• Question: how can people get cancer

    Asked by shanjess to Ed, Hayley, Jason, Nathan, Sophie on 13 Mar 2013. This question was also asked by achelleabby.
    • Photo: Jason King

      Jason King answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      Cancer is basically when your cells go wrong, and start growing out of control. Every day, the cells in your body get damaged, which can makes changes to their DNA, and change how they behave, and how their growth is controlled. If these changes happen in a few critical genes, the cells become uncontrolled and you get cancer.

      This damage to the DNA can be caused by lots of different things, such as chemicals (such as those in cigarettes and radiation (like in sun light), so the more of these sorts of things you are exposed to, the higher your chances of getting cancer. It actually takes more than one mutation to get a cancer, so some people are unfortunate enough to be born with some of the mutations already, and so have a higher chance of getting the last one that will give rise to a cancer – this is why cancer often runs in families.

    • Photo: Nathan Green

      Nathan Green answered on 14 Mar 2013:

      your body is not your body. yourecells in your body are constantly regenerating and replacing old ones so the body that you had when you were small is not the same one that you have now. But when cells renew sometime they make small changes like defects on a production line and this can lead to cancer.

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