Hoax email about cancer treatment and causes
This page tells you about a hoax email that has been circulating on the internet. There is information on
We've had quite a few complaints about this email. It says that cancer treatment won't help and may even cause harm. It goes on to say that heating food in microwave ovens will give people cancer. People have been taken in because the email sounds official and says the information comes from an American University called Johns Hopkins.
Overall, the email is rubbish and we’re very sorry that people with cancer have been upset by it. We hope it won’t worry you any more after you’ve read this.
Johns Hopkins is a well known and well respected university, medical school and hospital in Baltimore, USA. We contacted them and they sent us the following message saying strongly that this email is nothing to do with them:
“An email falsely attributed to Johns Hopkins describing properties of cancer cells and suggesting prevention strategies has begun circulating the Internet. Johns Hopkins did not publish the email, entitled "Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins," nor do we endorse its contents. Another hoax email that has been circulating since 2004 regarding plastic containers, bottles and plastic wrap claiming that heat releases dioxins which cause cancer also was not published by Johns Hopkins.”
Cancer cells develop from normal body cells. This is a complicated process and takes a long time. A normal cell has to develop several genetic ‘mistakes’ before it becomes a cancer cell. We have a whole section explaining cells and cancer on CancerHelp UK. There is information about the difference between a cancer cell and a normal cell and an explanation of how cancer starts.
It is true that normal body cells develop genetic mistakes all the time, as they go through the normal cycle of dividing and multiplying. The immune system will generally recognise damaged cells and destroy them. But a poorly performing immune system isn’t a major cause of cancer, except in rare situations, such as after an organ transplant.
Cancer is caused by many different factors working together. The biggest factor is often age. As we go through life, we gather a greater number of ‘mistakes’ in our cells. When we’re older, we’re likely to have more genetic changes in cells than when we’re younger. That’s why most cancers are more common in older people. You can read more about what causes cancer, including information about age, your environment, your immune system and the role they all play.
Like many of these hoax emails, it’s clear to us that whoever wrote it has got quite confused by the little science they’ve heard. There are several claims in this email that stem from a lack of understanding of basic biology. Take the claim that diet can change the body’s environment from acid to alkaline. That really is complete nonsense. The body relies on a lot of very finely tuned chemical reactions and a very delicate chemical balance. It isn’t possible to upset that balance just by eating something. It has to be very tightly controlled for our bodies to work properly.
The claim that your mood can make your body ‘more acidic’ isn’t true either. Of course, we all know that being upset, nervous or eating certain foods can give some people an ‘acid stomach’. But that’s just acid in the stomach juices. It’s quite normal to have some acid there - it’s part of digestion - and nothing to do with the ‘acidity’ of the body as a whole.
As we’ve said, cancer cells develop from normal cells. So it isn’t surprising that they have features in common. Like all cells, cancer cells need food and oxygen to survive. All cells ‘feed on sugar’, including cancer cells. There is glucose in the blood from digested food and it circulates to all body cells. But cells don’t ‘feed on mucous’ - from milk, or anywhere else.
It isn’t true that cancer cells can’t survive in an ‘oxygenated environment’. This confusion comes from the truth that well oxygenated cancer cells are more likely to be killed by radiotherapy. There is more about oxygen and radiotherapy in our page on radiotherapy research.
The hoax email says that chemotherapy and radiotherapy damage and kill healthy body cells. We know that - it’s why cancer treatment has side effects. Both treatments kill cells when they are actively growing and dividing. This is how they target cancer cells, because they also grow rapidly. Body tissues that grow quickly are most likely to be affected. In other words, the blood cells, skin and hair cells and lining of the gut. So treatments often cause low blood counts, hair loss, and sickness or diarrhoea. The important thing is that these tissues are rapidly growing. So they recover quickly too.
Doctors and researchers work to reduce the side effects of treatment as much as they can. Most research these days includes quality of life studies that look particularly at side effects. Newer radiotherapy treatments shape the radiation beam and dose to fit tumours more exactly. So that less healthy tissue is in the path of the beam and there are fewer side effects as a result. There is a lot more information about chemotherapy side effects and radiotherapy side effects in CancerHelp UK.
Microwaveable plastic is safe to use in the microwave oven. Obviously anything that says it shouldn’t be microwaved shouldn’t - including some plastics (such as margarine tubs) that will melt. If you are worried about using plastic, don’t. Glass or china bowls with a plate on top work just as well. Just don’t use metals, or you will damage the microwave oven. As for freezing water bottles, as Johns Hopkins say “there are no dioxins in plastics and freezing actually works against the release of chemicals anyway.”
We know that people do find these sorts of emails extremely worrying. We hope this information helps to put your mind at rest about this particular one. Do feel that you can take these sort of worries to your doctor or specialist nurse. They really will want to know if you've been upset by something like this. Or you can ring a cancer information service, such as the specialist nurse team we have here at Cancer Research UK. They will be more than happy to listen to your concerns and explain the rights and wrongs of anything you've been told. You can call them on 0808 800 4040 or 020 7061 8355.
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