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The effect of smoking on lung disease and lung cancer
Cancer genetics quiz
The effect of smoking on lung disease and lung cancer
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Cancer has been seen in humans as one the most potentially fatal disease for thousands of years and only in the recent couple of hundred years have we discovered that most information necessary to bring us to today’s understanding and knowledge (Kenny 2007, Weinberg 1996) was achieved by extensive research of cells, DNA, and epidemiology studies. As we know, currently cancer is acknowledged as having over a hundred different diseases, and is known to be the result of mutations of the genes and almost similar DNA which are responsible for the amount of cell division and production (Kenny 2007). Restraint of cell growth modulators can be a direct lead and result of certain tumours being developed and subsequently allow these tumours to acquire the ability to attack and occupy the bloodstream and essentially be able to travel via the bloodstream to other parts and organs in human bodies which is known as metastasis (Loeb et Al 2003). Once this has occurred , the cancer is then categorized as malicious and becomes a dangerous and serious threat to the carrier (Weinberg 1996). In this essay I will describe and explain the process of this and how our genes mutate and lead to metastasis of cancer cells.
Processes of exogenous and endogenous are likely to result in mutated genes leading towards cancer. (Schulz 2005, Knowles & Selby 2005). There are three known classifications of carcinogens, which are described to be cancer-causing agents based on the fact that they directly boost effects and thus cause mutations of the alterations already in place. The three classifications include: Chemical carcinogens which can be related to cigarettes and the mutations created as a result of the chemicals involved; Physical carcinogens which involves...
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...of not only them but also other things. (Schulz 2005). Finally, in conclusion, gene mutations and alterations affect the body’s ability to control the rate of cell division, which therefore defines cancer the direct result of gene mutation. Cells affected by mutations are exposed to the reproduction into a tumour. Once the tumour expands in growth, more and more mutations occur in subsequent cell divisions and eventually become a dysplasia and instigates invasion into surrounding tissues. In simpler terms, the cancer is spread to other organs and parts of the body. Following this, metastasis occurs resulting in the cancer spreading through the person and/or animals blood stream and/or lymphatic systems and forms other colonies which thus secretes other harmful organelles, and also disrupts normal bodily function, and possibly leading to and eventuating in death.
Cancer of the lung was nearly nonexistent in the early 1900’s. By the middle of the 20th century an epidemic became apparent throughout the United States and the rest of the world. It is primarily correlated with the widespread abundance of cigarette smoking in the world. The tobacco industry has multiplied its production immediately prior to World War I. There was a typical 20 to 30 year lagging period between the initiation of cigarette smoking and the actual tumor formation in the lungs. Lung cancer is the cancer that originates in the tissues of the lungs. It occurs when cells in the lung start to grow rapidly in an uncontrolled manner. Lung cancer can start anywhere in the lungs and affect any part of the respiratory system. Most of all lung cancer cases start in the lining of the bronchi (health-cares.net, 2005). It is the leading cause of all cancer deaths in the world. During this time the tobacco companies would continue to say that cigarette smoking was not addictive and did not cause any type of cancer. Even with all evidence in the world today about tobacco causing cancer, Tobacco companies still remain the most profitable business in the world. Lung cancer is very common in both women and men. Women account for about 40 percent of the lung cancer cases in the world. Women who smoke are more than twice as likely to develop lung cancer as those of men who smoke (Tavor, 2005).
The cancer cells from gene-mutation. Scientists now know some of the risk factors for lung cancer can cause certain changes in the DNA of lung cells. These changes can lead to not normal cell growth and, sometimes, cancer. DNA is the chemical in each of our cells that makes up our genes and how our cells function. People usually look like their parents because they are the source of our DNA. But DNA affects more than how we look; it also can affect our risk for developing certain diseases, including some kinds of cancer like lung cancer etc…Some people inherit DNA mutation from their parents that greatly increase their risk for developing certain cancers.
“The word 'leukemia' is a very frightening word. In many instances, it's a killer and it's something that you have to deal with in a very serious and determined way if you're going to beat it” - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Many people, including tons of children, fight leukemia every day trying to beat this vicious cancer. Without knowing how leukemia is exactly caused, it puts a damper on how to avoid it.
