Genetics vs. Enviroment
The recent release of the "genome project" has focussed attention on the genetic basis underlying cancer risk.
However, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine emphasizes the importance of lifestyle and environmental factors in the development of cancer. In a study of 44,788 pairs of twins, genetic factors were found to account for considerably less than half of cancer risk. The study estimated that genetic contribution to breast cancer accounted for 27%, in colorectal cancer for 35%, in lung cancer for 26% and in prostate cancer for 42%. The risks could be much lower as twins often share some similar environmental and lifestyle factors.
This study is a timely reminder that our genes are not the sole determinant of our illnesses and that there is much that we can do to reduce the disease risk in the way we live our lives. The study mentions preventative measures such as improved diet, smoking cessation and safe sex as more important in the cancer debate than genetic determination. The accompanying editorial supports the argument that talk of "nurture versus nature" should be dropped in favour of using every method at our disposal to identify all risk factors for cancer, including environmental and lifestyle ones.
HERE'S A THOUGHT!!
"Think negative thoughts and you thereby activate negative forces and tend to draw back to yourself negative results. Like attracts like. Send out hate and you get hate back. Send out fear and you get back fear. Send out defeat and you draw defeat to yourself. Conversely - Send out positive thoughts and positive results will come back to you. We defeat ourselves or gain victories by the thoughts we think." (Norman Vincent Peale)
CHIROPRACTIC PHILOSOPHY:
"Displacements of the osseous framework of the body are directly caused by injuries and accidents. Indirectly, thru poisons which contract the fibres of the nervous system, which in turn act on muscles, thereby drawing bones out of alignment." (DD Palmer, Founder of Chiropractic, 1910.)
"THE SCHOOL CHILD UP TO DATE."
(Elsie Duncan Yale)
Make haste to school, my little child, or else you will be late;
Your books are all aseptic now, and here's your sterile slate.
Your pencil has been boiled an hour - tis' germless, now, I hope;
And don't forget to wash your desk with this carbolic soap.
And lest about the schoolroom floor some unseen microbes lurk,
Just sprinkle formaline around before you set to work.
You'd better put, for safety's sake, bichloride in the ink;
And water that has not been boiled you must not dare to drink.
Of course, when recess comes around, some food you'll want to munch;
So in this disinfected box is predigested lunch.
And since 'tis said that in a kiss bacteria may dwell,
I may not give you, as I'd like, a mother's fond farewell.
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