It is pretty much clear that there is no one particular cause for cancer, just as the cure for it does not lie in any one particular thing. Rather, there are many inter-related and inter-dependent factors which contribute to the development of cancer and these factors vary from person to person. It may be the case that two people have the exact same type of cancer yet the causative factors or facilitating processes behind it are different in both cases. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the cure does not lie in any one particular thing and that for each person, the most efficient cure will depend on identifying and addressing the original factors.

The body is said to be made up of 30 trillion cells and each day, a healthy body will create 300 or so cancer cells provided it has not been exposed to 'carcinogens' (we will define this word more fully a little later). This is not an unusual process, it is normal and the body recognizes these cells and destroys them quickly. When multiple, cumulative stresses are put upon the body in the form of many carcinogens or carcinogenic processes, the body's ability is weakened or compromised and the cancer cells have an opportunity to live longer and multiply further. So long as body remains in that stressed, immunocompromised state and is unable to carry out the normal process of removing those cells, the out of control cells will have the opportunity to go through the hyperplasia and neoplastic phases that lead to cancer (see Part 1). This can take place over many long years and the appearance of a lump or bump is simply a signal that this has been happening for quite a while in the body.

From the above, we can come to our main point which is that: Cancer is in reality is a failure of the immune system. This is the actual disease, not the appearance of the lump or bump. The lump or bump is merely the attempt of a mass of cells trying to stay alive whilst starved of oxygen, and their primary requirement is glucose. It is a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. The disease is that the immune system has been compromised to a degree where it cannot rapidly and efficiently process and remove the abnormal cells.

Having abnormal cells in the body is not the crucial factor in the development of cancer. The majority of people are subjected to carcinogens to some degree or another and the immune system recognises abnormal cells them and destroys them. Cancer is a threat primarily because of the inability of the body to eliminate the abnormal cells when they are few in number. This inability of the body is now believed to be a result of an imbalance or breakdown in the immune system response. It may produce too much or too little of a particular substance leading to an irregular or insufficient response which only has a diminished ability to eliminate the cancer cells.

The basic message from this article then is that you should understand that cancer is simply a failure of the immune system, its causes are multi-factorial and interrelated and that conventional medicine will only offer you the cut, burn, poison treatment paradigm of cancer. This may work for you if you happen to be one of those rare people with an extremely resilient body that can undergo sustained abuse and still come out on top. This treatment paradigm works against your entire body, not with it or in support of it, because its mechanism is to poison the entire body after calculating what amount of poison will kill the tumour without killing the patient. Given that the central, key element all along in this disease is the efficiency and functionality of the immune system, this realization will put you in a better position to take measures that will give you a much better chance of cure and survival.

In the next part in this series we will take a basic look at the body's immune response, how it works and how it is mobilised.