Who's at risk for colon cancer? - Amit H. Sachdev and Frank G. Gress
Check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/teded View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/who-s-at-risk-for-colon-cancer-amit-h-sachdev-and-frank-g-gress Colon cancer is one...
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If you were to lay your digestive tract out in a straight line, it would form a tube spanning nearly ten meters. The last 1.5 meters of that are called the colon, or large intestine. Cells in this organ's lining constantly renew themselves, but the genes that moderate this process occasionally go awry, leading to the excessive growth of new cells. That results in small growths or abnormal clumps of cells called polyps. The majority of these polyps won't do any harm, but some can become cancerous when their cells begin to grow and divide rapidly, projecting further into the colon. At that point, they can transform into colon cancer, one of the most prevalent and preventable forms of cancer in the world. That's a slow process: though growth t...
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If you were to lay your digestive tract out in a straight line, it would form a tube spanning nearly ten meters. The last 1.5 meters of that are called the colon, or large intestine. Cells in this organ's lining constantly renew themselves, but the genes that moderate this process occasionally go awry, leading to the excessive growth of new cells. That results in small growths or abnormal clumps of cells called polyps. The majority of these polyps won't do any harm, but some can become cancerous when their cells begin to grow and divide rapidly, projecting further into the colon. At that point, they can transform into colon cancer, one of the most prevalent and preventable forms of cancer in the world. That's a slow process: though growth t...
