Are We Still Missing the Target in Trying to Prevent and Treat Human Cancers?

Is searching for a “Rose in a Dung Heap” the correct strategy for future cancer research? Starting from the view point that there are two philosophical approaches to solve the extremely complex problem of preventing and treating cancers, namely (a) the empirical, unbiased approach of collecting large amount of observations in hopes of finding a pattern (i.e., current use of data mining or computational biology and “Artificial Intelligence ”) or (b) a specific hypothesis-mechanistically based, deductive approach), it seems, while both approaches are being used, we still have made no “conceptual” breakthrough. In spite everyone today recognizing that this cancer problem requires a true multi-disciplinary approach, it still must be based on some biological facts. With all the known facts about many physical (radiations), chemical (natural toxins/synthetic toxicants) and biologics (viruses, bacteria, fungi) having some influence on human carcinogenesis, the link to these factors is only somewhat known to be involved in the multi-stage/multi-mechanism of human carcinogenesis [2,3]. Yet, the integration of the psychological, social, anthropological, cultural, economic, political and ecological sciences has only been weakly linked to the evolutionary and biological sciences [4-7]. As this article is grounded in my limited 50 years of experience in but a few disciplines, as an “opinion” writer, I feel, while the multidisciplinary field of carcinogenesis is still very incomplete, there is sufficient solid scientific information that could supply a new direction. First, we know that there are genetic, racial, developmental, gender, environmental, dietary, nutritional, immunological, behavioral, ecological, cultural, and economic/political factors that influence the cancer process. In addition, we know that cancers have their origin in a single cell [ 8,9]. Today, there is a substantial evidence that the organ-specific adult stem cell and its early progenitor daughter are the target cells to become, in time, a “cancer stem cell” [10-12]. It is now thought that these “cancer stem cells” ought to be the target for both prevention and therapy [13,14]. Moreover, there is ample evidence of the power of nutrition and diets to influence, either positively or negatively, the frequency of many cancers, especially with the observations of caloric restricted, excess calories, and changes in diets due to diaspora of both peoples and foods, especially in large populations during the Second War in Europe and Japan [15,16]. This is now leading some investigators to view that pregnant women, exposed Crimson Publishers Wings to the Research Opinion