Question: How does cancer damage are cells and how close are you to curing/ neturalsing it?

Alex Pool answered on 9 Nov 2014:

Awesome question!

Cancer occurs when one of your cells in your body goes wrong and starts to replicate uncontrollably.

In each of your cells you have DNA which is basically the same as a computer code which all our cells use and controls everything they do. That code can occasionally go wrong either just randomly, or because things like smoking have caused it to change. That then alters what the cell does.

Our cells have to divide to make new ones for a number of reasons, whether that’s because we’re growing so need more, to heal a wound, or simply to make new cells to replace old ones. So to make more cells a cell will simply divide in two.

That process is tightly controlled and cells have to go through a number of checks to make sure they’re okay to divide. Much like when you leave the house in the morning you make sure you’ve got your bag, homework, lunch… if you don’t you go and grab it before you leave. Cells are the same, if something isn’t right they go on and fix it before they move on. But if that code has gone wrong, then the cell no longer knows to do those checks and keeps dividing. That’s how a tumour can then form and cancer starts.

It’s a little more complicated than that, but gives a rough idea.

As for how close we are to fixing it, that’s really tough. Everyone’s DNA is different, and where the code goes wrong in different people’s cancer is different too. So what might cure one person would have no affect on someone else – which is why curing cancer is so tough. We’re getting closer every day, but it’ll still take a while to identify all those differences and treat everyone.