|
|
|
|
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 5:53:08 AM | I stumbled across this article today, and I had to share it with my fellow Ontarians.
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.
Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.
DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar.
Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis’s experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died (Cancer Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2006.10.020).
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.
“The results are intriguing because they point to a critical role that mitochondria play:
they impart a unique trait to cancer cells that can be exploited for cancer therapy,” says Dario Altieri, director of the University of Massachusetts Cancer Center in Worcester.
The phenomenon might also explain how secondary cancers form. Glycolysis generates lactic acid, which can break down the collagen matrix holding cells together. This means abnormal cells can be released and float to other parts of the body, where they seed new tumours.
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.
Paul Clarke, a cancer cell biologist at the University of Dundee in the UK, says the findings challenge the current assumption that mutations, not metabolism, spark off cancers. “The question is: which comes first?” he says.
All I have to say is...Wow. Just...wow.
Will this actually ever see the light of day? Why haven't we heard anything about this on the news? Will the government, pharmaceutical companies, or doctors try to keep this covered up and quiet?
Your thoughts on this?
The full article is here: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/cancer/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-kills-most-cancers.html | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 6:09:10 AM | I believe they will keep it quiet, sickness is one of the most money making things in the world.
I mean 40 yrs ago we did not have as many deaths as we do now. Advancements in medicine has created sickness as well as cured some. We were healthier 40 yrs ago then we are now.
Greed, money seem to rule the world in all aspects regardless of what they tell us.
Think about it if these companies make billions of dollars why are hospitals closing, long wait times, people who get sicker cause they cannot afford the medicine, or die because of it.
I mean in the states hospital will acutally turn away people because they don't have insurance. In Canada people have be turned away because there is no room at that hospital, emergency rooms have shut down because they cannot afford to keep it open.
Some cancer patients actually die because of waiting for treatment.
So yes the governments of this world are built on lies, money, greed and little children playing at trying to be a grown-up.
I totally believe that cures, homelessness, education has gone by the wayside because you don't make money off these things.
jmo shy | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 6:43:58 AM | Sometimes I think articles like the one posted by the OP are put out with the intent of giving people hope (and also to encourage research funding - getting funding for research is a very political thing in some fields). Unfortuantely, there are always those that see such things and assume that since the drug has been discovered and has worked in lab trials, we should have it right now. Its never that simple. Proving any medication safe and effective for human use is a long and necessary process. Pushing forward so-called "wonder-drugs" in the past has had some very serious consequences. Thalidomide strikes me as a glaring example.
As for there being fewer deaths and being healthier 40 years ago... nonsense. Society these days seems to have some strange belief in immortality... as if death will never take anyone. Life spans have been getting progressively longer as the centuries have passed, and there are some things that used to cause deaths and sickness that have basically been erradicated. You rarely hear of polio, small pox, or outbreaks of TB any longer. Infant mortality rates are nothing like they used to be either. I think as life spans have gotten longer, and the media has proliferated, become faster, and more able to concentrate on more issues in everyday life, we simply hear about more things and have no solid gauge of just how long a human life normally is. It makes things look more shocking than they truly are.
Perhaps there are government conspiracies and cover-ups. But you can bet that if there are... we'd never hear word one of something they don't want us to know about. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 7:02:25 AM | it's ashamed that everyone has to cover up cures for illnesses and diseases. i'm sure that the people in control don't realize the help that they would have for others if they just release things...even as an experimental drug to patients in need. they can inform the patient that it is an experimental drug and assume no responsibility to any and all side effects.
but then again, that goes to say that the doctors get richer with these cover ups as well as donating to fight the cause. the more money donated, the more they tend to say that there is no cure. imo. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 7:08:00 AM | I mean 40 yrs ago we did not have as many deaths as we do now. Advancements in medicine has created sickness as well as cured some. We were healthier 40 yrs ago then we are now.
I disagree with this ^^^ statement (and much of the opinion of shy gal40 with regards to health care in North America which she has posted) ..while I aknowledge that profit/funding is a force in research and in providing health services to the public, I believe that we have amazing technology, access to dedicated and skilled professionals in a relatively timely fashion, and are on the cutting edge of medical research and innovation.
I am not sure how one might argue that medical advances have cause sickness---perhaps more accurate or specific diagnosis and perhaps more agressive treatments..but healthier 40 years ago?? We are living longer, and enjoying better quality lives--my mom is almost 85, still travels all over the world and leads a very active life.
