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Symptoms of oral cancer you should never ignore
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Oral cancer kills approximately one person every hour of every day. Understand the symptoms today. - photo by Hannah Rose
According to the Oral Cancer Foundation, about 48,250 individuals in the United States alone will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer this year. Of this number, nearly 9,575 people will be killed by this cancer. To help put this in perspective, oral cancer kills approximately one person each hour of the day.

Oral cancer is grouped along with head and neck cancers. Of all the cancer types in this category, oral cancer makes up nearly 85 percent of all cases. The high death rate is due to late diagnosis; most forms of oral cancer are found after metastasizing in another location, commonly on lymph nodes in the neck. At this point, prognosis is worse than if the cancer was found just in the oral cavity.

What's even scarier is that oral cancer has a high risk of developing second primary cancers. After surviving your first bout with oral cancer, you can be 20 times more likely to develop a second cancer.

While articles and research about thyroid, breast or skin cancer are usually what we read about, it's crucial we know the warning signs of oral cancer. Knowing the symptoms can help early detection, which could save your life:

Mouth:

  • Swelling or thickness along gum lines, lips and flesh on your cheeks
  • Abnormal lumps or bumps anywhere in the oral cavity
  • Any rough patches containing curst or eroded skin on your lips, flesh and cheeks
  • Presence of velvety white, red, or a mix of white and red patches on the skin in your mouth
  • Random bleeding
  • Random bouts of numbness, tenderness or pain in the neck, mouth or cheeks
  • Persistent canker sores
  • Difficulty chewing, speaking or moving your jaw
  • Chronic sore throat
  • Ear pain
  • Dramatic weight loss
Who gets oral cancer?

Men are more prone to develop oral cancer, with men over the age of 50 the most prone. Oral cancer is the sixth most common cancer found in men.

Other individuals that smoke cigarettes, cigars and pipes are six times more likely than their non-smoking counterparts to develop oral cancer. Individuals that also use smokeless tobacco or chew increase their risk of cancer in the oral cavity significantly.

Understand your familys history of cancer to help gauge your susceptibility as well note your lips sun exposure.

Ways to prevent oral cancer

  • Do not smoke or use tobacco products
  • Avoid binge drinking
  • Eat a balanced diet
  • Exercise
  • Limit sun exposure
To help detect oral cancer early on, dentists suggest individual's conduct an oral exam on themselves once a month. With a bright light and oral mirror, poke and feel for any of the previously mentioned symptoms. Also feel for swollen lymph nodes, and attend your annual dentist appointments.
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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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