Quotes & Sayings About Cancers

Earth can be bad for your health too. On land, grizzly bears want to maul you; in the oceans, sharks want to eat you. Snowdrifts can freeze you, deserts dehydrate you, earthquakes bury you, volcanoes incinerate you. Viruses can infect you, parasites suck your vital fluids, cancers take over your body, congenital diseases force an early death. And even if you have the good luck to be healthy, a swarm of locusts could devour your crops, a tsunami could wash away your family, or a hurricane could blow apart your town.
So the universe wants to kill us all. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

When you have a diagnosis of cancer, or any serious illness, your choices are basically to be passive and kind of accept whatever is offered you, or to be active and to learn about your disease, and understand your options, and be an active partner with your doctor. That's the course I took with all three of my cancers. — Hamilton Jordan

There are certain mutations you can find across cancers in different organs. — Eric Topol

Combine anti-cancer foods to maximize protection against all cancers: A number of plant foods are associated with lower risk of cancers, and substances contained in these foods display anti-cancer or immune-boosting properties. — Joel Fuhrman

The immune system's goal is to protect the body against invaders either from without, such as microbes, or from within, such as cancers and different types of neoplastic transformation. — Anthony Fauci

I've never been in parliament as a National, I gave up smoking about the same time [and] I've rid myself of two cancers. — Tony Windsor

Excessive chemicals eventually inhibit your immune system (the defence against infections and illnesses) making you vulnerable to viruses of every shape and size. They will lower the production of serotonin (making you feel listless and joyless as in depression) and can eventually, if they remain virulent, cause heart disease, hardening of the arteries, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. Inadvertently stress will destroy you both mentally and physically unless you change the way you think about it and relate to it. With — Ruby Wax

I don't think we will find a cure for all cancers in the next 50 years let alone 20. I think it's foolishness to say that. — Robert Winston

Up to 10% of childhood cancers are caused by radiological examination during pregnancy. — Richard Doll

If I were a 40-year-old woman, 40-to-50, I'd want to be getting my mammograms. They catch cancers, and cancer is very curable if you catch it early. — Ann Romney

In 2002, four Danish scientists began examining grocery receipts. This may sound like a waste of taxpayer dollars, but in fact it was the kind of experiment other scientists describe as "elegant." For years, science had been grappling with the unexplained health benefits of wine - wine drinkers seemed more resistant to coronary heart disease and certain cancers, but no one knew why. Predictably, there was a large-scale effort to rip wine apart in search of whatever compound was working its peculiar magic on the human body and turn it into a pill. (Resveratrol was one.) The Danish group came at it from a different angle. They didn't need a gas chromatograph. They needed receipts. They wanted to know what else all those healthy wine drinkers were buying when they visited the supermarket. — Anonymous

I don't even know if I will be around next year. My cancers are so bad that I think I've arrived at the end of the road. What a pity. I would like to live not only because I love life so much, but because I'd like to see the result of the trial. I do think I will be found guilty. — Oriana Fallaci

A cancer is not simply a lung cancer. It doesn't simply have a certain kind of appearance under the microscope or a certain behavior, but it also has a set of changes in the genes or in the molecules that modify gene behavior that allows us to categorize cancers in ways that is very useful in thinking about new ways to control cancer by prevention and treatment. — Harold E. Varmus

Some cancers are curable, while others are highly incurable. The spectrum is enormous. Metastatic pancreatic cancer is a highly incurable disease, whereas some leukemia forms are very curable. There is a big difference between one form and another. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Every cancer looks different. Every cancer has similarities to other cancers. And we're trying to milk those differences and similarities to do a better job of predicting how things are going to work out and making new drugs. — Harold E. Varmus

Given the number of small cancers they did find and the number that they reasoned they had missed...the researchers concluded that virtually everybody would have some evidence of thyroid cancer if examined carefully enough. — H. Gilbert Welch

