CANCER, according to Dr Lee Martin, medical doctor of the Guardsman Group, can be defined as unyielding cell growth in the body that is caused by either environmental or genetic factors.

“It can be defined as the uncontrolled cell growth of a particular cell type in the body, whether it is in the skin, the brain, the kidney, the lung or the liver,” said Dr Martin.

“All cells grow but there’s a turnoff, where it (the cell) says ‘you have grown enough now, you can stop growing’. But with cancer, when the gene of the cell is damaged its growth becomes uncontrolled,” he said.

According to Martin, there are two causes of cancer. These are, one, through environmental hazards, which include pollution and smoking; and, two, genetic factors, which regard to an individual’s genetic makeup.

“Smoking, for example, is environmental, it causes mutation in the genetic makeup of the cell,” he said, citing asbestos and tar as other environmental causes for cancer. Infections from the papilloma virus can also cause cancer, he said.

Genetic causes are anything outside of the environmental factors, such as hereditary history.