Information provided by Dr. Diana Bitner, True. Women's Health:
February is Cancer Prevention Month, which reminds us to stop and focus on cancer prevention. Research shows that around 50% of cancers could be prevented with lifestyle change and early detection.
Cancer is when a cell forgets the rules. Your body is made of trillions of cells. Every cell has a job and rules about when to grow, rest, or die. Cancer starts when one cell goes rogue. What does this mean? The cell ignores stop signs, keeps dividing when it shouldn’t, does not die on schedule, and can invade nearby areas or travel where it does not belong.
Your body has built in defense systems: DNA repair, immune surveillance, and programs for when cells are supposed to die. Most of the time, the mistakes are caught in time and fixed. Cancer develops when damage outpaces repair, the immune system misses the problem, or repeated insults like tobacco, daily alcohol, UV light, chronic inflammation wear the system down. Prevention matters because it protects the cells and the system.
Screening plays a big role as well, because finding a cancer early allows for early treatment and minimal impact before the precancer or cancer can spread or cause much damage. If a cancer can be detected before it spreads out of its area of origin, for example melanoma, or breast cancer, then long term harm or need for chemotherapy are greatly reduced. Right now, we screen well for 4 out of the 100+ cancers that exist: breast, cervical, colon, and prostrate. With the introduction of Galleri, we finally have an additional warning system.
Galleri is a blood test that looks for many cancers. But, because cancer leaves fingerprints in the blood before symptoms appear, there is an opportunity for an early warning system. Galleri is a blood test that looks for tiny fragments of DNA shed by cancer cells into the bloodstream. Using advanced pattern recognition, Galleri can detect signals from 50+ types of cancer, identify a likely tissue of origin, and potentially find cancers earlier than symptoms. It does not replace mammograms, colonoscopies, PAP tests, or PSA prostrate blood tests. It does not diagnose cancer but is a signal test. It is not perfect; there are false positives and negatives.
READ: Holy 'GRAIL' of cancer screening? Digging into the Galleri test with Dr. Bitner
Takeaway Tip: If you are committed to doing all you can to avoid cancer: do all your SEEDS, get screening, and learn if Galleri is right for you.
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