There are cancers so insidious in their nature that their very pulsation is invisible. Such cancers leave the ivory whiteness of the skin untouched, and marble not the firm, fair flesh, with their blue tints; the physician who bends over the patient's chest hears not, through he listens, the insatiable teeth of the disease grinding its onward progress through the muscles, as the blood flows freely on; the knife has never been able to destroy, and rarely even, temporarily, to discern the rage of these mortal scourges; their home is in the mind, which they corrupt; they fill the whole heart until it breaks. Such, madame, are the cancers, fatal to queens; are you, too, free from their scourge? — Alexandre Dumas

Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body. It is from there that both babies and cancers are born. — Yann Martel

Very few people would choose to have even the most fabled assortment of goods if it meant getting cancer within the year. But the choice involves not the certainty of cancer very soon but an increased probability of cancer at some time in the future. The cancers are no less real; millions will die painfully and prematurely because of what we do to our environment. But the choice is not an easily visualizable one, and our capacity of denial comes strongly into play - as it tends to whenever we must weigh future costs against immediate benefits. — Paul L Wachtel

According to leading researchers, however, only about 10 to 15 percent of cancers are genetic in origin; the rest are caused by a combination of environmental and lifestyle factors. — Dharma Singh Khalsa

Millions of Americans every year depend upon medical imaging exams to diagnose disease and detect injury, and thousands more rely on radiation therapy to treat and cure their cancers. — Charles W. Pickering

Elsewhere the paper notes that vegetarians and vegans (including athletes) 'meet and exceed requirements' for protein. And, to render the whole we-should-worry-about-getting-enough-protein-and-therefore-eat-meat idea even more useless, other data suggests that excess animal protein intake is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract, and some cancers. Despite some persistent confusion, it is clear that vegetarians and vegans tend to have more optimal protein consumption than omnivores. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Although cancer is not universally caused by viruses, certain viruses cause particular cancers, such as the human papilloma virus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Aside from certain rare cancers, it is not possible to detect any sudden changes in the death rates for any of the major cancers that could be credited to chemotherapy. Whether any of the common cancers can be cured by chemotherapy has yet to be established. — John Cairns

Two to 4% of cancers respond to chemotherapy ... The bottom line is for a few kinds of cancer chemo is a life extending procedure-Hodgkin's disease, Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), Testicular cancer, and Choriocarcinoma. — Ralph W. Moss

African-American women who develop breast cancer are more likely to die from the disease than White women of the same age. Survival rates are worse among African-Americans for colon, prostate and ovarian cancers as well. — Frank C. Garland

We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers. — Elizabeth Blackburn

Children with multiple ACEs are more likely to struggle with anxiety and depression, to suffer from heart disease and obesity, and to contract certain types of cancers. They're also more likely to underperform in school and suffer from relationship instability as adults. Even excessive shouting can damage a kid's sense of security and contribute to mental health and behavioral issues down the road. Harvard — J.D. Vance

A study of over 10,000 patients shows clearly that chemo's supposedly strong track record with Hodgkin's disease (lymphoma) is actually a lie. Patients who underwent chemo were 14 times more likely to develop leukemia and 6 times more likely to develop cancers of the bones, joints, and soft tissues than those patients who did not undergo chemotherapy . — John Diamond

It's got you thinking - you've never really known anyone who's died of natural causes, have you? Parents and grandparents, plus friends and neighbors and casual lovers, they've all left you too early, and in such ghastly ways. Cancers and violence, accidents and congenital defects, aneurysms of the brain and psyche. You've heard of people who've slipped peacefully away in their sleep, or in their favorite easy chairs, after ripe octogenarian lives, but suspect they must be mythical, in the company of unicorns and mermaids. If you didn't know better, you'd think there was a deliberate methodology behind it all, a gradual pattern of calamity spiraling inward until, at last, you're the only one left to be dealt with. You could be expected to think that, but don't, because you still keep your wits about you, thank god - So to speak. — Brian Hodge

Most of the infections linked to human cancers are common in human populations; they are ubiquitous. They were present during the whole human evolution process. — Harald Zur Hausen

I had uterine cancer, which is the most under-funded and under-researched of all the female cancers. — Fran Drescher

The undue influence of money on our politics is like a cancer underlying other cancers, the issue underlying all other issues. — Marianne Williamson