Your chance of getting cancer from exposure to a chemical, however, like your chance of being killed in a vehicle accident, is not as easy to understand. This is because conditions that affect your chance are always changing. In the case of a vehicle accident, the road may be slippery, you or another driver may be drunk, your car or another vehicle may get a blow out at high speed, someone may fall asleep at the wheel, someone may throw a rock from an overpass, or an airplane may fall from the sky. All of these conditions and many more affect the chance of being involved in an accident. Sometimes you can control the conditions effectively, but most of the time you can't.
Diagnosed with lung cancer, now what!? Time to do some research. Lung cancer is the number one cause of deaths in males and females. The causes, diagnosis, and treatment of lung cancer have advanced recently with new technology available to scientists and the medical profession. Lung cancer develops when the cells grow abnormally and tumors form instead of healthy lung tissue. It can take place in one or both lungs, normally the cells that line the air passages. Not all tumors are cancerous, the ones that do not spread are benign tumors. The more tumors that develop in the lungs will cause the lungs to work less efficiently. The metastatic tumors spread to other parts of the body passing through the blood stream or lymphatic system.
Cancer is a genetic disease because it can be traced to alteration within specific genes, but in most cases, it is not an inherited disease. The genetic alterations that lead to most cancers arise in the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of a somatic cell during the lifetime of affected individual. Because of these genetic changes, cancer cells proliferate uncontrollably, producing malignant tumour that invade surrounding healthy tissue. As long as the growth of tumour remains localized, the disease can usually be treated and cured by surgical removal of tumour. But malignant tumours tend to metastases, that is, to spawn cells that break away from the parent mass, enter the lymphatic or vascular circulation, and spread to distant sites in the body where they establish lethal secondary tumours (metastases) that are no longer amenable to surgical removal. Despite, various exogenous and endogenous factors are known to affect the normal pattern of cell growth, by which cell becomes a cancerous. Species specificity and identity of biological organisms maintain by the unchanged genomic structure throughout their life period. The ratio of cell growth and cell death is strictly balanced through developmental and homeostatic processes in multi-cellular organisms (Bolsover et al, 1997).
There have been extraordinary progresses in identifying cancer at the cellular level and the question of how cancer cells develop are no longer a secret. Although there are many different types of cancer and almost every tissue can turn into malignancies, the basic processes of how cancer arises are very similar. While normal body cells follow the orderly path of cell cycle and only reproduce when instructed to do so, cancer cells violate the schedule and ignore instructions, it fails to follow the orderly enzymatic reaction which is responsible for the deletion of cells with damaged DNA (Kerr et al. 1994). Cancer cells enter cell cycle repeatedly until it will eventually disrupt the function of tissues and organs that are essential to the organism (Weinberg 1996). Not all types of cancer are fatal, benign cancer is a type of cancer which stays in one location only, in another word it will not m...
There are over 7,000 chemicals present in tobacco smoke. Of those over 250 are deemed harmful, and of those 69 are cancer causing. Those cancer causing substances are called carcinogens (Nugel). It is clear that cancer and smoking can be linked. Smoking causes cancer of the lung esophagus, larynx, mouth,...
Environmentally caused cancers are caused obviously by environmental risk factors like, radiation or smoking. Some cancers that can be passed on genetically are breast cancer, colon cancer, and ovarian cancer. Inherited breast and ovarian cancers are caused by an inherited breast cancer gene, BRCA1 or BRCA2 (ovarian cancer is more likely in women with a breast cancer gene). Colon cancer can be inherited because of inherited syndromes associated with colon cancer. Some cancers associated with environmental risk factors are lung cancer and skin cancer. Environmental factors that can cause cancer are radiation from the sun’s ultraviolet waves and smoking. Radiation can cause skin cancer because the sun’s UV rays are too strong for human skin causing changes in the chemical balance of the skin cells or gene mutations. Smoking causes lung cancer because when the tobacco smoke enters the lungs, it damages the cells that line them. Environmentally caused cancers are more common than genetically inherited cancers because there are many environmental risk factors for cancer but, fewer risks for inherited cancers. About 224,390 new cases of lung cancer (117,920 in men and 106,470 in women) were estimated by the American Cancer Society and 5.4 million skin cancers are diagnosed each year. This year, an estimated 246, 660 women were diagnosed
Tumors are formed by the alteration of the body’s own cells. This can be caused by environmental factors such as radiation, like UV exposure, chemicals or viruses 1. These can disrupt genes that control growth and cause an increase in cell division and proliferation. Proto-oncogenes are those genes that control normal but essential cell processes that keep cell growth and death in check. Two important categories are apoptosis genes, which regulate cell death, and tumor suppressor genes, which decrease cell propagation 1 . If these genes were mutated to the point where they cannot produce a functioning protein, cell division would continue far past what it was supposed to and unhealthy cells would be allowed to live and continue to multiply. This is what creates a malignant tumor. Certain conditions in the body can also promote the growth of cancer cells. One of these is a deficiency of natural killer (NK) cells, which are able to kill cancer cells by creating a pore in the cell membrane with perforin and releasing granzymes into the cell. Low levels of perforin allow for tumor growth 1. Chronic inflammation can also ...
