The Reason Why Cancer is so Hard to Beat

An undead city under siege, soldiers and police mercilessly shooting zombie waves.

flood infected streets to spread. Happens when

Your body fights cancer—more thrilling than any movie. How does survival play out?

1. Elimination

One corrupted cell starts everything. Its genetic code is unrepairable.

It's multiplying rapidly and can't kill itself. At present,

not great, not terrible—this cell is not yet dangerous, but it will be if nothing happens.

The corrupted cell replicates over weeks. One cell becomes dozens,

hundreds, thousands. Broken originals are copied.

fracturing and evolving. They become genetic lineages.

alliances and rivalries. Some mutate weaker,

Some mutations improve fitness, while others don't. They form a tiny tumor. Nearing cancer.

The tumor requires many resources. Cells starve without food and oxygen.

They'll die and the issue will resolve itself. Unfortunately a few corrupted cells unlock a new

mutation that saves them: Blood vessel growth control. And

so your body provides their sustenance. As the tumor grows,

it causes damage—neighboring healthy cells starve and die, drawing attention. This tiny tumor resembles a rogue town.

Imagine a group of Brooklyn rebels declared independence from New York.

new town, Tumor Town, in the same place. New city wants to grow.

thus ordering tons of steel beams, cement, and drywall. New buildings are illogical.

are ill-conceived, ugly, and dangerous. They're in streets.

on playgrounds and infrastructure. New stuff replaces old neighborhoods. Many former residents become trapped and starve.

This continues until the death smell draws attention. Police and building inspectors arrive.

Dead cell odor activates your immune system. First

Macrophages and Natural Killer Cells enter the tumor and kill and eat tumor cells. They emit chemicals.

signals that alert the entire immune system to cancer.

Dendritic Cells, immune system intelligence officers, collect dead tumor cells and activate your heavy weapons: Killer and aid

T cell. In another video, we explained these super weapons.

need to know is that they have a library of everything bad that can enter your body.

Each cancer is unique, but genetic corruptions are unavoidable.

Your T cells recognize it. They're cancer's worst killers.

The tumor has hundreds of thousands of cells when they arrive, but this will change. T cells stop blood vessel growth.

which starves and kills thousands of tumor cells.

Imagine the building inspectors shutting off electricity and water and blocking cancertown so no food or supplies can be delivered.

As hundreds of thousands die, the tumor collapses.

tumors die. Macrophages digest their corpses.

regenerate healthy tissue. Your body annihilated illegal Tumor Town.

This fight and its frequency will never be revealed.

Except...something went wrong.

2. Equilibrium

Natural selection thwarts you. Trying to eliminate the tumor,

Your immune system chooses tumor cells. The tumor has multiple lineages that grow and mutate. Most are gone. Fewer are resilient. One cell lives.

comes from the fittest tumor lineage and survived the massacre slightly better than others. It retries. Now better.

This tumor cell is stronger than the thousands killed. It may hide or fight better. It may steal more or grow faster. It may survive without much oxygen. All over again.

Tumor Town's rebels seem to have learned their lesson. Now

They know how to break the law, get permits, and avoid police.

Thus, the tumor cell replicates thousands of times, mutating and forming new lineages.

until a tumor with tougher cells grows again.

The immune system doesn't care, and this time it has experience—instead of starting from scratch.

with police, swat teams destroy Tumor Town, killing its residents.

They miss again. A fitter tumor cell survives.

fitter ancestors. To start Tumor Town again, it gets a cheap suit and studies the building code as a lawyer. Repeating this struggle,

Rebels learn how to avoid the law each time. The story ends if the immune system kills all tumor cells. But not here.

Finally, tumor cells become cancerous.

Killer type. How?

Before attacking, immune cells turn off.

is wise. The immune system is dangerous and must often be suppressed.

your central nervous system. This off switch is exploitable.

Mutated tumor cells target inhibitor receptors to turn off the immune system.

anti-cancer cells. Inhibitor receptors prevent immune cells from killing.

This cell mass produces a new cancer cell lineage.

thousands more copies that mutate again. Building another Tumor Town.

3. Escaping

Everything is different now because the new cancer cells are immune to the immune system. Tumor Town has been rebuilt, even uglier and stranger, but the cancer city council has forged all sorts of permits.

Confused building inspectors stop construction.

They leave, unable to destroy the sprawling buildings.

Tumor Town's roadblocks prevent police from entering the illegal city to arrest the builders and execute the residents. Officers are confused.

Tumor Town slowly engulfs Brooklyn and civilians die,

T-cell swat teams stop this injustice. New Tumor Town lineages worsened things.

Officials are forging court orders to shoot Swat teams.

Cancer cells are sending corrupt signals to disable immune defenses. Malignant tumors are now tougher.

started the Cancer Microenvironment. Hard-to-cross borderland. All

Closed attack routes lead to uncontrollable growth.

Dangerous tumor. Strong cells fight back and expand your immune system. More mutations cause some cancers.

cells will explore and build new towns by expanding into other tissues.

Cancer harms because it occupies space.

stealing so many nutrients that your true self cannot function.

Organs will fail if this continues.

But this strategy fails. Cancer does more damage as it succeeds. Death kills cancer. A game without winners.

Humanity intends to win.

Hundreds of thousands of scientists are currently developing better ways to kill.

cancer, to burn down Tumor Towns forever. Immunotherapy has grown recently.

made huge progress—it's a new therapy that uses your immune cells.

modified to kill cancer better than drugs. Giving your building inspectors

machineguns and flamethrowers. This is a different story.

Now cancer is a battlefield, but if human ingenuity is trusted, one day

We may eliminate it soon. subscribe for more