Most patients ask this question during their outpatient visits: Why do I have leukemia? Is leukemia hereditary?
I still do not have a satisfactory answer to this question. When communicating with patients, I would emphasize the two prerequisites for the development of leukemia: the susceptibility basis of leukemia and the external environmental triggers. This is the “double whammy” doctrine that we in the medical community define as a malignancy.
First, we analyze the basis of susceptibility to leukemia. Some people may inherit certain genes that predispose them to leukemia from their parents from birth, but this is a small percentage of the population. The other part of the population, at birth or after birth, is hit by some physical, chemical, infectious and other factors to mutate genes and carry some of the susceptibility genes. This is why in eugenics theory we usually recommend parents to avoid smoking, alcohol, radiation and drugs during pregnancy, which is actually the key to avoid the first blow.
Of course, the presence of a susceptibility gene does not mean that you are destined to get leukemia, because there is also an “anti-leukemia gene” in our body that prevents the production of leukemia cells, and this gene can repair genetic mutations in the body or even directly destroy leukemia cells. If the anti-leukemia gene can play its normal defensive role, most people usually do not get leukemia. However, once the anti-leukemia gene is mutated by external environmental factors, the balance between leukemogenesis and disruption of leukemogenesis is disrupted and leukemia can eventually develop.
In fact, many factors can be “double whammy” factors, such as physical, chemical, and infectious factors that parents are exposed to before birth, and physical, chemical, and infectious factors that individuals are exposed to after birth, such as rays, aromatic hydrocarbon chemicals (such as benzene), viruses, and bacteria, which are all common substances/species in our lives. species that almost everyone has been exposed to more than once in their lifetime, but to be a strike factor, each exposure usually needs to be large enough and long enough in duration.
In addition, there is another important strike factor, which is the excessive consumption of body functions and can not be timely recovery, in simple terms, “fatigue”. Young people like to stay up late, this is one of the most common blow, if the body does not get normal rest for a long time, the body’s anti-leukemia gene is likely to be reduced or even disappear, this time the leukemia cells can escape surveillance, in our words, one or two leukemia “star fire”, can be formed in a very short period of time “prairie fire”. So, when you often work overtime, stay up late, it is best to give yourself a wake up call, I may have been “hit” once now, to watch out for the next “hit” ah!