Cancer Cells

Cancer cells like other cells that replicate, suffer from errors. These errors cause mutations. Unless proper prevention is carried out, the errors will survive and might be passed along to daughter cells. The body normally safeguards against diseases such as cancer through apoptosis, senescence among other processes. Often this error correction methods fail especially in environments that make the errors more likely to propagate. One such is an environment that has disruptive substances called carcinogens.

Mutagens are substances that cause DNA mutations. Mutagens that cause cancers are known as carcinogens. Tobacco smoking and prolonged exposure to asbestos fibers are other cancer causes. Cancer is a progressive disease because cancer cells evolve to become progressively more abnormal. While normal cells stop division in the case of DNA damage, cancerous cells will continue to divide. This leads to mutant cells called 'daughter' cells that are even more abnormal than the 'parent' cell.

The errors therefore slowly accumulate until such a time when the cells begin to act contrary to their bodily functions. The pile up of the abnormal cells leads to formation of tumor mass. Cancer development is like a chain reaction. A few errors compound into more severe errors.

Errors that produce more errors are the root cause of cancer. If for example there were 9000 cancer cells and one kills all but 10 of these cells, these cells could still replicate and start the process all over again. Cancerous cells can also lose the molecules on their surface that keep normal cells in the right place.  They can therefore become detached from their neighbors.

About the Author:

Mercy Maranga Reports on Health and Fitness issues. Visit Her Site here for more information on cancer and its treatment Cancer