Breast Cancer Cancer is the leading cause of dea

Among the factors known to affect cancer rates are heredity, viruses, ionizing radiation, chemicals, and alterations in the immune system. Studies now suggest that these elements may interact in a multifactorial, sequential process leading to malignancy. Yet, cancer is essentially a genetic process, and inherited gene abnormalities or those induced by a virus or damage from an outside source are then subject to a series of sequential mutations in time leading to a single cell that is malignant and that proliferates as a clone. One of the external factors may be diet, which could account for 40 percent of cancers, though the causative relationship remains unclear. Research may clarify how these external factors interact with the genetic ca

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t cancers. Such malignancies as sporadic breast and ovarian cancers that strike women without a family history of such tumors are also caused in part by BRCA 1, and current research suggests that the gene may be involved in a significant fraction of the 182,000 breast cancers and 26,000 ovarian cancers discovered each year. Scientists now agree that a healthy BRCA 1 gene acts as a tumor suppressor by carrying the blueprint for the production of a protein that slows cell growth. When this is absent, breast or ovarian cells can begin to proliferate wildly. Women carrying the mutant BRCA 1 gene face have an 85 percent change of developing breast or ovarian cancer at some point in their lives, and recent research in Germany seems to indicate that the early onset of menstruation and the postponement of first childbirth can cause the disease to start earlier in a woman's life. Up to 31 mutations have been described, with 22 identified as distinct. Most result in the premature reduction in the production of the gene product. A small number of BRCA 1 mutations switch one amino acid for another. These tend not to say much about the function of the protein, with two prominent exceptions. The only recognizable domain in the BRCA
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2094
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)