What would you do if human beings suddenly realized that they are the cancer cells of the universe?

In fact, human beings and cancer cells are very much alike, and when you look at human beings, you also look at cancer!

There are a lot of similarities between macro-society and micro-society. Quite a few specialized cancer issues that seem very esoteric become easy to understand when compared to the development of human society.

For example, why are cancer cells not necessarily scary? Why does it usually take more than 10 years for cancer to develop? Why do cancer cells metastasize? Why do they keep growing? Why do they live so long? Why can't cancer cells be starved? Why do anti-cancer drugs have side effects?

Today, let's take a look at how the story of human society can help us understand seven important questions about cancer.

Why don't we have to kill cancer cells?

A lot of people talk about cancer and think that you have to kill all the cancer cells to fight it. In fact, it is not necessary, as long as the control of cancer cells, do not let the outbreak of good.

The presence of cancer cells in the body is not destined to affect health, just as the presence of human beings on the earth is not destined to destruction.

Modern humans (Homo sapiens) have been around for over 200,000 years, and before the modern industrial revolution and population explosion, humans had little impact on the overall ecology of the planet.

By the same token, before the full-blown outbreak of cancer cells, there was actually very little impact on the body.

About 30% of men in their 30s have cancerous cells in their prostate, and 70% of those over 60 have cancer, but only 14% are actually diagnosed with prostate cancer.

There is a great deal of data that proves that the human body, and cancer cells, can survive for a very long time, even for life.

(Image from website Hailo)

Why do cancer cells have a latency period of up to 10 to 30 years?

With the vast majority of cancers, it takes a long time, usually 10 to 30 years, from the initial cell mutation to when it actually ends up being cancerous. Why does it take so long?

Mainly, it's waiting for a new mutation to occur.

The new mutations do a variety of things, some of which allow the cancer cells to grow faster and not die as easily, some of which allow the cancer cells to remodel their surroundings to work for themselves, and some of which help the cancer cells to escape the regulation of the immune system.

It's almost exactly like human history.

As you can see from the chart below, humans arose 200,000 years ago and remained small in population until after 1800, when they surpassed 1 billion, and then began to explode in a big way.

(Graph: Earth's population growth curve)

Why did it take so long? Because we were waiting for the Industrial Revolution, like cancer cells waiting for a new mutation.

The Industrial Revolution brought clean water for living, mass-produced antibiotics and vaccines, so the death rate from disease fell and people lived longer. At the same time, the results of the Industrial Revolution allowed humans to better modify their environment to serve themselves and escape all kinds of natural limitations.

Why doesn't starvation kill cancer cells?

Frequently, pseudoscientific articles say that cancer cells love sugar, so patients can starve them to death by not eating sugar.

This is very naive thinking.

It's like saying humans love meat, so if you take all the pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, and fish that humans love to eat off the planet, you can starve the whole human race to death and save the planet?

Dream on.

For one thing, humans are very adaptable, and without traditional meats, we can go eat insects, snakes, and crabs, the Cantonese laugh and say nothing. It's fine if you take all that away again, many people are perfectly fine with being vegetarians! Rabbits dare to bite people when they are anxious, and people dare to grab bamboo with pandas when they are hungry and crazy!

Two, even if you can starve humans to death, but before that, more other species on the planet, or even the whole ecosystem has collapsed, because they can't get away from pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, ducks and fish either. If there are no more humans, and no more other creatures, is there any point in going through all this effort?

The same reason why "starving cancer cells to death" is unreliable.

For one thing, cancer cells are very adaptable, and without sugar, they will eat other things, such as lactic acid;

For another, many normal cells in the body, including nerve cells in the brain, cardiac muscle cells in the heart, and various kinds of immune cells, need sugar, and before you starve cancer cells, you may have already starved these important cells to death.

Why do anti-cancer drugs always have various side effects?

Whether chemotherapy drugs, targeted drugs, or immune drugs, there are always various side effects, and they may even be fatal.

Why?

The main reason is that cancer cells are too similar to normal cells. Any method of killing cancer cells may accidentally injure normal functional cells, which is a side effect.

