Viruses that Cause Cancer List of Human Viruses that Attack your Cells
Experts say human viruses that cause cancer delete and add genes and genetic materials into your cells. This action can turn your healthy cells to abnormal and later, cancerous.
These are human viruses that cause cancer by inducing a chronic viral infection. The infection leads to liver cancer in 0.47% of hepatitis B patients per year and in 1.4% of hepatitis C carriers per year.
The Hepa B virus attacks and replicates in the liver cells. If you are a chronic HBV carrier, you have a 20 to 100-fold higher risk of liver cancer than someone who is not infected .
Liver cirrhosis, either due to chronic viral hepatitis infection or as a result of negative effects of alcohol, is linked to liver cancer. If you have both liver cirrhosis and viral hepatitis, you have the highest risk for liver cancer.
Worldwide, it is one of the most common types of cancer. It is also the deadliest.
The Hepa C virus is milder compared to Hepa B because it doesn't change itself into a copy of the DNA of your cells. But like the HBV, the HCV damages liver cells and causes continuous growth of the damaged cells.
Also, an increased risk for Non Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) among people infected with hepatitis C is evident although the reason why is not yet understood.
This is one of the viruses that cause cancer. It can be transmitted through...
blood transfusion or
from mother to infant through cells in breast milk.
The infection is harmless most of the time. However, about 1 in 20 infected individuals eventually develop adult t-cell leukemia. See Facts About Leukemia.
This is actually NOT a virus. It is a kind of bacteria which is able to survive and grow in your stomach.
Chronic infection with H-pylori causes an inflammation in your stomach. This may lead to gastric or duodenal ulcers. If you have chronic H-pylori infection, you have a 4-6 times increased risk for the most common form of stomach cancer and that is gastric adenocarcinoma.
The H-pylori bacterium doesn't grow inside your cells like a virus does. What H-pylori does is it induces inflammation of the stomach. When there is a swelling, the cells that are infected release chemicals known as "cytokines".
Over-production of these natural chemicals affects the cells in your stomach in a negative way and increases the chances of cancerous change in stomach cells.
Data from many researches done on infectious viruses seem to indicate that they are the second most important risk factor for cancer, next to the effects of tobacco smoking. However, there are steps on prevention against these viruses that cause cancer.
