Question: why do people live? and what causes cancer and can it be passed on in your DNA?

Sandra Phinbow answered on 13 Mar 2013:

I don’t really know why we live, but we do, and we ought to try and have a nice life if we can. We only have one life so we may as well get the best out of it. I think it’s really special that out of all the millions of sperm, you were born and I was born, we were pretty lucky.

Cancer is a big topic and pretty complicated! Theres around 200 types of cancer and it can affect any part of your body. And what can affect one area of the body might not affect another – smoking can give you lung cancer, but it won’t cause skin cancer, and sun beds wont give you lung cancer but they can cause skin cancer (skin cancer is proper nasty, so don’t go on sunbeds or let yourself burn in the sun! Get some spray stuff from the shops instead).

But lots of things can cause or link to cancer or encourage it’s growth. – Smoking, sun beds! Sun bathing without proper protection, and viruses can cause cancer too.

Some of these viruses linked to cancer include HPV – cervical cancer, Hepatitis B and C and primary liver cancer, and Epstein-Barr Virus is linked to lymphomas.

Other factors should as drinking alcohol, being obese, and not having a lot of physical activity can have an impact.

Yes some cancers can be genetic. But there does need to be a number of genetic mutations within a cell before a cell is cancerous. People can be born already having these genetic mutations, but that does not mean they will definately get cancer, it just means they have a higher chance.