Period5/ Biology
Ms. Noelle Howell
12/12/14
Leukemia is the cancer of white blood cells. When a person has leukemia, a lot of white blood cells are produced in the bone marrow. White blood cells usually protect the body, but at time these cells are usually defective. These are defective because these white blood cells are not fully developed. The symptoms of leukemia can be bleeding, bruising, tiredness, fevers and a higher risk to get infections. These symptoms can happen due to a low amount of red blood cells. There are different types of leukemia, Acute leukemia is when the process is really fast and can make you sick faster. Chronic leukemia is when the process is slow and you may not get the symptoms for years. There are of course many more with similar patterns as chronic and acute. Leukemia is important because leukemia is the tenth most occurring diseases. Leukemia affects 1 of 1,600 people and and is the second leading cause of killing children. What all of my four articles have in common is that leukemia usually occurs when its either in their genes or simply because of their life styles. From my article, “ Save a life: Donate your bone marrow; Leukemia took my mom, but you can still help fight cancer.”, one of the point of five I found was that every four minutes, someone is diagnosed with blood cancer. Another fact I found from this article is that some forms of cancer grows fast and stealthily, and that chemotherapy is one of the many ways to fight Leukemia. And also that if your genetic make up matches a patient, you might be called to donate bone marrow and a bone marrow transplant allows the healthy cells to take control and multiply. Bone marrow transplants are important because bone marrow transplants give a chance for a person with leukemia live. Even if it doesn't work on some people it usually helps many others even the slightest bit. Its important that someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer every four minutes because I really think it important to help stop this, tons of loved ones die every day and fight till the way. These people fight even if it is for a day more to be with their family. From my article, “Mutations linked to blood cancers rise with age.”, one of the five facts found which was the point of the article is that cell mutations accumulate as people get older. Older people have a good chance to get any cancer is because over time the cells become damaged, and their weak immune system cannot really replace or repair the cells more efficiently. So what happens after is that that the damaged cell may survive and multiply to the point where it can turn into cancer. To avoid getting cancer many people take genetic tests to predict whether they have a risk or not, its been proven that getting these tests is pointless because yeah genes play a part in getting cancer but the way you live also matters. Whether you smoke, or not, to whether you eat healthy, it all matters whether you have a risk or not. More than six percent of the people who age from 8089 will be affected by blood cancers. The point of this
article was that older people have a higher chance of getting blood cancer because of their weak immune systems, and that getting cancer or simply even having a risk depends on you livestyle. From my article “Extra pounds and Cancer.”, the five facts I found from this article is that heavier people have a high risk of getting leukemia, cervical cancer, gallbladder cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, esophageal cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer, and premenopausal esophageal cancer. Heavier people have a high chance of cancer is because extra body fat affects immune system functions and inflammatory, and levels of hormones such as estrogen and insulin. Underweight people have a higher risk of getting lung, mouth