Wed May 18, 2005 11:24 pm   Reply with quote      

Two-thirds of children who survive cancer develop other chronic health problems, such as heart disease and blindness, because of radiation and the treatments that saved their lives, according to new research.

More here

Aaron

Wed May 18, 2005 11:31 pm   Reply with quote      

Survival rate of cancer is certainly increasing, but the quality of life after you go through any cancer treatment is often poor. This is another challenge.

Thu May 19, 2005 9:57 pm   Reply with quote      

Do we know why cancer happens in the first instance? It would strike me that the best thing is to prevent it in the first place, but maybe that's a little too optimistic.

Aaron

Thu May 19, 2005 10:39 pm   Reply with quote      

Well, cancer/tutor is a result of abnormal cellar activity, right? Modern science hasn't pin-pointed a single cause yet, but there are certain things that we should not do. Unhealthy diet, smoking, lack of exercising, non-existent weight control, etc. Also speaking of diet, private sector and public sector need to look at today's food production system. Excessive amount of food, genetically modified food, etc.

Fri May 20, 2005 12:04 am   Reply with quote      

There isn't a single cause. New 'cures' for cancer that are in the pipeline work on certain cancers & not on others. This is because cancers have different causes depending on where they manifest.

Following on the topic...interestingly....

I was watching a TV prog tonight & amongst other things, I picked up on a point that was mentioned that stuck in my head because I go along with it.

It was saying that human genes are exactly the same now as they were 200,000 years ago! So that if you could take a stone age baby & transfer it into the present time, it could grow up to be whatever it wanted, with modern healthcare/education/etc. And vice versa - a present day baby would live exactly as life was then.

The big difference, of course, is that today's babies live much longer lives than 200,000 years ago - if there was a particular gene problem with a child, then he/she would die a natural death (survival of the fittest). However, this fact kept the hereditary bad gene factor to a minimum, ensuring that only the fittest survived. Nowadays, modern health science spends vast amounts of money & resources keeping these children alive, which means that the 'bad gene factors' are also manifesting in huge numbers & are being passed on from parents to further children. Which means that medical science is now stretched to keep on looking for ways to keep much more people with inherited illnesses & diseases in a comfortable lifestyle when, if nature was left to take its course, this simply would not be the problem it is today. If you follow the gist.

Now I know this is controversial, and I mean no disrespect whatever to anyone who may be affected in this way, but you must admit it has its logic?

Fri May 20, 2005 12:12 am   Reply with quote      

Yes, this makes a lot of sense. Also a lot of young premature babies died decades ago, but we can manage to let them survive today. However, they are pretty much destined to have chronically diseases, thus, there could be more sick children than used to percentage-wise.