The source of violence is in our heads. As it would not be appropriate to ignore "just a little" cancer in the body, so it is not appropriate for us to ignore "just a little" violent thinking. A little cancer, unchecked, turns into a monstrous killer. So do small, insidious, seemingly harmless judgmental thought forms become the pervasive cancers that threaten to destroy a society. As the body's defenses against cancer center around a healthy immune system, our chief defense against violence in America is our own individual efforts to cleanse our minds of violent thinking. Each and every one of us tends to be angrier and less tolerant of others than we know in our hearts that we should be. — Marianne Williamson

In general, all cancers have been traditionally characterized by the way they appear under the microscope and the organs in which they arise. — Harold E. Varmus

Being treated by a doctor who specializes in your kind of cancer is so important, especially for those of us who have rare or very rare cancers. They will have access to newer treatment options that may be offered only at big academic cancer centers, so you don't miss out on treatments that could help you. — Kathy Giusti

In 2006, the Vogelstein team revealed the first landmark sequencing effort by analyzing thirteen thousand genes in eleven breast and colon cancers. (Although the human genome contains about twenty thousand genes in total, Vogelstein's team initially had tools to assess only thirteen thousand.) In 2008, both Vogelstein's group and the Cancer Genome Atlas consortium extended this effort by sequencing hundreds of genes of several dozen specimens of brain tumors. As of 2009, the genomes of ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, and several forms of leukemia have been sequenced, revealing the full catalog of mutations in each tumor type. Perhaps — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Do freshman philosophy classes nowadays debate updated versions of the age-old questions? Like, how could a merciful God allow AIDS, childhood cancers, tsunamis and Dick Cheney? — Dick Cavett

I hope I can become a voice for all cancers and all patients. — Kathy Giusti

Melanoma is not the most common of skin cancers, but it is the most dangerous if not found in the early stages. — Jane Green

Studies continue to provide evidence that more than any other food, fruit is associated with lowered mortality from all cancers combined. — Joel Fuhrman

I had two primary cancers, which was pretty unusual. And when I got the second one, people told me such terrible bad-news stories, they instigated fears that weren't there in the first place. I do remember with such gratitude one doctor saying to me, 'Two primaries? That's nothing. I've seen a patient with six.' — Sam Taylor-Wood

Consuming mushrooms regularly has been associated with decreased risk of breast, stomach and colorectal cancers. — Joel Fuhrman

Be that as it may, I have been noticing a statistically significant correlation between excessive childhood exposure to radiation and cancers later in life. — Kim Van Alkemade

Probably the most important reason we are seeing more cancers than before is because the population is ageing overall. And cancer is an age-related disease. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

I saw my father's wooden filing cabinet, his framed diplomas stacked on top of it, just as they'd been brought from his office. In that cabinet lay records of the colds, cut fingers, cancers, broken bones, mumps, diphtheria, births and deaths of a large part of Mill Valley for over two generations. Half the patients listed in those files were dead now, the wounds and tissue my father had treated only dust. — Jack Finney

I continue to be amazed by our bodies' ability for self-repair ... Our bodies want to be healthy, if we would just let them. That's what these new research articles are showing: Even after years of beating yourself up with a horrible diet, your body can reverse the damage, open back up the arteries-even reverse the progression of some cancers. Amazing! So it's never too late to start exercising, never too late to stop smoking and never too late to start eating healthier. — Michael Greger

Tell him I write of worms and corruption, because I like worms and corruption. Tell him I believe in the fundamental wickedness and worthlessness of man, & in the rot in life. Tell him I am all for cancers. And tell him, too, that I loathe poetry. I'd prefer to be an anatomist or the keeper of a morgue any day. Tell him I live exclusively on toenails and rumours. I sleep in a coffin too, and a wormy shroud is my summer suit. — Dylan Thomas

Secrets...were cancers. Secrets festered. Secrets ate away at your innards, leaving behind nothing but a flimsy husk. — Harlan Coben

There are clearly environmental factors that can decrease the incidence and death from cancer. I would still say though that the majority of cancers cannot be prevented at this point, but they can be treated and they can be treated two major ways. — Laurie Glimcher

