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  Theories about the cause of cancer are many but the answers are not clear. Aneuploidy is an imbalance of the number of chromosomes, In cancer they usually range between 60-90 chromosomes rather than 46. No two cancers are the same. Normal cells do not de-differentiate, they progress in an abnormal way. Gene mutations are too small to cause cancer.                

  It is the number of chromosomes, not genes, that lead to the massive changes required for cancer. There are no confirmed cases of normal diploid cancer. Cancer cells are damaged cells that are trying to survive and as a consequence they cause disease. Gene theories do not explain the progression of cancer.                

  How aneuploidy affects the cancer treatments we use is discussed. Today's treatment is designed to kill cells, mostly cancer cells. Antibodies against certain abnormal genes do not work--Gleevac and Herceptin are examples. Aneuploidy explains drug resistance and why treatments targeted to certain genes cannot work.            

Studies from the Wistar Institute published in April of 2014 suggest that the microbes that make up the microflora of the intestinal tract can suppress DNA repair in the cells lining the intestinal tract and lead to colorectal cancer. It is only recently that most gastroenterologists have begun to appreciate the importance of the microflora in the gut. We...

Reseachers from John Hopkins Cancer created a statistical model measuring the proportion of cancer incidence caused by random mutations during stem cell division; this was published in the journal, Science in January of 2015. They concluded that 2/3 of cancers can be explained by "bad luck." What they really determined was an association rather than...

  Even though there is abundant evidence that people with low protective HDL cholesterol are at risk for heart attacks, a large new study refutes this myth. People with high HDL in this study of 70,000 people had a much lower incidence of heart attacks, but people with a genetic defect in producing HDL and had a low level in this study did not have an...

The first US case of mad cow disease in six years was found in central California in a dairy cow that was not slaughtered for food. It has not been reported to be transmissable in milk. Testing of downer cows is only about 0.2%, so we cannot rest assured that Americans are not being exposed to a lot of cows that have the disease but are not yet sick enough to...

  We can't blame Angelina Jolie for choosing to have a bilateral mastectomy because of the BRCA 1 gene defect. She has every right to deal with this issue. However, we can blame her and the press for sensationalizing her choice and influencing millions of women when it comes to their making a choice about how to deal with having the BRCA 1 or BRCA...