No diagnosis is more terrifying than cancer, but what exactly cancer is or is caused by is shrouded in mystery? While the disease is ordinarily associated with organs, glands, the blood or connective tissue, it’s actually a cellular phenomena that is the end result of duress at the cell level.
There are three major cellular duresses, cellular malnourishment or deficiencies in key nutrients, cellular suffocation, a lack of oxygen and cell toxicity, largely the accumulation of acids. All of these can result in disturbances in the energy pathways (how a cell produces and processes energy to do its work). At which point it can become under or dysfunctional.
What is supposed to happen is the elimination of the dysfunctional cell by the immune system or in a suicidal process called apoptosis. Once in a while however, rather than killing itself or being killed, a sick cell will activate a coping strategy for handling the three stresses. This coping strategy is rapid chaotic division, growth and a loss of functionality, turning it into what is called a cancer cell.
If this growth continues, a tumor can result and that’s what’s called a cancer, benign if it stays local, malignant if it spreads. The take-home message is the disease called cancer is about the cell and it’s duress. All disease is cell disease and, like other chronic illnesses, cancer is not caused by any one thing, but rather a triad of cellular stresses, including starvation, suffocation and toxification, which need to be addressed effectively to deal with the disease.
