Fish oil, a food rich omega-3 has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Why is it important fish oil?

As with other fats, our body requires a significant amount to survive. Fish oils, are involved in the process by which water, oxygen and nutrients are transported to every one of our 100 trillion cells and how carbon dioxide, waste and toxins are moving out of the cells.

This process should flow freely to cake our cells and our bodies healthy. The cell membrane, composed primarily of fats, found in the center of this exchange process. These membranes are like your skin: a protective barrier which is selective about what is allowed in and out.

Stress, toxicity, poor nutrition, a bad break and poor water quality can cause the cell membranes of our bodies are rigid and prematurely aged. The more rigid and unhealthy our cell membranes are more likely to suffer symptoms such as lethargy, stiffness, headaches and more.

If it increases, can lead to more serious and troubling symptoms as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, chronic pain and even chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes.

By improving our lifestyle and get the amount of healthy fats in our diet, we can make our cell membranes are soft, supple and healthy. This is the way to restore and maintain good health. In addition, omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil have a positive effect on the accumulation of proteins in muscle and improve insulin sensitivity.

In the immune system, a large part of the body’s defense against cancer is carried out directly by cells, rather than by antibodies circulating in the blood. For example, the presence of tumor antigens on cancer cells can activate certain white blood cells (lymphocytes and in a much lesser degree, monocytes) which perform an immune surveillance seeking and destroying cancer cells.

The primary role of the immune system to control the development of a cancer cell is exemplified by a startling statistic: Cancer is 100 times more likely to occur in people who take drugs that suppress the immune system (eg, because of transplant of an organ or a rheumatic disease) than in those with normal immune systems. Also, sometimes a transplanted organ is a cancer that was not diagnosed before transplantation. The cancer could have been growing very slowly or may not have grown at all in the donor organ. However, it begins to grow and spread rapidly in the transplant patient, whose immune system is nullified by the drugs supplied to protect the transplant. In general, when drugs that decrease the immune response are suspended, the transplanted organ is rejected and transplanted cancer is also destroyed.

Family history is an important factor. Some families have a much higher risk of developing certain cancers than others. For example, the risk of developing breast cancer in women increases from 1.5 to 3 times if the mother or sister had this type of cancer. Some breast cancers are linked to a specific gene mutation more common in some ethnic groups and in some families.

Women with this genetic mutation have between 80 and 90 percent chance of developing breast cancer and 40 to 50 percent of ovarian cancer. Researchers have found that one percent of Ashkenazi Jewish women have this genetic mutation. Many other cancers, including some types of skin cancer and colon cancer, also tend to affect entire families. People with chromosomal abnormalities have an increased risk of cancer.

For example, those with Down syndrome, which have three chromosomes instead of the usual two on the par-21, are 12 to 20 times greater risk of developing acute leukemia.

Environmental factors can also increase the risk of cancer. One of the most important task is to snuff, and that substantially increases the risk of developing cancers of the lung, mouth, larynx and bladder.

Another is the prolonged exposure to ultraviolet radiation, especially from the sun that causes skin cancer. Ionizing radiation, which are particularly carcinogenic, are used in X-rays are produced in nuclear reactors and atomic bomb explosions, and reach the Earth from space.

For example, survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II have an increased risk of developing leukemia. The exposure of uranium miners has been linked to the development of lung cancer 15 or 20 years later. The risk increases much more if you also smoke miners. Exposure to ionizing radiation for a long time predisposes to cancer cells in blood, such as acute leukemia.

Diet is another important risk factor for cancer, particularly of the gastrointestinal system is affected. A diet high in fiber reduces the likelihood of developing colon cancer. A diet high in smoked and spicy foods increase the likelihood of developing stomach cancer. Current evidence suggests that a diet in which less than 30 percent of calories from fats reduces the risk of colon cancer, breast and possibly prostate cancer. Heavy drinkers of alcohol have a high risk of developing esophageal cancer.

It is well known that many chemicals cause cancer, presumably the same for many others. Exposure to certain chemicals commonly used can increase strongly, often years later, the possibility of developing a cancer. For example, exposure to asbestos can cause lung cancer and mesothelioma (cancer of the pleura). Cancer is more common in smokers who have been exposed to asbestos.

The risk of cancer also varies according to where you live. The risk of colon and breast cancer is low in Japan, but grows in the Japanese who have emigrated to the United States and reaches to match the rest of the American population. The Japanese have very high rates of stomach cancer. However, the incidence is lower in Japanese born in the United States. This geographic variation in cancer risk probably depends on many factors: a combination of genetics, diet and environment.

Several viruses are known to cause cancer in humans, and is suspected of several others. For example, the papillomavirus that causes genital warts is probably a cause of cervical cancer in women, CMV causes Kaposi’s sarcoma virus, hepatitis B can cause liver cancer, but has not yet been determined whether it is a carcinogen or a promoter. In Africa the Epstein-Barr virus causes Burkitt’s lymphoma, and in China causes cancers of the nose and pharynx. Obviously, you need some additional factor, either environmental or genetic, that this virus causes cancer. Some human retroviruses such as human immunodeficiency virus, causes lymphomas and other blood cancers.

