Preksha Dhyana Human Body Part 2

Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 78

blood. The larvae make their way into the lymphatic system where they mature into hairlike worms about two inches long. They obstruct the lymphatics and prevent the return of fluid to the blood stream. The result is edema, i.e. accumulation of fluid in the tissue spaces. In extreme cases, an affected limb swells up to a gigantic size.
Advances against parastic diseases have been achieved through two major approaches : first through drugs that kill the parasites (quinine for malaria) and second through environmental control of the intermediate host (extermination of mosquitoes).
Parasites, in living off their victims' tissues and bodyproducts, sap the energies of the hosts, leaving them in a debilitated state. Then the victim can fall prey to bacterial or viral diseases that may in turn prove fatal.
Cancer
Cancer strikes the young as well as the old, although it becomes far more prevalent in middle and old age. If you ask people what disease they fear most, the answer will invariably be-cancer. Cancer is an insidious disease in which the cells exhibit a wild uncontrolled growth. Whereas normal heathy cells “recognize” their neighbours and cease growing upon contact with them, cancer-cells show no such recognition and continue wild growth, piling over one another, literally choking out their normal neighbours. Cancer may attack virtually any tissue of the body : lung, brain, breast, skin, bone, blood, liver and so on. A critical factor in the deadliness of this disease is the phenomenon of migration (metastasis). Cancer cells dislodge from their original site, enter the blood stream or lymph channels and are dispersed to other regions of the body. They continue the growth patterns of the original cancerous tissue at the new sites.
Why do cells suddenly run wild and how can the process be controlled or reversed? Despite extensive research, the field still holds more questions than answers.
67