Cancer might just be one of the most feared and dreaded diseases. Cancer is responsible for the death of nearly 9.5 million people in 2018 all over the world. It is the second leading cause of death as per the world health organization. As per studies, in India, we see 1300 deaths due to cancer every day. These statistics are truly astonishing and scary. In the recent few decades, the number of cancer has been increasingly on the rise. So let us take a look at the meaning, causes, and types of cancer in this article on cancer.
Cancer comes in many forms and types. Cancer is the collective name given to the disease where certain cells of the person’s body start dividing continuously, refusing to stop. These extra cells form when none are needed and they spread into the surrounding tissues and can even form malignant tumors. Cells may break away from such tumors and go and form tumors in other places of the patient’s body.
Types of Cancers
As we know, cancer can affect any part or organ of the human body. We all have come across various types of cancer – lung cancer, blood cancer, pancreas cancer, stomach cancer, skin cancer, and so many others. Biologically, however, cancer can be divided into five types specifically – carcinoma, sarcoma, melanoma, lymphoma, leukemia.
Among these, carcinomas are the most diagnosed type. These cancers originate in organs or glands such as lungs, stomach, pancreas, breast, etc. Leukemia is the cancer of the blood, and this does not form any tumors. Sarcomas start in the muscles, bones, tissues or other connective tissues of the body. Lymphomas are the cancer of the white blood cells, i.e. the lymphocytes. And finally, melanoma is when cancer arises in the pigment of the skin.
Causes of Cancer
In most cases, we can never attribute the cause of any cancer to one single factor. The main thing that causes cancer is a substance we know as carcinogens. But how these develop or enter a person’s body will depend on many factors. We can divide the main factors into the following types – biological factors, physical factors, and lifestyle-related factors.
Biological factors involve internal factors such as age, gender, genes, hereditary factors, blood type, skin type, etc. Physical factors refer to environmental exposure of any kind to say X-rays, gamma rays, etc. And finally, lifestyle-related factors refer to substances that introduced carcinogens into our bodies. These include tobacco, UV radiation, alcohol. smoking, etc.
Treatment of Cancer
Early diagnosis and immediate medical care in cancer are of utmost importance. When diagnosed in the early stages, then the treatment becomes easier and has more chances of success. The three most common treatment plans are either surgery, radiation therapy or chemotherapy.
If there is a benign tumor, then surgery is performed to remove the mass from the body, hence removing cancer from the body. In radiation therapy, we use radiation (rays) to specially target and kill the cancer cells. Chemotherapy is similar, where we inject the patient with drugs that target and kill the cancer cells. All treatment plans, however, have various side-effects. And aftercare is one of the most important aspects of cancer treatment.
Nowadays Ayurvedic treatment and natural treatment is opted by most of the peoples. In Arogyadham Health care clinic we use in Ayurveda many herbs and the extracts of herbs and in natural treatment, we use curcumin extract 95 % which is very effective to stop the growth of cancer cells and also reduce the cancer cells. The detail of these herbs is mentioned in our next article.