There is no longer any question about the importance of fruits and vegetables in our diet. The greater the quantity and assortment of fruits and vegetables consumed, the lower the incidence of heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. There is still some controversy about which foods cause which cancers and whether certain types of fat are the culprits with certain cancers, but there's one thing we know for sure: raw vegetables and fresh fruits have powerful anti-cancer agents. — Joel Fuhrman

When I heard that heart disease kills more women than all cancers combined - when I heard that, I knew. The other thing that's very important is that heart disease ... is preventable. There are some specific lifestyle changes that women can make: losing weight, not smoking, exercising, eating healthy foods. Knowing the risk factors: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, [being] overweight. And if you have heart disease in your family, you should see your doctor. Because this disease is preventable. — Laura Bush

The Bible diagnoses the cancer of all cancers and prescribes the cure of all cures. — Ray Comfort

Otto Warburg had, half a century before, proposed that oxidation was the cause of many cancers. — Carl Sagan

Vegetables and fruits protect against all types of cancers if consumed in large enough quantities. — Joel Fuhrman

. You are overfed yet under-nourished. Your body needs specific nutrients to run properly
or you will get mentally and physically sick. I'm talking about illnesses such as heart
disease, some cancers, diabetes and depression, for starters. So, if you're not eating
the right foods - or your "toxic waste" is inhibiting nutrient absorption - your mind will
constantly "scream" at your stomach to eat more. It does this in the form of cravings
and hunger. Problem is, most people just eat more "nutrient-dead food" and your body
continues to starve and cravings spiral out of control. — Josh Bezoni

It is important to emphasize again and again and again that finding a cure is not the problem The cures for many cancers, if not most cancers, exist. But they are not being offered to the patient who has cancer ... Being legally permitted to use an alternative cancer therapy is the problem — Barry Lynes

Nyx rubbed the ointment onto her new, darker skin. She was nearly as dark as Suha now. She supposed it would protect her from more cancers, but it was funny-looking. At least her face was the same. At least her face didn't look Chenjan.
I'm never going to get laid again, Nyx thought. — Kameron Hurley

The most dangerous cancer cells are actually the ones that are more like stem cells, which have this ability to produce themselves over and over again. More and more cancer biologists say stem-cell-like cells in cancers are the most dangerous. — Elizabeth Blackburn

I know and know of more than a few MTF's (male-to-female trannies) who've developed strange cancers. Myself, I've got a nice little case of Chronic Lymphocitic Leukemia (CLL). — Kate Bornstein

Regular consumption of fish has been shown to exert a strong anti-inflammatory effect, reduce risk for heart disease, help protect against asthma in children, moderate chronic lung disease, reduce the risk of breast and other cancers by stunting tumor growth, and ease the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and certain bone and joint diseases. Nursing and pregnant women enjoy a host of benefits from fish consumption, including support for fetal and early childhood brain and retinal development and a lowered risk of premature birth. — Mark Sisson

Cancers of all types among women are increasing. — Gro Harlem Brundtland

The notion that evil is non-rational is a more significant claim for Eagleton than at first appears, because he is (in this book [On Evil] as in others of his recent 'late period' prolific burst) anxious to rewrite theology: God (whom he elsewhere tells us is nonexistent, but this is no barrier to his being lots of other things for Eagleton too, among them Important) is not to be regarded as rational: with reference to the Book of Job Eagleton says, 'To ask after God's reasons for allowing evil, so [some theologians] claim, is to imagine him as some kind of rational or moral being, which is the last thing he is.' This is priceless: with one bound God is free of responsibility for 'natural evil' - childhood cancers, tsunamis that kill tens of thousands - and for moral evil also even though 'he' is CEO of the company that purposely manufactured its perpetrators; and 'he' is incidentally exculpated from blame for the hideous treatment meted out to Job. — A.C. Grayling

Chemotherapy's success record is dismal. It can achieve remissions in about 7% of all human cancers; for an additional 15% of cases, survival can be "prolonged" beyond the point at which death would be expected without treatment. This type of survival is not the same as a cure or even restored quality of life. — John Diamond

