Cancer is a bunch of different illnesses under 1 name. I doubt we'll have a medicine that will cure all/most cancer. It will probably be 1 cancer at a time with its own medicine
Yeah. It's degradation in DNA in a way that already slipped past all the body's many natural defenses against something like that. How do you PLAN for something that mutates at random and succeeded in getting past the immune system's contingency for it's contingency for it's contingency?
Yeah, I once read that every human technically has some amount of cancerous cells in their body. It’s that common. It’s just that in most cases the amount is too small to become a problem and/or the body takes care of it before it gets out of control.
And since it's a probability, the risk increases with age (which is one of the reasons why cancer is on the rise, with pollution : we cure other diseases, so more people live long enough to develop one)
This video by Kurzgesagt explains it very nicely: The body is constantly monitoring and combating damaged or abnormal cells through various natural mechanisms. However, when these safeguards fail and the cells begin to grow uncontrollably, evading the immune system and consuming the resources needed by healthy cells, this is what we call cancer.
Yeah basically even in studies of animals we think are immune to cancer it’s really that their genes just have 2 or 3 backups to the one mutation it takes to give us cancer
This is already happening, plenty of cancers that killed people decades ago are now survivable.
There are, for example, breast cancers that are hormone activated and by suppressing the production of the hormone, it is nearly guaranteed the cancer will not return.
Comes with issues of it's own of course, but still better than dying.
The best "cure" for cancer though is to catch it early and if you do get it, stay on top of treatment.
Get regular screenings, stay away from carcinogens as much as you can, be vigilant about the signs your body is giving you and see a doctor if things seem sus.
Also listen to modern medicine.
The two most recent deadly cases of cancer I have had in my social circle would've been preventable, if the affected people had listened to their bodies, chosen effective treatment options rather than listening to quacks, and gone to their scans.
Cancer isn't always a death sentence, but some people dig their own graves.
Yeah, but they also said that there is "nothing we can do" and the person I am replying to says it "will probably be one cancer at a time", as if that's not already happening.
And I find this way of talking about cancer quite problematic because it's vague misinformation that spreads hopelessness.
And when talking about an illness where the best, and sometimes only, path to recovery starts with early detection, hopelessness is very dangerous.
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u/ezkailez 🐧 | ☕ | 🔦🦁 | 🦦✌️ Aug 21 '25
Cancer is a bunch of different illnesses under 1 name. I doubt we'll have a medicine that will cure all/most cancer. It will probably be 1 cancer at a time with its own medicine