Nothing excites me more than talking about what I’m truly passionate about. And this week, I’d love for us to dive into health, specifically cancer. It’s actually Sarcoma Awareness month; sarcoma being a cancer of the bones and connective tissues. Cancer is something that has always been conceived as one of the Western world, of America and Europe. Why? Because many cancers are categorized as lifestyle or non-communicable diseases (NCDs), while Africa has traditionally been the land of infectious diseases; malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS. But this is no longer the full story. The trends are shifting, and rapidly so. With changing lifestyles, urbanization, and altered diets, Africa is seeing a sharp rise in cancers. In fact, they’re increasing faster here than in some parts of the world.

I had a pun-filled conversation with my friends the other day about sunscreen. I’ve always joked, “Why do we have to wear sunscreen so much when our forefathers, the ape men, didn’t?” To which they all laughed and asked, “You—are you an ape?” and, “Besides, those individuals didn’t have screening tools or any way of knowing they had cancer.” But they were right (I hope they don’t read this- oops); we are now consuming and being exposed to many things that weren’t as common back then. So we need to keep our cancer radars on at all times in the sense of what we give our bodies access to.

Sarcoma for example, just like any other cancer, will start with the mutation in certain genes and certain ‘police’ checkpoints that are supposed to watch out for weird cells, and control the rate at which cells are made, to put it simply. But when they are dysfunctional, we get cells with abnormal DNA being replicated at an unchecked rate, they multiply and build up into what is termed as tumours, and when they invade surrounding tissues; they’re called cancers. The characteristics of cancer cells are very different, in that they can survive little to no oxygen unlike other cells, survive the surveillance police cells, and draw more blood vessels to be formed toward themselves.

So in Africa, the most common form of sarcoma is the infamous Kaposi. Infamous because it is usually linked to, and occurs more in people living with HIV/AIDS, which also happens to be most prevalent in the continent. (Actually, take this as your cue to circle back to our HIV fight in Uganda piece; it must be one of my most favourite works yet). This Kaposi is usually found growing in the blood vessels and lymph vessels and can be seen very well on the skin.

Now, many cancers can be sporadic, but for most, we do things that give them proper ground to breed; smoking, alcohol, obesity, unhealthy diets, sedentary lifestyle, radiation exposure which are all things we can put in our control. More so radiation in the case of sarcoma, yes; that’s the waves from your microwaves, X-rays and tanning beds. Others include those we cannot do much about, and just pray and hope that on an unlucky day, that one weird cell doesn’t escape the police. These are sun exposure/UV radiation (less likely for the sunscreen warriors), air pollution, certain microorganisms (such as human herpes virus 8, which brings about Kaposi in HIV/AIDS, and family history or genetics.

The point of this today is to raise awareness, because lack of knowledge is one of the biggest hindrances to alleviating many health issues, as it tumbles over into poor health-seeking behaviour. So let’s have these conversations, and make changes in our lifestyles, more so, back to the way of the apeman; simpler diets, more movement, and fewer toxins.