CANCER AND AGING
Again, we’re scoring victories against all forms of this disease, but it remains a formidable foe. In 1990, there were 505,322 cancer deaths in the United States.
Dr. Harmon Eyre, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, urges you to learn your family medical history and to share it with your physician. He says knowing that a patient’s relatives had cancer helps doctors diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure it. The search is on for a treatment to overcome both the inherited and the habitual tendencies of families that develop cancers. Environmental pollution containing cancer-causing chemicals may also be an important factor.
An exciting discovery in 1996 revealed that at least two genes make a woman susceptible to breast cancer and, possibly, ovarian cancer as well. However, only a small minority of women who develop breast cancer also harbor these genes. Other as yet undiscovered genes may be involved not only in breast cancer but other cancers also.
(Genes are bits of chemicals that control your body’s chemical system. The genes are found in almost all cells in your body. You inherit genes from your parents. There are good genes – they make you more likely to live longer – and bad genes – they make you more likely to contract a disease.)
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