Industrialized countries have disproportionately more cancers than countries with little or no industry (after adjusting for age and population size). One half of all the world's cancers occur in people living in industrialized countries, even though we are only one-fifth of the world's population. Closely tracking industrialization are breast cancer rates, which are highest in North America and northern Europe, intermediate in southern Europe and Latin America, and lowest in Asia and Africa. — Sandra Steingraber

I believe that we are going to have a much deeper appreciation of what kinds of abnormalities in cancer cells and in the surrounding cells that feed and respond to cancers are vulnerabilities that will allow us to make better predictions of which kinds of drugs will work to treat these cancers. — Harold E. Varmus

I return one last time to the places of death all around us, the places of slaughter to which, in a huge communal effort, we close our hearts. Each day a fresh holocaust, yet, as far as I can see, our moral being is untouched. We do not feel tainted. We can do anything, it seems, and come away clean.
We point to the Germans and Poles and Ukrainians who did and did not know of the atrocities around them. We like to think they were inwardly marked by the after-effects of that special form of ignorance. We like to think that in their nightmares the ones whose suffering they had refused to enter came back to haunt them. We like to think they woke up haggard in the mornings and died of gnawing cancers. But probably it was not so. The evidence points in the opposite direction: that we can do anything and get away with it; that there is no punishment. — J.M. Coetzee

I think that there are cancers of the body, but I think they are what I would call cancer of the emotional system, too. These are the kind of diseases or illnesses or sicknesses of the emotional system that are as incurable as cancer. — Robert H. Schuller

Calcification is the hardening of body tissues by calcium salts or deposits. Although calcification itself is not considered a disease, it has been shown to be a significant contributing factor in nearly every known illness and aging condition, including heart disease, kidney stones, gallstones, chronic inflammation, arthritis, cancers, cataracts, eczema, psoriasis, and even wrinkles. — David Wolfe

It is important to note that there exist vast gender differences in the global role of papillomaviruses in human cancers. This is mainly due to the role of this virus family in the induction of cancer of the cervix. — Harald Zur Hausen

As a recent editorial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology put it: What we must first remember is that the immune system is designed to detect foreign invaders, and avoid out own cells. With few exceptions, the immune system does not appear to recognize cancers within an individual as foreign, because they are actually part of the self. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Ninety percent of cancers are curable in stage one. We spend billions of dollars and over 40 years searching for a cure, and we're not really that close. So why aren't we teaching people the only cure we have now? Early detection is one sh**ty year, versus the rest of your life. — Yael Cohen

When the finely tuned balance among the different parts of bodies breaks down, the individual creature can die. A cancerous tumor, for example, is born when one batch of cells no longer cooperates with others. By dividing endlessly, or by failing to die properly, these cells can destroy the necessary balance that makes a living individual person. Cancers break the rules that allow cells to cooperate with one another. Like bullies who break cooperative societies, cancers behave in their own best interest until they kill their larger community, the human body. — Neil Shubin

Everyone needs all the awareness of sarcoma they can get. Twelve thousand people get diagnosed a year. That's too many. One percent of cancers are sarcomas, and about 15% of pediatric cancers are sarcomas. — Peri Gilpin

The four most common cancers that account for about 80 percent of all cancer deaths are lung, breast, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer. — Laurie Glimcher

I try to be as positive as I can because I truly believe I am my feelings, and if I'm sad, if I have regrets, they will show up as illnesses, they will show up as cancers ... I don't want that. — Marie Helvin

One third of all of our cancers are from tobacco. It's one of the big killers in America and more than half of our kids still have environmental tobacco smoke exposure when environmental tobacco smoke is known to be associated with sudden infant death syndrome, with ear infections, respiratory infections and the rest. If we had to pick something to really go after, that would be one that I would really argue is an extraordinarily high priority and something people can actually do something about. — Richard Jackson

