Li Ming Hua was 43 years old and had worked in a factory for several months. She has noticed over several months that she was really tired. She just thought she was working too much as she had worked on some weekends to make extra money. However, then she noticed that she was just not able to do her work very well. Then her boss came up to her one day and told her that she was falling behind in her work production. This really concerned her. Her boss suggested she go to the company doctor and be evaluated. So the next week Li Ming Hua went to see her doctor.
The doctor asked her a lot of questions but one of them was related to any chemicals she worked with at work. She told him that in fact she worked with some chemicals every day but she was not clear as to the name of these chemicals. The doctor told her to ask her boss about what chemicals she worked with. In the meantime the doctor drew some blood tests and asked her to come back in several days with the list of chemicals. Li Ming Hua agreed to do this.
Li Ming Hua obtained from her boss several chemicals, which she was working with. She returned to the doctor with this list. He told her that she had a form of leukemia, which is a disease of the blood. It is actually a blood cancer. Then he looked at the list of chemicals and noticed one, which could be the cause of her cancer. He found out that Li Ming Hua had worked at this factory for years and with this same chemical for years. He told her that she needed to stop working with this chemical immediately and get some treatment for this cancer at a nearby hospital as soon as possible. Li Ming Hua did just this.
Li Ming Hua and people like her all over the world get cancer from things and chemicals they work with. This is not uncommon. Besides chemicals what are some other ways people obtain cancer. There are many ways, but certainly knowing about some of these will help us to avoid chemicals and other substances, which cause cancer so we will not get these types of cancers.
Let's talk about some of these causes of cancers. First is nutrition. Some people believe that certain diets cause certain cancers. Some cancer experts believe that food high in sugar and low in fiber leads to colon cancer or cancer of the large intestine. Fiber is the main component of most vegetables and fruits. Chinese have historically eaten diets very high in fiber and low in sugar but this diet is changing so Chinese may in the future get more colon cancer. Second, foods high in smoked foods can cause stomach cancer. Asian people and Chinese in the past ate a lot of food, which was smoked. A third cause of cancer and probably the main of cause of all cancers in the world and especially China is smoking.
Let us talk about smoking a little bit. Smoking is the main cause of lung cancer in men and women in China. The number of people with lung cancer in China is growing rapidly. This is because of smoking. Smoking is also associated with increased breast cancer as well as colon cancer. Thus smoking is a major cause of health problems.
A fourth cause of cancer is infections. In China liver cancer is very high. This is due to the very high amounts of people with Hepatitis B virus in the whole population, which leads to liver cancer. Now that young children are being vaccinated against Hepatitis B virus the number of people in the next 20-30 years who die from liver cancer should start to decrease in China. This is certainly very good news for China.
Some experts believe a fifth cause of cancer is obesity. It is believed that breast, colon, prostrate and lung cancers are linked to obesity. This is not good news as in the past 10 years in China the amount of obese people has increased by 700%. This is a huge increase and in the future will have many important health implications for China, which would include possibly more people having the cancers just, mentioned.
If cancers lead to early death and are caused by these different things, why do people smoke, eat too much and in general do not have good lifestyles. Some may say they do not know better. However, most people certainly know they eat too much and that not exercising enough is also a health concern. Why do people persist in these things? Certainly some things which people do are genetic, but not all things are. Some they just want to keep doing without giving much thought.
The Bible speaks of our not being able to control what we do. This is caused sin or missing the mark of what God wants us to do? Why do we continue in our sin? Can we help but keep sinning? The Bible says that we really cannot help but sin. It actually calls us slaves to sin. The Bible says it like this in a book to Rome written about 63AD.