Bert Walker, a scientist at Hopkins University in the United States, comforted everyone according to the theory of "random mutation causing cancer": "I hope that thousands of cancer patients can feel relieved because of our discovery. ..... No matter how perfect the external environment is, random mutation will always happen. 」
It is said that cancer is caused by bad luck.
"Random mutation causes cancer" means that cancer is caused by gene mutation, and the occurrence of mutation is caused by "random error". To put it bluntly, bad luck leads to bad luck in Cancer.
Over the years, a lot of scientific evidence has pointed out that cancer is caused by gene mutation. These mutations make cells out of control and lead to the formation of tumors. The so-called mutation is the error of DNA coding. If the DNA sequence is compared to a series of words, then mutation is like a typo in an article.
Burt Vauxs used "typo" as a metaphor for this variation. If the typist is too tired to type wrong, then we can attribute the cause of the mistake to "environmental factors"; If there is nothing wrong with the typist, but the defect of the typewriter itself, then the typing error caused can be called "congenital inheritance"; If the typist and typewriter are all right, but they still make a mistake, it is a "random mistake". Academically speaking, these three meanings are as follows:
? Almost all "congenital genetic" mutations are inherited from parents, and only a few "congenital mutations" appear after fertilized eggs occur. Up to now, there are more than 50 kinds of hereditary cancers. One of the most famous is Angelene Jolie's hereditary breast cancer.
? Carcinogens in "environmental factors" will destroy DNA when they come into contact with body cells, leading to DNA sequence errors. For example, cigarettes contain more than 60 carcinogenic chemicals, which can damage the DNA of our cells and cause mutations. Because smoking can directly expose the lungs to harmful environment, it is very easy to understand that smoking causes lung cancer.
? Mutations caused by "random errors" are accidental errors in DNA replication. Scientific research has found that healthy cells of normal people have an average of three mutations in the growth process, and most of these mutations occur randomly. Scientists at Hopkins University in the United States have found that the incidence of cancer is positively correlated with random mutation. This study uses mathematical model to calculate the big data of 4.8 billion people (distributed in 69 countries on six continents) 17 kinds of cancers, which is very worthy of our reference.
The more mutations in a cell, the more likely it is to change from a normal cell to a cancer cell. The question is where do so many mutations come from? Scientists from Hopkins University published a new data in March 2065438+2008. They believe that about 5% of cancers are caused by gene mutation, 29% by environmental factors or lifestyle, and about 66% by random mutation.
Professor Burt Wackstein's team estimated that about two-thirds of cancer cell mutations originated from "random errors". The cancers that belong to the category of "random mutation carcinogenesis" include brain tumor, head and neck cancer, thyroid cancer, esophageal cancer, bone cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, skin cancer, ovarian cancer, testicular cancer and lung cancer of non-smokers. Among them, brain tumor and prostate cancer are the most common, and more than 95% are caused by random mutation.