The ACS raised over $180 million last year through its network of 58 Divisions and 3,000 local Chapters. The Society's major public campaign is aimed at reducing smoking and cancers related to it. Yet ... the ACS has but a single (lobbyist) in Washington DC. The industry-supported Tobacco Institute, on the other hand, has a ten million dollar budget which supports dozens of Washington staff. — Michael F. Jacobson

Because thankfulness is the tonic that always cures the cancers of greed, envy and jealously, it should be taken in liberal doses daily. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

All cancers are alike but they are alike in a unique way. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

My dad had emphysema and both of my parents had chronic bronchitis and ended up with cancers - all smoking related. — Loni Anderson

Cancer is not a pretty pink ribbon, people aren't sail through their treatments. They are bald, and throwing up and some of the treatments actually increase their risk for other cancers. — Loretta Schwartz-Nobel

No, Marla says. No, she wants it all. The cancers, the parasites. Marla's eyes narrow. She never dreamed she could feel so marvelous. She actually felt alive. Her skin was clearing up. All her life, she never saw a dead person. There was no real sense of life because she had nothing to contrast it with. Oh, but now there was dying and death and loss and grief. Weeping and shuddering, terror and remorse. Now that she knows where we're all going, Marla feels every moment of her life. — Chuck Palahniuk

I have come to see that the benefits produced by eating a plant-based diet are far more diverse and impressive than any drug or surgery used in medical practice. Heart diseases, cancers, diabetes, stroke and hypertension, arthritis, cataracts, Alzheimer's disease, impotence and all sorts of other chronic diseases can be largely prevented. These diseases, which generally occur with aging and tissue degeneration, kill the majority of us before our time. — T. Colin Campbell

Delay, says Dr. Manner, is a luxury which people with right-now cancers cannot afford. — Paul Harvey

Among the cancers devouring the American body politic, one of the most virulent involves liberals who play the race card as carelessly as children playing 52 Pickup. — Deroy Murdock

You have to pay attention to who you are. You need to know your family history as well as you can. It is important for young women to have preventive care. If you catch any women's cancers early it's the difference between life and death. Do you really want to leave your kids without a mother? — Cokie Roberts

Women should know the truth. They can take it; they are adults, not children. If a mother opts for formula rather than breastfeeding, there is good evidence that her baby will score lower on IQ tests and will have a higher risk of many illnesses including some cancers, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, diarrhea and ear infections. She should know that her own risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancer will be higher, as well as her daughter's risk of breast cancer. The mother increases her own risk of diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and becoming overweight by "choosing" formula feeding. There is accumulating evidence that the risk of mental illness (alcoholism, ADHD, schizophrenia) is increased by not breastfeeding. A recent study suggested that even behaviour problems in adolescents are more likely if the child was formula fed. The longer the child is breastfed, the lower the risk both for the child and the mother. — Jack Newman

The great success stories of chemotherapy were always in relatively obscure types of cancer. Childhood leukemia constitutes less than two percent of all cancers and many of chemotherapy's other successes were in diseases so rare that many clinicians had never even seen a single case — Ralph W. Moss

Coffee is already known to be a preventive factor against mild depression, Parkinson's disease, and colon and rectal cancers. — Chris Kilham

Hereditary cancer syndromes are characterized by substantial but not absolute risks of specific cancers. — Katherine Schneider

When the brain perceives you are no longer reproductive because your hormones are out of balance, it tries to get rid of you, and it usually activates the cancers in perimenopause. — Suzanne Somers

Yesterday, here in the middle of the City, I saw a wolf turn into a Russian ex-gymnast and hand over a business card that read YOUR OWN PERSONAL TRANSHUMAN SECURITY WHORE! STERILIZED INNARDS! ACCEPTS ALL CREDIT CARDS to a large man who had trained attack cancers on his face and possessed seventy-five indentured Komodo Dragons instead of legs. And they had sex. Right in front of me. And six of the Komodo Dragons spat napalm on my new shoes. — Warren Ellis

There are estimates that 2 to 3 percent of cancers in the U.S. each year are engendered by exposure to repetitive imaging. — Eric Topol

Because tobacco is responsible for an impressive one-third of cancers, prevention efforts naturally begin with it. — Bernard Levin