When I was a little kid and would get a cut or scrape I would sometimes pick at the scab and put the dried blood in my mouth. (I assume I wasn’t the only one doing this :dubious:)
Well, I got to thinking: suppose you had what you thought was a small scab and you picked at it and popped it into your mouth. Let’s further assume that the “scab” was actually a small collection of malignant skin cancer cells.
You have now sent them down into your body. What would happen? Would your digestive juices destroy the cancer cells before they could attach themselves to your insides or have you inadvertently signed your own death warrant?
My understanding is that cancerous cells are not infectious agents in the same way bacteria or viruses can be. I’d think you’d be totally in the clear chowing down on raw tumors, even (yum).
I think a few cancers are contagious though. The tasmanian devil thing is one example, I’m pretty sure there are some dog ones as well. I don’t know if any human tumors are contagious in this way or not.
Well, if its from your own body you dont have anything to fear. Cancer doesnt grow on a scab like some bacteria. Its not contagious. If you are producing cancerous cells and tumors on your scabs then you already have cancer.
Eating it isnt worse, if its on you then its already circulating in your blood.
Eating someone else’s cancer probably is safe too. Your body will see it as an invader and kill it. Cancer works because its a growth your own body makes that it doesnt see as an invader, thus your immune system just lets it grow and spread. Foreign cancer cant fool your immune system.
>. The tasmanian devil thing is one example
I thought that was a virus or bacteria that led to cancerous tumors, not tumors or cancerous cells being contagious. So lets say I have HPV and I get cervical cancer but I also managed to give HPV to a friend and she gets it, then cervical cancer isnt contagious its HPV that is.
Speaking of organ transplant, I would think that the body would be aggressive in killing cells that do not share its own genetics, even cancer cells. So I’d think there might be an offhand chance if you ate cancerous cells from your own body or perhaps your close relatives, but not of complete strangers. I guess there’d be a minuscule chance but to get through two layers of defenses (digestive system and the immune system,) chances of it working would be pretty remote)
I don’t think there’s even been a cancer transmitted from one human to another, though perhaps it might happen if a cancerous organ was transplanted. Basically, no bit of isolated human tissue should survive past the stomach.
However, there are a couple of examples of infectious cancers in other species. There’s a sexually transmitted tumor that infects dogs (wiki). Also, there’s an epidemic of transmissible jaw cancer in Tasmanian devils, which spreads when one animal bites another (link). In theory, something similar could develop in humans.
I would think your stomach acids would reduce it. I know people who eat their own fingernails when they bite them… and they’re not pooping out fingernails. The stomach would be able to break down dead cellular matter, I would think. (I’m guessing it would be dead because chewing it and eating it, etc would kill it.) But that’s just my WAG.
Even if it survived your stomach (highly unlikely) and manged somehow to lodge in your tissue and start growing (really highly unlikely), unless you had eaten your own cancer, your immune system would recognize it as foreign and attack it. Cancer is normally so dangerous because it’s self - it’s safe from your immune system. And frankly, if you’re eating your own cancer, you’ve got bigger issues to deal with.
Though this is similar it really isn’t truly analogous but HIV is transmitted orally. It’s difficult to do but it has happened
Now it’s fairly certain, but not defininately established due to the problem of double blind testing.
Anyway it’s thought the transmission occurs with gum disease. About 3/4 of all Americans by the time they reach 40 have gum disease and bleeding gums. By age 50 nearly all Americans have some sort of gum disease, though to varying degrees
So what I’m thinking about IF cancer could be transmitted, and I’m not saying by any means it CAN, I would look at the chances it’s transmitted through blood via your mouth and gum disease.
As other posters noted, the stomach would kill the cancer. Just like HIV is easily killed by stomach juices. HIV though can infect before it hits the stomach if you have gum disease.
And YES it’s getting into the mouth, just like you think, not through toothbrushes. In fact they’ve yet to find a single documented case of HIV being spread through shared toothbrushes.
I gather you’ve never inspected your movements after eating corn. Snake venom as far as I know is a protien. Protiens are very sensitive to pH and such things. I’ve no doubt that protiens will denature in the stomach, but lumps of food can easily remain intact. I suspect that protiens can remain active inside the food.