Why Do Some People Get Tumors?

There are many risk factors for the development of malignant tumors, mainly: environmental factors, such as air pollution, water pollution, food pollution, etc.; bad lifestyle habits, such as excessive smoking, drinking, prolonged internet use, etc.; biological and genetic factors, psychological factors, etc.

In fact, all the above factors have predisposing causes. Whether a person develops a tumor mainly depends on their own immune status. Clinical experience proves that the immune function of malignant tumor patients is generally low.

Human society has good people and bad people; there are criminal gangs, and there are public security forces. The task of the public security forces is to bring the bad people and criminal gangs to justice to ensure the stability and development of society.

Similar to human society, the human body can be seen as a small “society,” with good cells (normal cells), bad cells (mutated cells), and criminal gangs (cancer nests). Every day, everyone has hundreds of thousands of normal cells turning into mutated cells, and tens of thousands of mutated cells turning into cancer cells. But as long as the body’s “public security forces” – the immune system – functions normally, it can continuously identify and eliminate cancer cells, maintaining the stability and development of the human body’s small “society.”

The main reason people get cancer is primarily due to dysfunction of the body’s immune function. It’s either that the number of “public security forces” decreases and their ability declines, or the “public security forces” become corrupt and collude with the “bad elements.”

American tumor biologist Schreiber proposed the hypothesis of “cancer immunoediting”. The “cancer immunoediting” theory suggests that while the body’s immune system kills tumors, the malignancy of the tumor gradually increases, leading to an imbalance in the power dynamic between the immune system and the tumor, ultimately potentially leading to the death of the organism. The three processes of cancer immunoediting are: immune elimination, immune equilibrium, and immune escape.

The immune elimination process refers to the body’s immune system recognizing tumor tissue and killing tumor cells through various pathways. At this stage, if the body successfully clears the tumor cells, immunoediting ends here.

The immune equilibrium process is likely the longest phase among the three, potentially lasting for decades in humans. The time from initial exposure to a carcinogen to clinical onset of many human tumors can span 10-20 years. During this period, some tumor cells can grow indefinitely in the immune-selected environment. The Washington University Tumor Research Center refers to this stage as a “brutal Darwinian selection.”

The immune escape process occurs when tumor cells, after immune remodeling, bypass the body’s immune defenses to form a tumor, entering the immune escape phase – the period of clinical symptom appearance and malignant progression. Immune escape is the result of the tumor being reshaped by the immune system.

Analogy: Within the same body, the “public security forces” become corrupt and collude with the enemy, leading to a gradual weakening of the ability of one’s own immune cells to kill autologous tumor cells, preventing tumor clearance. Simultaneously, the ability of tumor cells to resist immune cells gradually strengthens. Within the same body, the enemy becomes more cunning. At this point, the patient enters the tumor onset or recurrence phase.

In other words, the main reason some people get cancer is primarily that their own immune cells become inactive against their own tumor cells, failing to kill and clear them. The best way to solve this problem is to use “external reinforcement troops” to clear these tumor cells.