where the tumor is can further assure the patient of satisfactory results of the surgery.

Specialized drugs though toxic to the cells provide useful adjuvant chemotherapy to the patients. Due to the toxic nature their selection has to be careful so that the patient can avail of their full treatment to get cured. Since inappropriate dosages can end up being toxic to 'good cells' of the blood and the gastro-intestinal tract. Specialized counters have been made for the the supply and distribution of these drugs, not a ordinary pharmaceutical medicine you find at any medical store.

The best ways of curing cancer include early detection of it through surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. They have been bringing a hope to all patients suffering from cancer. Cancer management is a tedious tasks often a multidisciplinary approach involving surgeons, physicians, medical and radiological oncologists, pathologists, nursing care as well as palliative doctors. Management of cancer from the earliest time of discovery must be regarded as a palliative procedure even if a cure is envisioned. Continuous counseling and maintenance of life style, including adequate dieting, is extremely important in the patients' continued well being. Support and motivation are always a vital part of any treatment. All these with a small magical thing called as hope can often help fight the worst cases of cancer on this planet. Take Lance Armstrong as an example.

Basic Things Teenagers and Adults Should Know About HIV - AIDS

Because AIDS has received so much publicity since the mid-1980s, many people believe they know a lot about the disease. Studies show that teenagers may know more about this than about other sexual topics. Nonetheless, there is still much ignorance about the subject. In Britain, the high level of public anxiety seen in the late 1980s has given way to a different attitude. As figures in the last few years have shown relatively low levels of infection among the heterosexual population, health education campaigns have shifted in their approach. These now focus on high-risk groups such as intravenous drug users, and most teenagers have little opportunity to discuss issues to do with HIV/AIDS.

In spite of this, HIV remains the one STI (sexual transmitted infection) that can cause death, and it cannot be ignored. This may not be so obvious in a country such as Britain, but, it is of course, a very different matter in Africa, in Russia or in the Far East. Even in Britain, there are currently in the region of 2,500 new diagnoses of HIV every year. Because of the treatment approach called 'combination therapy', which uses several different drugs together, many of those infected with the virus are now living longer and more normal lives. However, not all can benefit from combination therapy, and it remains a fact that there is still no known cure for HIV.

There are a number of things young people should know about HIV/AIDS. These are:
- HIV/AIDS is not a homosexual disease. While, in the early years, cases occurred primarily in the homosexual population, today intravenous drug users are particularly at risk, as are men and women having sex with someone who is HIV positive.

- in spite of the success of combination therapy, such treatment cannot eliminate HIV from the body. It is misleading to think that there is now a cure, or that HIV/AIDS is no longer a problem in Britain.

- the HIV virus is transmitted through bodily fluids in the male and female sexual organs, as well as through blood. In addition to transmission through sex, an open cut or sore may be a source through which the virus can enter the body.

Apart from abstinence from sex, the safest protection from HIV is the same as for other sexually transmitted infections, namely the use of a condom.

Introduction to Mesothelioma Disease

In this article, I want to give you a brief introduction to mesothelioma disease. Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that can be malignant or benign, the malignant type is very dangerous type and may be deadly in most cases. Scientists can classify the types of mesothelioma cancer according to the place of the tumors as following.

Pleural Type - In this type the tumors will be developed in Pleura. The Pleura is the most outer membrane surrounds the lungs and has protections functions. Pleural type is the most famous type and the most cases are diagnosed as Pleural mesothelioma.

Peritoneal Type - In this case the tumors will be developed in the Peritoneum. The Peritoneum is the outer membrane that surrounds the internal organs of the abdomen and has protection and movement functions. It is less common type but it is more dangerous that the Pleural type. Pericardial type - In this case the tumors will be developed in the Pericardium or is the outer sac that includes heart and its great arteries.

Returning to the introduction to mesothelioma disease, I want to talk about The treatment option. The main options is the surgery to remove the tumor and the tissues surround it. The surgery will be effective especially when they use the second option with it, I'm talking about the chemotherapy option which will be very good assistant treatment.

The third option is the radiotherapy, doctors will be having to use some radiations to kill the remaining cancer cells after the surgery. Doctors can use the all three option to make a strong treatment plan to destroy the cancer cells.