Cancer cells differ from normal cells in size, structure, function, and growth rate. These malignant cells lack the normal controls of growth seen in healthy cells, and grow uncontrollably. This uncontrolled growth allows the cancer cells to invade adjacent structures and then destroy surrounding tissues and organs. Malignant cells may also metastasize to other areas of the body through the cardiovascular or lymphatic systems. This uncontrolled growth and spread of cancer cells can eventually interfere with one or more of a person's vital organs or functions and possibly lead to death. The primary sites of cancer metastasis are the bone, the lymph nodes, the liver, the lungs, and the brain (McCance & Roberts, 1998).
The definition for “tumor” has undergone several changes largely due to scientific advancement in our understanding of cancer and the ability to differentiate one form from another. Tumor originally applied to the swelling caused by inflammation, but the non-neoplastic usage of tumor has almost vanished; thus, the term is now equated with neoplasm, and sometimes interchangeably used with the term cancer. Currently, a tumor is generally defines as an abnormal mass of tissue, the growth of which exceeds and is uncoordinated with that of the normal tissues and persists in the same excessive manner after cessation of the stimuli which evoked the change [1]. Over the past 5 decades, cancer research has received tremendous attention from the global scientific community with frantic efforts to answer some fundamental questions about the very nature of cancer; how different is one cancer from the other?; how do cancer evade the host’s defense surveillance and at precisely what point?; how do cancer metastasize coupled with their seemingly preference for
Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by the uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells (American cancer society, 2017). If the spread is not controlled, it can result in death. Cancer causes include life style factors (external) such as tobacco use and non-modifiable (internal) factors, such as inherited genetic mutations, hormones and immune conditions. These risk factors may act simultaneously or in sequence to initiate and/or promote cancer growth.
Nicotine is the chemical in tobacco that most impacts the brain and provides near instantaneous feelings of pleasure associated with smoking. People who smoke usually have ruff skin or other things that are wrong with them. Tar will also stain smoker’s fingers, their teeth, and collects in their lungs (Eshrick 32). Lung cancer is the most common cancers that most people have. Studies have proven that one out of every four people die from lung cancer, and ninety percent of cancer is caused by tobacco use (Eshrick 62). Bladder cancer may occur when smokers inhale some of the carcinogens in tobacco smoke are absorbed from the lungs and get into the blood, then filtered by the kidneys and concentrated into the urine. If the victim smokes more than twenty cigarettes a day it can double the risk of the most common type of kidney cancer (Eshrick 55). The last cancer is cervical cancer, the chemicals damage the cervix. There are cells in the lining of the cervix called Langerhans cells that specifically help fight against diseases. These cells do not work well in smokers (Eshrick
Scientists and health officials have been arguing the detrimental effects smoking has on our health for many years. Smoking can lead to serious complications including asthma, pancreas, lung and stomach cancer due to the large number of carcinogens (cancer causing chemicals) and other various substances added to it. It is a health hazard for both smokers and non-smokers and it is especially harmful to unborn babies. Although smokers claim that it helps them to relax and release stress, the negative aspects of the habit take over the positive. As it has been stressed by the scientists and experts, there are some very severe reasons of smoking but its crucial consequences should also be taken into consideration.