The Danger of Oral Cancer

Belonging to the group of cancers in the head and neck, oral or mouth cancer can be attributed to a variety of causes. But of these, excessive smoking and drinking are identified to be the most common. Hence, statistical figures have identified older men with a history of heavy smoking and alcohol consumption as having the greatest risk.

Oral cancer develops in the oropharynx and any part of the oral cavity. These days, its rate has been found out to increase among the younger crowd, especially people in their 30's and 40's. Oral cancer is not contagious. Nevertheless, knowledge of these risk factors would help increase people's awareness, so they can avoid them. They are as follows:

Tobacco
All forms of tobacco use—cigarette/pipe/cigar smoking, tobacco chewing and snuff dipping—could cause oral cancer.

Alcohol
The more amount of alcohol is imbibed on a regular basis, the higher a person's risk would be.

Sun
Lip cancer is the top risk associated with excessive sun exposure.

History of Head and Neck Cancer
Persons who have developed any form of head and neck cancers in the past are at risk of suffering from oral cancer in the future.

Cancer Linked to Depression?

It's perfectly understandable that having cancer could plunge anyone into depression. However, a study conducted in 2009 has hinted at the possibility that it could also occur the other way around: being seriously depressed could be indicative of an underlying cancer. Should this theory prove to be correct, then people diagnosed with depression would be prescribed to undergo various medical tests to detect tumors instead of the usual antidepressants.

As written by Colette Bouchez in her 2009 blogpost, this premise has been featured online, discussed under the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Accordingly, neuroscientists from the University of Chicago have found viable proof identifying hidden tumors to be the culprit behind the biochemical changes alluding to depression. With this comes the possibility that depression could strike the patient long before the actual formation of the cancerous tumor.

However, although researchers hold strongly to their belief that depression could have resulted from biochemical changes directly induced by the tumor cells, no confirmed explanations exist regarding the exact causes that brought them about. However, according to one theory, the reason could be traced to cytokines, immune cells that ward off illnesses, whose reaction to bacterial infections is through behavioral alterations.



Contributed By: Maris Modesto

Three Helpful Tips on Staying Cancer-Free

Despite the fact that someone has yet to come up with an exact cancer-prevention method all of us can use, there are three measures we can undertake to help us steer clear of the big “C.” They are as follows:


* Ditch the smoking habit for good.


Accordingly, kicking the smoking habit reduces your cancer risk tremendously. The cigarette alone has been attributed to a variety of cancers, namely; lung, esophagus, mouth, throat, cervix, larynx, kidney, bladder, stomach, and pancreas.


* Go easy on the booze.


There is a very good reason why they always advise drinkers to moderate their booze intake. Excessive alcohol consumption has been linked to a great number of breast cancer cases as well as cancers of the esophagus, liver, mouth, and lungs.


* Be wary of your sun exposure.


For all its life giving components, the sun could also pose serious cancer risks if you are not careful. Both kinds of its ultraviolet rays (UVA and UVB) have been ascertained to damage the skin, putting it at risk of acquiring skin problems, early wrinkling, and even skin cancer.


Contributed By: Maris Modesto

Lights Out!

Do you sleep with the lights on? If you're afraid of things that go bump in the night while you sleep, it's high time you grow up and start sleeping in total darkness. As nature would have it, keeping the lights on during bedtime puts your health at serious risk. And as to what serious danger this is, it is none other than the big “C” (cancer) itself.

As published in a Reader's digest article in July 2009, sleeping with artificial lights on causes your body to slow down its melatonin production, which eventually causes cancer. A popular theory that has been circulating for years now, it is advocated by findings from various researches. Accordingly, artificial light at night raises the risk of prostate cancer among men (based on a research by the University of Haifa in Israel) and breast cancer among post-menopausal women(based on the study of Harvard researchers).

So the next time you catch yourself about to turn on your night-light prior to bedtime, stop! Ghosts may scare the crap out of you, but for all you know, they're nowhere as real or frightening as the cancer risk of sleeping with the lights on.