Topic: Potential GENERIC cancer cure.

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Michelakis suggests that the switch to glycolysis as an energy source occurs when cells in the middle of an abnormal but benign lump don’t get enough oxygen for their mitochondria to work properly (see diagram). In order to survive, they switch off their mitochondria and start producing energy through glycolysis.

Crucially, though, mitochondria do another job in cells: they activate apoptosis, the process by which abnormal cells self-destruct. When cells switch mitochondria off, they become “immortal”, outliving other cells in the tumour and so becoming dominant. Once reawakened by DCA, mitochondria reactivate apoptosis and order the abnormal cells to die.

DCA can cause pain, numbness and gait disturbances in some patients, but this may be a price worth paying if it turns out to

be effective against all cancers. The next step is to run clinical trials of DCA in people with cancer. These may have to be funded by charities, universities and governments: pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to pay because they can’t make money on unpatented medicines. The pay-off is that if DCA does work, it will be easy to manufacture and dirt cheap.

I've often wondered if the cancer society would fund an potential cheap cure if one were presented.  Now we get to find out.

[Centurus]

Personally, I think that the drug companies would never support any drug that could potentially, or even absolutely, cure cancer.  As long as a cure isn't presented, their profits remain high.  Unfortunately, it's the sad truth, at least as far as I'm concerned.

I for one hope that this discovery is true, and that it proves to be a cure for most, if not all cancers.  My dad passed away in 1994 of cancer, and if this discovery was made before that, and it was tested, who knows, it might have saved my dad, and he'd still be here. 

If enough people get word of this information, and follow with this research, and the results were made public, it could open the doors for finally providing a cure for cancer. 

Here's hoping.

[Nemesis]

Personally, I think that the drug companies would never support any drug that could potentially, or even absolutely, cure cancer.  As long as a cure isn't presented, their profits remain high.  Unfortunately, it's the sad truth, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Unfortunately I agree.  The major companies have a lot of money still to make on currently approved under patent drugs to treat cancer.  I can't see them throwing it away by doing the right thing.

My cynicism says the same about the Cancer Society.  Come up with an actual affordable generic cure and the big shots are out of a job as the Society folds due to accomplishing its purpose.

I for one hope that this discovery is true, and that it proves to be a cure for most, if not all cancers.  My dad passed away in 1994 of cancer, and if this discovery was made before that, and it was tested, who knows, it might have saved my dad, and he'd still be here. 

If enough people get word of this information, and follow with this research, and the results were made public, it could open the doors for finally providing a cure for cancer. 

Here's hoping.

Several on my mothers side (including both her parents) have died of cancer so quite naturally I would really like to see a cure.

[Centurus]

Personally, I think that the drug companies would never support any drug that could potentially, or even absolutely, cure cancer.  As long as a cure isn't presented, their profits remain high.  Unfortunately, it's the sad truth, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Unfortunately I agree.  The major companies have a lot of money still to make on currently approved under patent drugs to treat cancer.  I can't see them throwing it away by doing the right thing.

My cynicism says the same about the Cancer Society.  Come up with an actual affordable generic cure and the big shots are out of a job as the Society folds due to accomplishing its purpose.

I for one hope that this discovery is true, and that it proves to be a cure for most, if not all cancers.  My dad passed away in 1994 of cancer, and if this discovery was made before that, and it was tested, who knows, it might have saved my dad, and he'd still be here. 

If enough people get word of this information, and follow with this research, and the results were made public, it could open the doors for finally providing a cure for cancer. 

Here's hoping.

Several on my mothers side (including both her parents) have died of cancer so quite naturally I would really like to see a cure.

Here's hoping then that what you posted about this potential cure turns out to be what we've hoped for, and that enough people will find out about it and try it.

[Nemesis]

Update:

Link to full article:

As a cancer researcher, I can't say whether the regressions observed were due to DCA, although the regression of paraventricular masses in patient #1 and the regression observed in patient #5 are certainly fairly suggestive (at least to me) of an anti-tumor effect due to DCA alone.

The full article has a lot more detail.  In short there was a very limited trial with the intent of determining safe dosages with only 5 patients with a form of brain cancer (1 died).  Results are "suggestive" only.  Here is hoping they get the funding for a broader test. 

