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Causes of cancer

Cancer is not an inevitable part of the aging process and it’s not a virus so we can’t catch cancer.

In a healthy body our cells continuously renew, replacing old cells so that we can grow and stay healthy. But as we get older, our body isn’t as efficient at renewing these cells and many deteriorate as a natural part of the ageing process.

When cancer grows in our bodies, there is a fault in the cells which can happen anytime during our life. Sometimes genes in our cells become damaged and cause cancer to grow or faulty genes are passed down from our family. These damaged or faulty cells grow rapidly and form growths.

Some cancers can be stopped when removed by surgery or killed using chemicals (chemotherapy or radiation) which stops the cancerous cells from multiplying, breaking off and spreading to other parts of the body through the bloodstream or lymphatic system.

Many factors influence cancer development including our age, exposure to carcinogens (cancer causing substance), our diet and lifestyle (level of exercise, smoking and drinking) and our inherited genes.

But just because we may have many of the risk factors for cancer doesn’t mean we will develop cancer as there are many ways to reduce those risks. The easiest way is to pay attention to maintaining a healthy diet, get regular exercise most days of the week, maintain a healthy body weight, don’t smoke and limit alcohol consumption.