YOUR CANCER YOUR LIFE – UNCONTROLLED GROWTH (ESCAPING THE NORMAL MECHANISMS)
Cancer cells have escaped the normal mechanisms by which the body controls growth and differentiation. Remember in the example of the broken leg, the cells grow and differentiate in an orderly fashion to repair the broken bone and soft tissues. Once this is done, they stop growing.
Not so with cancer cells. For a start, their multiplication has no purpose— it is not in order to replace or repair. The cells do not differentiate into useful cells. They keep growing to the detriment of the body and regardless of its normal control mechanisms. Unlike normal body cells we can think of cancer cells as uncooperative, disobedient, and independent.
Once cancer cells develop the ability to override the body’s normal controls over growth and differentiation, there is another quite different natural system which may destroy them. This is the immune system. It consists of a complicated series of different types of white blood cells which fight together to rid the body of unwanted invaders like bacteria, viruses and so on. The cells of the immune system are also able to recognise that cancer cells are undesirable, even though they actually are part of the body and not foreign invaders. Thus the immune system has some ability to destroy cancer cells. This ability is stronger for some types of cancer than others.
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