Removing cancer cells is actually quite simple. Cancer cells are afraid of acid, alkali, hunger, cold, heat, and all sorts of things. You put sulfuric acid intravenously into the patient's bloodstream, and the cancer cells definitely die! But the problem is that the patient is also dead at that point.

It's like trying to wipe humans off the face of the earth isn't hard at all.

Nuclear bombs could take care of it, asteroid impacts could take care of it, and heavily contaminating all the water on Earth could take care of it. But the problem is that the Earth's entire lifesphere is also gone.

(Image from Standing Cool Hailo)

But can you think of any way to just remove humans without harming any other species or environment on the planet?

Very difficult. Because humans are essentially too similar to other animals.

Why do cancer cells metastasize?

The vast majority of cancer patients die because of metastasis. If the tumor cells stay in one place all their lives and don't move at all, it's usually a benign tumor. As long as it can be removed intact by surgery, it is cured.

Why do cancer cells metastasize?

Because the world is a big place and you want to get out and see it. As an organism, cancer cells are always looking for new settlements to fulfill the desire for population expansion.

Isn't that what humans do?

Our ancestors were originally in Africa, but some curious individuals went out and ventured all the way to Europe, Asia, America, and Oceania, with many deaths and injuries, but a very few succeeded in settling in new environments, reproducing their offspring, and becoming the local Adam and Eve.

The same is true of cancer cells, which start in one place and develop, initially, as benign primary tumors, but occasionally, an individual cell, due to a genetic mutation, becomes exceptionally curious and begins to break away from the collective and enter the blood or lymphatic circulation.

Most such inquisitive cancer cells die on the way to metastasis, and only a very few survive and settle in new organs, growing new tumors.

There are also questions about why sometimes tumors that are still small turn out to have metastasized widely.

It's not hard to understand. When some small fishing villages had only a few hundred people, there were already people trekking around exploring.

Why do cancer cells keep growing?

Because most cancer cells want to reproduce more offspring.

It's the same with humans.

Humans don't subjectively want to destroy the planet, they just want to be well off, have better families, and have more offspring. But the consequence of this is a dramatic expansion of the overall population and an accelerated deterioration of the ecology.

And it's an almost insurmountable trend, because individuals don't think about the overall good unless they are forced to. By enforcing family planning, China is forcing the individual to submit to the overall good, which objectively really is contributing to the preservation of the planet.

But the "whole" is still just China, not all of humanity. When this policy brought about the rapid aging of Chinese society and harmed the national interest, it was naturally abandoned.

The vast majority of people are unlikely to give up reproducing their offspring purely for the good of the planet, or for the good of all mankind.

By the same token, cancer cells do not grow slower for the sake of their health. If cancer cells could stick to family planning, scientists could be laid off.

(Image from Station Cool Hailo)

Why do cancer cells live so long?

Cancer cells not only divide to produce many offspring, but they also survive for a very long time.

Why don't cancer cells die?

Because they don't live long enough.

While it is true that if we all live shorter lives, the Earth's load will be smaller and humans as a species may exist longer, since ancient times, the most important thing that people are concerned about after solving the problem of basic food and clothing is how to live forever.

The emperors all loved alchemy, not to mention, even when Bodhi Master taught the Monkey King the skills, the monkey would ask: "Can we live forever?"

There are countless big spenders from all walks of life around the world these days who are throwing money at hiring scientists to study the biological mechanisms of aging in the hopes of reversing the process. There are even claims to increase the average human lifespan to 500 years.

I am very much in favor of improving the quality of life for the elderly, cancer research, Alzheimer's research, etc. But I don't think it's a good idea, either in terms of the earth's resources or in terms of the philosophy of life, to have people live an average of 500 years.

I once asked a bigot, "What if everyone really does live that long, and there aren't enough resources on the planet?"

He laughed and said, "You're being short-sighted, surely we'll be able to exploit other resources and even migrate to space in time."

Interestingly enough, that's what the cancer cells thought before they killed people and then hung up with them.