Cancer

Normal, healthy, cells know it is time to divide because of cell to cell communication. When neighbouring cells are dying or damaged cells receive signals to generate new cells.

Have you ever played guitar? If you have, you will notice that your skin cells divide to create calluses in order to protect your fingertips!

Normal, healthy, cannot divide in isolation. They can only divide when other specialized cells are close by.

Cancer cells are cells that are able to divide in isolation and at an accelerated rate. They are not responding to cell to cell communication.
The lack of communication causes a second proble. Healthy cells adhere to each other in order to help in communication. Cancer cells do not always adhere to healthy cells, or to other cancer cells. This means that they can dislodge from a tumor and move around the body which means metastasis is occurring. This makes locating the source of the cancer very difficult.

Why is cancer so dangerous?
Cancer cells are rapidly dividing which means they are utilizing a ton of energy and resources. Cancer cells do not specialize, meaning that they do not contribute to the health of maintenance of the body. If you have cancer cells in your liver, they are taking a ton of energy and resources from the liver to fuel duplication, but do not contribute at all to the function of the liver.


Here is a link to an awesome website all cancer!

http://www.cancerquest.org/