Disclaimer: I am not a doctor!
And with that out of the way, I can confidently express my long held theory that many cancers of today are caused, directly and/or indirectly, by viruses. it seems that science is just starting to unravel the evidence to back it up!
I first developed this inkling of a theory when researchers from Western Australia uncovered the gob-smacking truth that most stomach ulcers were caused by a bacteria. They went on to develop a simple antibiotic treatment for this debilitating condition. It also stemmed from the knowledge that viruses are known to cause mutations in our genes - much of our DNA is actually redundant viral DNA (conspiracy theorists would believe it to be extraterrestrial DNA) from generations of infection.
In more recent years, a Queensland scientist has invented a vaccine for the variants of the
human papilloma virus (HPv) that are known to be responsible for approximately 90% of cervical cancers.
What is not so widely known is how widespread the infection of HPv is across the human race. Some studies have shown that around 50% of western civilisation have been infected with the virus at some point in their life. It is literally as common as the cold!
What sparks me to write this post today is reading two articles that appeared in my Google Reader. The first, from the ABC, indicates that the new HPv vaccine might be useful in
warding off other cancers. The second, from New Scientist, warns of the
risk of cancer stemming from oral sex.
How are these two articles related? They both talk about HPv as being a cancer causing virus. In the second article, scientists discovered that:
"After controlling for other risk factors for throat cancer, such as drinking and smoking, the analysis revealed that people who had prior infection with HPV were 32 times as likely to have this cancer as those with no evidence of ever having the virus. And those who tested positive for a particularly aggressive strain of the virus, called HPV-16, were 58 times more likely to have throat cancer."
I said earlier that I am not a doctor, and I will also state that mathematics is not my forte and that I almost failed statistics at university. But even George W Bush should be able to see an obvious correlation the more you learn about HPv.
Here are some little known facts:
- HPv is a virus responsible for causing common warts as well as sexually transmissible (or genital) warts
- that's right! A variant of the virus that causes genital warts is responsible for the wart on your toe or your nose!
- there are over 100 known variants of HPv, only a handful of which are known to cause cervical cancer
- specific variants of the virus are known to affect specific areas of the body - such that, one variant will cause face warts, while another will cause warts on the feet, and yet another on the hands etc
- external warts are relatively easy to remove by chemical treatment or burned off with liquid nitrogen, internal warts usually require surgical removal
- HPv is highly contagious - it can be transmitted simply by touching an infected area even if there are no warts visible.
- the majority of HPv carriers will show no signs of infection and can transmit the virus to anyone they have close contact with.
I firmly believe that we are on the verge of discovering the secret of cancer and its relationship with common viral infections. That is not to say that what we eat and drink, or whether we smoke or inhale other toxic pollutants, has no effect on our risk of cancer.
Quite the opposite - those are well proven factors associated with risk of cancer. however we are now starting to explain why a healthy non-smoker can end up with throat cancer and that will mean a great deal when it comes to preventative measures such as vaccinations.
5 years ago, cancers were known to be caused by environmental conditions and exacerbated by diet, lifestyle or genetic factors.
Today, we know that HPv is the likely cause of several common cancers including that of the cervix, vulva and vagina in women, and potentially tonsils, throat in the wider populace. Previous studies have shown that the risk of bowel cancer does not increase through anal intercourse per se, however it is known that some variants of HPv can lead to cancer of the bowel, anus, penis and testes. Do your own risk assessment.
Given what we know today compared with what we knew yesterday, I think the medical world still has some surprises left for us. it won't come as a surprise to find that we have an all-purpose cancer vaccine within the next 20 years.
