April 15 to 21 is the 28th National Cancer Awareness Week, and the theme of this year’s week is “Early Action for Cancer Prevention and Treatment”. Cancer is like a “demon” that is rampant on the earth we live on, becoming the number one killer of human lives. According to the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, there will be 19.29 million new cancer cases and 9.96 million cancer deaths worldwide in 2020. And China will have 4.57 million new cancer cases and 3 million cancer deaths in 2020. In recent years, the phenomenon of couples suffering from cancer at the same time or successively has been gradually noticed by the medical profession. In real life, it is a matter of course for couples to love and be together. However, it is really confusing that some people even have cancer and “follow each other”. Ms. Chen and Mr. Kuang were a loving couple in the village for more than 30 years. Not long ago, Ms. Chen had unexplained vaginal bleeding and went to the Department of Medical Oncology of Zhengzhou Central Hospital for examination, which turned out to be caused by extensive metastasis of stomach cancer. When Mr. Kuang heard that his wife had cancer, which was still at an advanced stage, he was so blinded that he couldn’t think about tea and food all day and couldn’t sleep at night. On the third day, Mr. Kuang experienced abdominal pain and found out that it was appendix cancer, which was really a disaster. Not only the couple was shocked, but also caused great panic among the folks in the village. —- Is cancer also contagious? 1.What is “couple cancer”? Couples like Ms. Chen and Mr. Kuang, who got cancer at the same time or successively, have the same or different parts of the cancer, which is called “couple cancer” in the medical field. In fact, this phenomenon has already existed for a long time, but in recent years, the trend of growth has become more and more obvious, drawing people’s attention. According to incomplete statistics, although “conjugal cancer” can be found in all age groups, it is most common in elderly couples over 60 years old, and the older the age, the higher the incidence rate. 2.Is “couple cancer” contagious? So far, medical experts believe that cancer itself is not directly contagious. Although cancer cells can spread or metastasize everywhere in the patient’s body, it is not contagious from one person to another like bacteria and viruses. Studies have shown that cancer patients themselves are not the source of infection. Due to the rejection reaction of human immune system, cancer tissues taken from cancer patients and planted directly on another person do not survive and grow. 75% of cancer cases are caused by poor living habits. The occurrence of “conjugal cancer” is no exception. Although cancer itself is not directly contagious, some of the factors that trigger cancer have distinct transmission characteristics. Some cancers are “contagious” probably because the root cause of these cancers is an infectious disease. For example, hepatitis B virus, which is closely related to liver cancer, can also be transmitted through sexual contact; Helicobacter pylori infection, which can easily cause stomach cancer, can be transmitted through kissing and eating; EBV, which is related to nasopharyngeal cancer, and HPV, which is related to cervical cancer, can also be transmitted through close contact, the same lifestyle or environment. All these viruses or bacteria that cause precancerous lesions are contagious and are not directly transmitted by cancer. Therefore, in order to prevent such viral or bacterial infections and related cancers, we should disinfect the secretions of such cancer patients such as sputum, blood and feces, and at the same time vaccinate the high-risk groups with HPV vaccine, hepatitis B vaccine or moderate isolation. 3.How does “couple cancer” cause? As we all know, cancer is a multifactorial, multi-stage and multiple mutation disease. Except for a few single-gene hereditary tumors such as retinoblastoma and nephroblastoma, most of them are not caused by internal or external factors only, but by the interaction of multiple factors and internal and external factors. Ultimately, cancer is mainly caused by a combination of lifestyle, dietary habits and environmental factors. Couples eat in the same pot and sleep in the same bed for many years, so they influence each other and “assimilate” the lifestyle and living habits, and the family living environment is the same, so they are often influenced by the same pathogenic factors or cancer-causing factors, so it is not surprising that they suffer from the same kind of disease or cancer. In other words, “husband and wife cancer” is a disaster caused by the common life style and unscientific living environment. It can be roughly summarized into three aspects: (1) Bad eating habits or behavioral habits. The frequent intake of unfresh food or moldy food, insufficient supply of fresh vegetables, fruits and soybeans, coupled with the preference for chili peppers and other irritating foods, as well as the preference for barbecue, fried food, overly hot food, eating too fast and other bad habits, can gradually develop into cancer. People who like high-fat diet with little fiber intake are prone to intestinal cancer. In some areas, people like to eat salted fish and pickled foods, which contain carcinogenic nitrosamines. In addition, the plastic packaging of take-out food nowadays also contains many cancer-causing ingredients. (2) Environmental pollution. As we live together in a harmful environment for a long time, the latent carcinogenic factors in the environment eventually lead to “couple cancer” or even “family cancer”. Nowadays, there is no doubt that environmental pollution causes cancer, and environmental pollution has long-term effects such as mutagenic, carcinogenic, teratogenic, and reproductive disorders. The medical profession believes that 80% of known cancer cases are related to the environment, from air pollution to water pollution to soil pollution, none of them is spared. Indoor decoration is one of the main sources of indoor environmental pollution in urban and rural areas, and formaldehyde is the main invisible killer in the indoor environment of newly renovated houses. Long-term exposure to formaldehyde can lead to various cancers in the nose, mouth, throat, skin and digestive tract. Tobacco smoke produced by smoking is also a dangerous carcinogen. Sixty of the compounds isolated from tobacco and smoke are definite carcinogens, or cancer initiators or promoters. Smoking is an important cause of lung cancer, but passive smoking can also lead to lung cancer. (3) Negative and pessimistic mindset. Research shows that more than 90% of tumor patients are directly or indirectly related to psychology and emotion, and mental trauma and bad emotion may become the causative factors of “couple cancer”. Negative emotions can affect many systems of human body. If you are unhappy or disappointed for a long time, it will inhibit gastrointestinal movement and thus affect digestive function; anxiety and anger will increase endocrine hormones such as adrenaline corticosteroids, which will cause faster heart rate and higher blood pressure, and slow down gastrointestinal peristalsis. Once having these negative emotions, it is easy to reduce the physiological functions of the body through the brain’s reflexes, resulting in the reduction or lack of capacity, which will shift the body from the anti-cancer and anti-cancer state to the cancer-causing state. 4.How to keep away from “conjugal cancer”? To prevent the occurrence of “couple cancer”, couples should learn some health care and dietary hygiene knowledge in daily life, adopt a scientific lifestyle, develop good dietary habits, and maintain an optimistic mindset. If one of the spouses has bad habits, the other one should improve them in a benign way and should not be accommodated or ignored. Like other types of cancer, “couple cancer” is completely preventable, and the key lies in changing unhealthy lifestyle. In layman’s terms, it is a change of lifestyle. Research shows that more than 1/3 of cancers can be prevented by changing external cancer-causing factors such as smoking, unhealthy diet, low physical activity, obesity, infections, occupational exposure and environmental pollution. If one spouse suffers from cancer, the other spouse should stay alert and go to the hospital for regular medical checkups to correct bad eating habits and lifestyle in time to prevent the disease from occurring.