What Causes Cancer? Does Anyone REALLY Know!

Kohinoor

I was diagnosed with ILC in late July. I had a lumpectomy and I had my last rads session a couple of days ago.  I started Tamoxifen six weeks ago.

When
I received the results I could not believe it. I was in total denial
for a while then when the truth began to sink in I started to accept it.
What really drove me crazy was the fact that I follow an extremely
healthy lifestyle. I'm 47 and I never smoked. I do not drink (I never drank a drop in my life). I exercise vigorously
and regularly. I follow a very healthy low-fat diet. I maintain a
healthy weight. On top of that I do not have a family history of the
disease. How did I get it! It's really beyond me.

Does anyone really know what causes cancer!!

Lojo

Yes and no --- and unfortunately much of what can trigger a single cell to go bad and start a cascade of cancerous growth are seemingly small, incidental things that we can't avoid -- like breathing (the single oxygen atoms are nasty buggers), UV light exposure, exposure to cosmic radiation... 

I also did pretty much everything right - no hormonal birth control, healthy diet, exercise, no smoking, nursed my kids... I did drink a bit, but the genetics trumped everything (in my mind) as my mom also had pre-menopausal BC (but no family history before her), and she did everything right too (and didn't really drink either). So... it stinks, and although there are all these studies that will keep coming out about how to reduce your risk, you can't reduce it to zero as long as you have breast tissue and are living in the world. It took me a while to not get angry at all the "reduce your risk" articles ("hey, I did that and I still got BC!"), but what is not emphasized is that cancer is sadly a consequence ultimately of having multiple cells in a single organism and is part of our evolutionary heritage.

WinningSoFar

In my opinion, all the mantras about healthy lifestyle habits preventing breast cancer are almost entirely a mass delusion, spread by popular magazines.  We believe it because we want to believe it and because magazines sell the idea even more. 

SpecialK

The vast majority of breast cancer, more than 80%, is not hereditary, and/or the genes involved have not yet been identified - so whether it runs in families doesn't seem to have that much bearing.  Breast cancer also does not seem to be a "lifestyle" cancer, like other types of cancer, although alcohol consumption and being overweight are thought to be risk factors.  The broad spectrum of people who are diagnosed points toward a lack of understanding about causation - and this is one of the most frustrating things about breast cancer.  I have participated in the Dr. Susan Love study (questionnaires) which is an effort to gather info to better understand what things breast cancer patients have in common so as to be more preventive in the future, and understand the disease enough to move toward a cure.  Here are links in case anyone is interested:

http://www.armyofwomen.org/drlovefoundation

https://www.healthofwomenstudy.org/