Almost Everybody Has or Will Have Cancer Cells

This is Gina Kolata, writing in The New York Times.

Cancer cells and precancerous cells are so common that nearly everyone by middle age or old age is riddled with them, said Thea Tlsty, a professor of pathology at the University of California, San Francisco. That was discovered in autopsy studies of people who died of other causes, with no idea that they had cancer cells or precancerous cells. They did not have large tumors or symptoms of cancer. “The really interesting question,” Dr. Tlsty said, “is not so much why do we get cancer as why don’t we get cancer?”

Comments (7)

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  1. Ken says:

    This is actually very interesting. A novel (at least for me) way of thinking about cancer.

  2. Joe S. says:

    So the real question is not: Why do some people get cancer? It is: Why doesn’t everybody have cancer?

  3. Devon Herrick says:

    It is scary to think everyone middle-age and above has cancer — their immune system just keeps it in check.

  4. […] as we previously reported for cancer, the question is not: Why do some people get the flu? The question is: Why doesn’t everyone get […]

  5. […] By way of encouragement, consider that “nearly everyone by middle-age or older is riddled with…cancer cells and precancerous cells” that do not develop into large tumors. Somehow our body’s natural defenses are keeping them at […]

  6. Sanjay Dosaj says:

    There is much more to cancer cells present in the body than we can think or expect. Let our scientists come forward ad explore in what ways other than cancer do these cancer cells manifest.

  7. Sanjay Dosaj says:

    Cancer cells are present in the body of every individual and are never silent – they manifest themselves as diabetes and are a cause for cardiac, metabolic and autoimmune disorders,
    Please find below the link to my published paper on this subject:-

    http://globalresearchonline.net/journalcontents/v17-2/02.pdf