Some parasites can cause cancer, is the case of Schistosoma (Bilharzia), which can cause bladder cancer by chronic irritation it. However, other causes of chronic irritation of the bladder does not cause cancer. Clonorchis infection, found mainly in the Far East, it can lead to cancer of the pancreas and bile ducts.

The next step is to promote, in this way a cell that has begun its change becomes cancerous. The promotion has no effect on cells that have not undergone the initiation process. Thus, several factors, often a combination of a susceptible cell and a carcinogen, are needed to cause cancer.

Returning to the process by which a normal cell becomes a cancer cell has been that in the end, the DNA also undergoes some changes. These changes in the genetic material of cells are often difficult to detect, but sometimes a change in the size or shape of a particular chromosome indicates a certain type of cancer.

For example, an abnormal chromosome called Philadelphia is found in about 80 percent of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. Other genetic changes have also been identified in brain tumors and cancers of the colon, breast, lung and bone.

For the development of some cancers, may require several chromosomal changes. Studies of families with polyposis of the colon (an inherited intestinal disorder in which polyps develop and become cancerous) have explained in this way how colon cancer develops: the normal lining of the colon begins to grow actively ( hiperproliferative) because the cells do not have a suppressor gene on chromosome 5 that normally controls the growth of the lining of the intestine.

A slight alteration in the DNA then produces changes that lead to the formation of an adenoma (a benign tumor). Another gene (the oncogene RAS) causes the adenoma grows more actively.

The consequent loss of a suppressor gene on chromosome 18, in the long run, stimulate the adenoma and, finally, the loss of a gene on chromosome 17 benign adenoma turns into cancer.

Other additional changes can make the cancer metastasize (spread). If a cell has already become cancerous, the immune system can often destroy it before it reproduces and is established as a cancer.

Cancer is more likely to develop when the immune system does not operate normally, as in people with AIDS, those taking drugs that inhibit the immune response and in those with certain autoimmune diseases. However, the immune system is not foolproof, because the cancer may escape the protective surveillance of the immune system even when operating normally.

Surgery: invasive technique to remove the tumor. Usually also extracted tissue surrounding the tumor, to prevent metastasis.

Radiation therapy: high-energy rays are used to damage cancer cells, thereby halting its growth and division.

Chemotherapy is drug treatment, which involves the injection of drugs that attack cancer cells in blood vessels or muscles. Chemotherapy is usually given in cycles, ie, after a treatment period is a recovery.

Hormone therapy: some types of cancer, including breast and prostate cancer depends on certain hormones for growth. Therefore, the specialist may recommend this type of therapy to prevent cancer cells from collecting or using the hormones needed to be further developed. This is achieved through the removal of ovaries or testes, in some cases, or by drugs that stop the hormone production.

Biological therapy: also called immunotherapy, is a treatment that uses the body itself to protect the body from infectious disease or treatment effects through the immune system.

The doctor may use a method or a combination of methods. The choice of treatment depends on the type and location of cancer, whether the disease has spread, the patient’s age and general health, among other factors.

If you are in an early stage can remove the tumor quirúrgicamente.Ahora if it has already spread is used to radiotherapy (high energy X rays) or a combination thereof and chemotherapy (drugs effective against cancer cells).

Treatment is essential because a patient with untreated lung cancer has an average survival of six months.

The non-small lung cancers are classified into several stages or phases following a fairly complex system known by the acronym TNM. The staging of the tumor is very important because it can, first, to distinguish patients cured of which are not and, secondly, to calculate the probability of being cured.

The T refers to tumor size. It is classified between T1 and T4, as the more bulky tumor affecting nearby structures or important as the main bronchi, arteries, or the heart itself.

The N indicates whether or not they affected the nearby lymph nodes. N0 means that they are not. The lymph node involvement is an important prognostic factor that graduates from N1 to N3. In particular it is vital to know whether or not invaded most central nodes of the thorax, a region known as the mediastinum. In general, involvement of the mediastinum means the tumor is inoperable.

M indicates if no metastasis (M0) or, conversely, if the cancer has already branched out to distant organs (M1).

The snuff smoking is the main cause in 90% of cases of lung cancer in both men and women. Decades ago, this tumor was much less common in women and it was featured it was more likely that was not related to snuff. These differences are disappearing rapidly, reflecting the incorporation of women with smoking in the previous years.

Another part of this type of cancer is caused by inhaled substances and who are in the workplace, a phenomenon related to the 10% -15% of lung cancer in males and 5% in women. The most important of these substances are asbestos, such as those used in asbestos factories.

Lung cancer can also be caused by radiation received at the chest, such as treatment with radiation therapy used to treat breast cancer and lymphoma. The interval between radiation exposure and cancer onset is usually very long, around age 20. The greatest risk are people who tried for many years with old appliances, and smoked during the following years. The risk with modern radiotherapy equipment is very low.

Hereditary factors have little relation to lung cancer.