[Bonk]

You did not just post a newpseudoscientist link did you? Nemesis, Nemesis, Nemesis. You know better.

* Bonk XC shakes head

Yes, slashforgot spams them like mad, but that does not mean they have any repute above that of a rat.

I am quite confident there will never be a cure for cancer. Cancer is an unavoidable byproduct of eukaryotic life. Note the tissues that cancer occurs in. Coincidence? I think not. To eliminate cancer one would need to re-engineer life as we know it. We are not yet capable of such a feat.

I would be happy to be proved wrong, but I highly doubt it. There is one interest group that drives all this silly cancer "research". (Again, Doctor != Scientist) The belief that cancer can be cured is a symptom of a greater ill in our society. I'll stop there.

edit: except to note that cutting it all out (our best and only valid strategy) does not constitute a "cure".

[marstone]

Thing is the people who do cancer research while called Dr. are usually not MD's but PhDs.  While I might agree that cancer is something that will probably not be eliminated from life, it might have a treatment.  Sort of like you can't stop from catching many diseases but you can treat and get rid of them (but they can come back).

The actual mechanics of carcinogens are being worked on.  True, the MD's stop with the finding of something that seems to cause cancer.  Then the science is done to see how and why.  Had some great discussions with researchers who deal with cancer at my work.  While getting everything down to atomic level is probably impossible, getting a good handle on it is possible.  I understand you have a bad taste for medical research (not sure truly why) but it isn't just done by observation.  While observation of cause and effect is important to work out a theory, you then go in and find the mechanics of it.

Example.  Cameron (not actually a cancer researcher but one that studies lipids) had a good conversation many months ago about a carcinogen.   We were talking about one that had lipid affinity (would stick lipids) but somehow it makes it to the DNA of a cell to cause it to turn cancerous.  Now how it got past all the lipid layers of a cell is not known.  So his proposal is to find the protein or element in the cell that is transporting this compound past the defenses of the cell and taking it to the DNA.  If you can find the transport you have a chance to find how to block it.  This is not just guess work and watching cause and effect.  They are working on the nuts and bolts of many of these things.  You just don't get to read about much of this unless you read the right publications.  Majority of what is published (that the general public sees) is washed down and simplified, sometimes even told wrong,

[Bonk]

Two replies before I've even finished reading your post... lol...

1) A PhD in medicine does not make one a scientist.

2) It has long been known that the most potent of carcinogens have xenoestrogenic effects. This information has been suppressed for a number of reasons, that my conspiratorial mind can only speculate on (but preserving existing cancer "research" revenue streams would be primary among them). e.g. 2,3,7,8-tetracholorodibenzo-para-dioxin (side note to self: I must get ChemDoodle Web working without their help, I need pictures for this kind of thing). The other reason is that I suspect we are just unable to bring ourselves to admit that the key hormone of mammalian life (estrogen) is the kink in the armour, I don't think we can fix that.

- OK, finished reading, three more -

3) The bad taste is not so much for medical research, but its presentation as science, and the media tendency to label medical researchers "scientists". I honestly feel it gives science a bad name and only serves to confuse the general public. It also pertains to personal educational experiences, I do not want to be lumped in with them and share the blame for all the atrocities. The main statistic I often quote is the organic chemistry failure rate of one of the best medical schools in Eastern Canada. Half of all of them fail it, consistently. You can't fix the machine without knowing how the parts work.

4) Lipid chemistry and cell membrane traversal/incorporation. Been there done that. Chlorinated fatty acids as one example, but the concern there is in myelin corruption and perturbation of normal cell membrane transport mechanisms. (I stopped drinking Mountain Dew when I read the label one day to find brominated vegetable oils as an ingredient... there is almost zero research...)

5) Proteomics. Don't get me started. I've had an inside look at the "state of the art"... holy shot-in-the-dark Batman! The brute force approaches currently employed clearly demonstrate that we do not yet have the base understanding required.

(Apologies for my know-it-all attitude, but I just have to give in to it sometimes.)

Majority of what is published (that the general public sees) is washed down and simplified, sometimes even told wrong,

Aye, there's the rub. That is what gets my ire up.

[marstone]

Yes but that is usually news media and such. Not the researchers in the field.