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Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

I have come to think that (or at least wonder if) maybe all cancers are viral/have a viral component: 1) Human papilloma virus causes cervical cancer (which is why women get annual "Pap smears") 2) Cancer causes tumors, ie odd growths, much the way warts and fever blisters cause growths on the body. Both warts and fever blisters are caused by virii and I don't know of any other pathogen which causes growths of that sort, by taking over the cell like that. 3) Virii are made of the same stuff as genes: RNA. This is precisely why some of them can get inserted into a cell and take it over, which is the way warts operate.

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The book mentioned by the OP discusses the "virus theory" of cancer, which was very popular for a while.

What people eventually realized was that cancer is the result of genetic mutations and there are many potential causes of the mutations, viruses being one of them. E.g. HPV can lead to cervical, anal, throat cancer, etc.

An interesting book. The books feels a little bit narrowly focused on medical oncology, but the author is a medical oncologist, so you'd expect that.

I'm in the middle of the book myself, and I half-suspect the/a common thread will turn out to be chronic inflammation. Bacteria causing ulcers causing stomach cancer seems a case in point. Also, tobacco & lung cancer: sure, the smoke contains carcinogens, but you're also looking at decades of chronic inflammation in the lungs.

Likewise, the recent WHO announcement re: cell phones & brain cancer was poopooed, since everybody knows the radiation is not powerful enough to damage DNA, but! it could certainly cause some low-grade inflammation of brain tissue. Low-grade inflammation + daily use -> chronic inflammation -> cancer?

No, I don't know how something like leukemia would fit under this rubric.

FWIW: Inflammation is known to promote infection. For example, it is well established that reducing inflammation in cystic fibrosis patients reduces incidence of infection. Reducing inflammation via diet is one of the things that helped me get off multiple drugs, most of which had anti-inflammatory properties as their primary or secondary purpose.

WHO estimates 17.8% of cancers have a viral origin. see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16404738

Thank you for the link, but it doesn't say "viral origin" it says "infection associated" and lists liver flukes (a parasite) as one of the known associated infectious agents. But great info nonetheless.

Makes me want to try HumaWorm.

> Human papilloma virus causes cervical cancer (which is why women get annual "Pap smears")

If you meant to say the test was called after the Pap-illoma virus, then it's not correct. Pap test checks for abnormally shaped cervix liner cells rather than a virus. And it is named "Pap" after a person who invented it, not a virus.

No, I didn't mean to specifically say that. I think I was vaguely aware it was named after a person. Is anything in that line factually incorrect?

(EDIT: I am guessing you are reading it that way due to the quotation marks? If you check my comment history, I think you will find I am prone to overuse of quotations. I stick them in to make it clearer it is a phrase and those words belong together. I often feel English doesn't do a good job of making such distinctions. I suspect this has something to do with growing up in a bilingual household. In German, lots of words get run together into a megaword, which makes it clear it's basically a phrase. We do not have a similar mechanism in English. I often feel that leaves too much room for misinterpretation. So it's an odd personal quirk. Sorry for the confusion.)

Thanks.

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