What causes cancer?

Actually it is all you mentioned along with other things, cancer is basically caused when cells go bad. Every single day in every single person there are a lot of tumor cells formed, but luckily our body has got defensive mechanisms to find these and kill them. But it can happen that one is overlooked and let to grow, after which it spreads out. The chance of that happening is pretty much fixed to a rather small chance, but because there is quite a lot of cells being reproduced badly the chance is there. Cells will always reproduce badly though, there's no stopping to that, but certain things do increase the chance on it. A good example is in example radiation, although you can hold certain amounts you definitely do have your limits. One form of radiation many tend to forget though is UV radiation from the sun, people which have had skin burn before the age of 18 more than once have a reasonable chance of developed skin cancer later in life. Also chronic exposure onto the scalpel (so bald heads) is an increased chance of developing skin cancer there. Then there is of course smoking causing lung cancer, it basically messes up the cells duplication system making the amount of bad cells duplicating increase again, so higher chance of a cancerous cell going through. Lots of other factors play parts as well in increasing the chance, certain types of food, certain infections like genital warts in example increasing the chance on cervical cancer for women and HIV increasing the chance of Kaposi sarcoma. But also genetics are known to give an increased chance on certain types of cancer. Slowly we are starting to get a better understanding on how cancer exactly works and on how to prevent certain types along with treating others well, but there's definitely a lot left of research to do.

Well first I am sorry for your friend. I know so many wonderful things are being done now, and new cures found all the time, so I sincerely hope something can be done for your friend. At that age, he/she is young enough to fight. As for the causes of cancer - well I am not a medical person, but to the best of my knowledge, it is just cells that proliferate incorrectly, thue causing tumours to develop, and I believe I once read that we are all born with the propensity for cancer, - it is just "luck" whether our bodies develop it, or do not. Obviously outside factors (lifestyle, diet etc) do ccntribute, but I have also known children who never smoked for example, dying from lung cancer, and old people in their 90's who smoked 40 a day and never deveoped it, so I believe saying it is caused by one particular factor is far too simplistic. A lot of it is genetic, hereditary, and just plain "luck".

19 years old? OMG that puts my problems into perspective alright! That is terrible. I know it sounds bad to say but personally I think cancer is a horrid lottery that you don't want to WIN. It doesn't discriminate on grounds of gender, colour, sexuality, young or old. Everyone is a ticking timebomb and the figures are horrendous when you break it down, I believe 1 in 3 will be have had cancer in their life. Even if we are careful what we eat, what we do, our lifestyle etc, we can never guarantee to be safe from the clutches of cancer.

I do hope your friend wins the battle against cancer. Many have done it and we often hear or read how much positive thinking can mean for a good result. The man who developed chemotherapy as cancer treatment in the 50s, Arthur Furst, spent many of his later years to develop food supplements to prevent cancer. Our cells need many antioxidants to protect them against free radicals that can cause damage like cancer and other health problems, and this guy has worked with other top scientists to find the most efficient nutritions to protect the cells. Some of the food supplements have taken many, many years to develop and now we can use them every day if we wish. You will find more information in my profile about the company that distributes the supplements to us so that we can benefit from them.