From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…
Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast
cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites,
journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and
share them with you. Today: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sharks-do-get-cancer-tumor-found-great-white/,
http://qz.com/523764/these-two-cancer-resisting-animals-offer-hope-for-a-human-cure/
Cancer.
I hate that word.
Why can’t we just get the secret of sharks, because as
everyone knows, sharks don’t get cancer!
Unfortunately, that’s a lie...following the link above will
give you a look at a truly gross picture that proves, once and for all that
sharks DO get cancer! So stop spreading the fable!
On the other hand, ARE there living things that don’t
experience the uncontrolled growth of cells?
As far as we can
tell, yes. They are NOT as horrifyingly threatening as the creature that bears razor-sharp
teeth and was immortalized by a musical bar containing “a simple alternating
pattern of two notes—variously identified as E and F or F and F sharp”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_(soundtrack))
According to the
second article, while elephants DO get cancer, the rate is remarkably less that
Humans: “only 5% of elephants die of cancer in comparison to more than 20%
humans”, this despite the fact that there are more cells in an elephant to GET
cancer with!
The other animal
that doesn’t get cancer is the…(pause for effect) naked mole rat.
Ewwww…
However, “as far
as we know, [these animals] never develop cancer. Even if researchers try to
induce cancer through artificial means.” The reason appears to be that there’s
a substance called hyaluronan between rat cells. It’s a polymer, a long string of natural sugars
that both makes the cells stronger as well as prevents the wild overgrowing of
cells that we call cancer.
The thing is, is
that Humans DO have hyaluronan, but it’s used for different things like
balancing the exchange of water and plasma in the bloodstream, it may be a
factor in cell division (aka mitosis), and cell movement. It also seems to play
a role in deciding what kind of cell will grow from a basic type – muscle,
nerve, liver, etc. It’s recognized as having the ability to protect cells and
as such, it is used in eye surgery. Even so, it ALSO appears that conversely to
what it does in the naked mole rat, hyaluronan that accumulates in between cells
can cause them to malfunction.
Complex
reactions that we don’t quite understand yet – but…but…but… “Rochelle
Buffenstein, a physiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center
[said], ‘As we learn more about these cancer-resistant mechanisms that are
effective and can be directly pertinent to humans, we may find new cancer prevention
strategies.’”
Resources: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1563592
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