 Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jimmy dad, Jimmy! I have Dr. Shabir with me who is the head of oncology and robotic surgery at Manipal Hospitals. Good morning doctor, how are you doing? Good morning Jimmy. Doing well Jimmy. Good to hear. You speak four languages including Gujarati. Yep. Right? Very nice, yeah, very nice. I do. Ok, so doc I have a few questions about cancer because cancer day, so can I start asking you some very basic questions? Right Jimmy, shoot. Okay. So the first question is that, and I don't think too many people know this, is what is the basic cause of these cancer cells forming in your body? Why do they form and how do they form? So these, we know today that cancer is a genetic disease in the sense that it is not necessarily hereditary. But due to certain factors like carcinogens, you know, carcinogens would mean tobacco, alcohol, excessive sunlight exposure, etc. So these induced certain changes in the cells and these changes start in the DNA of the cells. And it leads to one drug cell being formed which is out of control and it leads to, and these cells start reproducing. And this is how cancer starts in the body. Okay. Now, second question, you know, you did mention about smoking and alcohol causing carcinogens and therefore causing cancer. How much is, you said that the DNA gets altered and therefore you have these rock cells. But how much is it lifestyle led? So a lot of these cancers are lifestyle related. So the most, you know, so we call them as risk factors for developing. Just like you have risk factors for developing stroke or heart attack. We have certain risk factors which even can lead to cancer. So the important risk factors for cancer is tobacco. That is the number one risk factor. The tobacco can be in any form. It can be in the form of smoking. It can be in the form of chewing. Or, you know, various other ways in which people consume tobacco. So almost one third of cancers in India especially are related to tobacco abuse. So definitely stopping tobacco abuse will help in a great way to reduce the risk of cancer in the Indian population. Alcohol is also a known carcinogen. And especially when it's combined with smoking, the risk for many cancers increase such as cancers of the mouth, lip, voice box and the food pipe. The other myth which we need to break here is that cancer is only hereditary. It is true that cancer is hereditary but only about 15-20% of cancers carry a genetic hereditary risk. And the rest of the causes are multifactorial. So what do I mean by multifactorial? It's different factors playing out together. So diet also plays an important role in this. Certain foods like processed meat, red meat, when consumed on a regular basis carry an increased risk of colon and gastric cancers. Second thing is a sedentary lifestyle. So when you don't burn enough calories, that can lead to obesity and subsequently cancers. So a healthy lifestyle with a good physical activity of at least 150-300 minutes per week of moderate physical activity helps in reducing the risk of cancer.