Most people do not notice or simply ignore cancer symptoms, and it does not allow doctors to begin treatment at an early stage of the disease, when the chances of a complete victory are the greatest. This is the conclusion reached by the British scientists from University College London.
Of course, we run the risk to join the number of hypochondriacs, if we start visiting doctors because of every pimple or pain symptom. However, new studies conducted by British scientists have shown that the majority of people still need to take great precautions. Previously, scientists have proven that a lot of cancer patients did not notice or often ignored the symptoms of cancer at an early stage of the disease. The same result was obtained during the new research.
The study author Katrina Whitaker said they had wanted to capture a portrait of a man who did not know anything about his/her being sick. This would let them find out what he does when he experiences certain symptoms that may indicate a malignant tumor. To fulfill this mission, the researchers interviewed 1,724 people, 50 years of age or older. All of them were to answer whether they experienced any of the 17 classic symptoms of cancer in the last three months.
Among them, there were such symptoms as unexplained appearance of bumps or seals on the body, changes in the color and form of moles, and sudden weight loss. Among other symptoms, there were constant fatigue and dizziness. If the respondents experienced these symptoms, they were asked to name the possible cause and determine how severe they were.
Although as many as 53% of the respondents said that frequent cough or a change in bowel performance could be symptoms of cancer, only 2% of the respondents said that their health could be threatened by malignancies. In most cases, the respondents diagnosed a lot of terrible diseases in themselves, ignoring the idea of cancer. For example, they believed that they had arthritis, infections, heartburn, or just were very tired. The research has shown that people still do not want to see the symptoms of cancer in themselves and generally prefer not to think about it, as if they cannot get sick even theoretically.
