Back in the early part of the 1990's a film called 'The Medicine Man' was released and the story revolved around a doctor working in South America who discovers the cure for cancer, only to lose it in a local disaster. Think about that for a moment. Research over the years has helped our understanding of cancer but not to the point where we are able to foretell exactly when it will happen.

Of course many researchers belief that we are in effect born with cancer which is just waiting for something to set if off, but just what is cancer? They are able to spread to other areas of the body in a process called metastasis.

There are rare occasions when a benign tumor changes to a malignant one. It causes more deaths per population than any other illness, a staggering thirteen percent and the older you get the more prone you are to contracting the disease. While smoking, chemicals and radiation for instance, can be the cancer trigger, it is the poison from these or other sources that transform body cells and create genetic abnormalities which grow and multiply.

A genetic trait may be inherited and thus present in all cells from birth. It is still not fully understood why one person will contract the disease and another be free from it but it is believed that the interactions between any carcinogens and each person's particular DNA is complicated.

Owing to this ongoing, worldwide research, we do actually know a considerable amount about cancer even if we are some way from finding a complete and consistent cure. Much of the world's research into diseases is to try and find the reason why some people do not contract certain diseases while others do. We all want to know more about the causes of cancer what we can do to help prevent this illness from striking.

There is a saying 'You Are What You Eat' and this is now being looked at more closely as food may have a direct effect on the incidence of the disease in certain groups. Studies have shown that there is a connection between dairy produced calcium and prostrate cancer.

Cancer does not seem to have preferences as it is able to invade just about every part of the human body and organs. Sometimes the disease is only picked up through routine screening. For those people diagnosed with cancer, my heart goes out to them and their families.