Thursday, May 10, 2012

Infections cause cancer

Who knew infections cause cancer. I think of them as completely different things. You get an infection as a result of a cut that doesn't heal or strep throat or something like that. Treat it with antibiotics and it usually goes away - unless its MRSA or something nasty. Then I think of cancer as rogue cells which go rampant and take over portions of your body unless cut out or killed off with chemotherapy. I'm not a medical person so I don't claim any education in this area but they don't seem related.

Now they (the proverbial 'them') say that one in six cancers are caused by an infection. HPV, Hepatitis B&C, and a stomach bacteria have been shown to cause cancer - primarily cervical, stomach, liver and other gastric cancers. In developed countries only 7.4% of cancers are caused by infections but 22.9% in less developed countries. That shows the power of vaccines. Younger people are more likely to get the infection related cancers.

So this is food for thought. I have also heard that they are now considering cancer to be a virus, which doesn't necessarily align with the infection idea but is another avenue to pursue. So what if more cancers are also caused by infections? Or by viruses? Cancer is not one disease but hundreds of diseases. Mankind has just lumped them together and called them cancers perhaps out of ignorance. Are we now getting closer to the truth? Perhaps this might lead to the cure.

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