Is there any chemical or organism which instantly starts cancer in the body?

Question

There seem to be lots of different things which can possibly cause cancer a long time after exposure. Is there anything which has been proven to start cancer in cells immediately after exposure? If so what is it?

And is there anything which causes cancer 100% of the time after exposure? Some people smoke cigarettes until they are 100 and don't get cancer. Some people have probably had exposure to radioactivity and not got cancer. Many people do but there doesn't seem to be any guarantee of getting it.

Answer 1

Yes, there will be a point where cancer cells start to multiply - they exist in a dormant state in everyone. This can be triggered by many factors - however, cancer is primarily the result of stress.

As for your radiation statement - I love the 'probably'. If you receive a high enough dose of radiation, then unquestionably, nothing will stop cancer from developing due to the inherent changes in the cells of the body. Your view of 'guarantees' and those who avoid cancer despite exposure are borderline cases - there is a threshold above which everyone will succumb as the damage at core level is simply too extreme.

The smoking point is quite redundant as everyone's physiology is different in terms of immune system response, associated diet, lifestyle plus many other external and internal factors. Remember that countless young people are currently lying in terminal cancer wards with smoking related diseases - nothing is carved in stone.

Answer 2

Individual cells may start reproducing in an uncontrolled way but for a cancer to be detected, a few millions if not billions or trillions of cells need to be involved and that is where the body's immune system comes into picture. The immune system has many methods of dealing with abnormal cells and invading agents. Only when the immune system fails to act properly, cancer develops.

Answer 3

Cancer is malignant uncontrolled cellular growth. It is generally caused by a failure in the cell's normal mechanism to 1. Kill itself (apoptosis) 2. Stop growing. This usually occurs due to loss of function of specific genes (which leads to uncontrolled growth) or a gain of function of certain genes (again leads to uncontrolled growth). Any single cell in your body has the "potential" for cancer. However, it generally takes more than one mutation for cancer to actually occur. Since there are two copies of each chromosome (minus the X in males and abnormal conditions), both copies would have to be "altered." People who are more susceptible to cancer generally have one copy that is already mutated. I do not believe one single substance can instantly create a malignant tumor, but some people are more susceptible than others.