Noted oncologist Azra Raza in her new book, The First Cell, describes the reasons why cancer is a dreaded and often fatal illness.  According to her extensive experience she wrote as follows: “ Treating cancer as one disease is like treating Africa as one country. Even in the same patient, it is not the same disease at two sites or at two different points in time. Vicious and self-obsessed, it learns to grow faster and become stronger, smarter, and more dangerous with each successive division. It is a perfect example of intelligence at a molecular level, able to perceive its environment and take actions that maximize its chances of survival.

A feedback loop, using past performance to improve its efficiency, forms the basis of its seemingly purposeful behavior. It learns to divide more vigorously with time, invading new spaces, mutating to turn the expression of pertinent genes off and on, enhancing its fitness to the landscape, optimizing seed-soil cooperation.”  In her opinion today’s practices have done little to improve treatment despite limited success and all of the millions of research papers claiming success. 

In her career, Dr. Raza has cared for hundreds of patients and unfortunately, has little regard for significant future progress in cancer research. Until the day a breakthrough occurs, if it ever does, then the best course of action is prevention.  We do know that certain life style changes can diminish the chance of contracting cancer, this includes not smoking, the reason s that using any type of tobacco can place you on a collision course with the disease.  It is wise to eat a healthy diet, maintain a healthy weight and be physically active.  Other suggestions are to protect yourself from the sun (to avoid skin cancer), and to become vaccinated. (The Human Papillomavirus  (HPV) vaccine acts against genital warts and/or different types of HPV viruses that can cause cancer.)  Other suggestions are to avoid risky behaviors (contact with certain chemicals, including radon) and to obtain regular medical care. 

Radon

Preventing the possibility of allowing radon, a silent radioactive gas from seeping into your home is not mentioned near enough.  Radon is an invisible, odorless and tasteless gas, with no immediate health symptoms, that comes from the breakdown of radioactive elements, such as uranium, which are found in different amounts in rock and soil throughout the world. Radon gas in the soil and rock can move into the air and into underground and surface water.

According to the American Cancer Society, radon is present outdoors and indoors, and normally found at very low levels in outdoor air and in drinking water from rivers and lakes.  It can be found at higher levels in the air in houses and other buildings.  Most exposure to radon comes from being indoors in homes, offices, schools and other buildings.  The gas can enter buildings through cracks in floors or walls; reconstruction joints; or gaps in foundations around pipes, wires or pumps.  Levels are highest in the basement or crawl space.  People who spend much of their time in basements at home or at work have a greater risk of being exposed.

 Radon breaks down into so-called solid radioactive elements such as polonium-218, polonium -214 and lead-214.  They can attach to dust and other particles and breathed into the lungs.  As radon elements in the air break down, they give off radiation that can damage the DNA inside body cells and eventually, cancer.

The Surgeon General of the United States stated that, “Indoor radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States and breathing it over a prolonged period can present a significant health risk.”  More than 200,000 Americans die from radon-associated lung cancer every year. Millions of homes have an elevated radon level, Kosciusko county is no exception.  The levels of the deadly radon gas in homes and other buildings depend on the characteristics of the rock and soil in the area.  Elevated levels vary greatly in different parts of the United States, sometimes within neighborhoods. 

Fortunately, radon can be detected with a simple test and fixed through well-established venting techniques.  Recent studies reveal that radon gas levels can fluctuate wildly day to day and that short-term tests can give a false sense of alarm or a false sense of security as they cannot precisely predict long-term exposure.  The only reliable way to measure levels is with a long term testing kit, 90 days or more. 

Final Thoughts

One way to learn more about cancer control including prevention, early detection, treatment and survivorship is by visiting the Kosciusko County Cancer Consortium website:  https://livewellkosciusko.org/cancer-consortium. You can easily sign up for information worth learning about.

Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels.  Eclectic Science, the title of his column,  touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging,  various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at  [email protected].