Tarzans Jane---I am also excited by the prospect that the root of cancer may be soon pinpointed...and am optomistic that, like the 20th century discoveries of vaccines for Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tuberculosis, Tetanus, Yellow Fever, Polio, Measles, and Hepatitis, one day the mortality rate from Cancer will be minimalized or eliminated. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 7:10:20 AM | Hope amoungst hope - it's always been there - the glimmer that things will come to fruition -that families will no longer have to suffer. However, what truly happens is the time for testing and trial usage and actual use for the poplation take years and years!! We hear the cure is here - it's just around the corner - that it is possible - but NEVER does it come to the populous. Sad really, that if the truth is that the cure is at hand, why not bring it forth? Money and greed!?!?!?  | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 7:15:02 AM | I'll re-iterate...
Proving any medication safe and effective for human use is a long and necessary process. Pushing forward so-called "wonder-drugs" in the past has had some very serious consequences. Thalidomide strikes me as a glaring example.
Sometimes just because the cure looks like its at hand, doesn't necessarily mean it is.
Hopefully in this case it is... much as for some of the advancements being made in the treatment of AIDS/HIV. Plagues of the past were conquered, and plagues of the present will be conquered. It all just takes time, as unfair as that may seem to some. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 8:50:32 AM | Yes I heard about this possible cancer cure .
And also that no drug company is willing to make it or sell it because it is so cheap to make .
And because it is an older drug the drug companies do not want to deal with something that will work thats cheap to make or sell.
And you guessed it . Not likely we will see any drug company do anything to fast track it for everyone to use soon either. | |
|
| |
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 9:52:44 AM | Sadly, big pharmaceutical companies make HUGE profits treating patients' conditions on an ongoing basis.... even if it's a couple dollars per patient per day, it adds up on the bottom line... especially if those patients take that prescription for years. The sickness industry is SICK. A one-shot cure would not turn a residual profit and would be bad for business. Not only that, disease fundraising has become a big business too.
I for one hope that this and other cures actually do work, get approved and start to save lives. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 10:56:33 AM | I'm sure that someone who has been diagnosed with "terminal" cancer wouldn't have a problem trying this out . Hopefully some volunteers will come forward , and perhaps speed up the whole process of checking out this drug, but somehow I think that's just too sensible and simple to happen ... it's got to be made more complicated , and expensive in order for any progress to be made . Welcome to mankind .  | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 11:48:06 AM | Yeah... the "health industry" makes it's money off of treating people... not curing them.
If you destroy a disease, then the companies will lose a lot of money that they make off of the drugs they sell to "fight" such diseases. And hospitals will lose money from the patients that won't need their services anymore.
It's all about money, which is pathetic and downright disgusting.
A company will gladly fun "treatment" of a disease, but they'll avoid a "cure". Because one makes them a steady source of income, the other does not. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 12:20:54 PM | If it truly does cure cancer, and if pharmaceutical companies ignore it, there are tons of people with their own basement labs who would take up making it for the black market dollar. There are no worries there, it would get out.
I'm more concerned about the other health risks that may be involved with this new wonder drug. Research takes time.
Having survived supposedly terminal cancer (in the stupidest means possible, by not getting "treatment") I can speak plainly: Many drugs that are marketed to cure or slow a debilitating illness have adverse effects. That is the risk. You can create vaccines for some viruses, but cancer is not a virus. I'm content to wait and see if the research proves correct, whether government sanctioned, or private investigation. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 2:37:36 PM | | it sounds like a good thing but like most things a little too late for some people who could have used it years ago.i know of countless relatives including acousin i recently lost that could have used it. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 2:55:09 PM | @ Jane........Thanks for putting this thread up. It helps people to know that such things are actually out there. I saw a bit about this on the London news a few weeks ago and wondered why I never heard anymore?? Things like this need to be brought out as often as possible.  | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 3:17:50 PM | I believe they will keep it quiet, sickness is one of the most money making things in the world.
I have to agree with you on this one, ShyGal... I have a daughter who is an insulin dependent diabetic. Coming home from my father's funeral (died of pancreatic cancer), on a flight from Edmonton to Toronto, I sat next to a researcher for the Canadian Diabetic Association... and we talked for 4 hrs. about stem cell research, beta cell transplants and other research into the cure for diabetes. That is when I became convinced that illness is a money making venture..... as my daughter so aptly put it, "When diabetes is no longer financially lucrative, they will suddenly find a cure."
In my opinion... the same thing goes for cancer.... it is far too financially lucrative... sad, but true.
 | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 6:20:07 PM | I prefer not to be so cynical. While it's true the drug companies have to watch the bottom line, if word they were withholding a cancer cure were to ever get out the backlash would destroy them.
While I haven't seen the storey of this drug myself, I have noticed what has happened in similiar situations. When positive results come out from an experiment towards curing a disease, many who have the disease instantly demand it. Our society does not allow this for many reasons, mainly to avoid the exploitation of desparate pple. Untill a drug has gone through a very long and extensive testing period it cannot be made available to those desparate to try anything. In many cases those same people, or there families are also the first to demand compensation when the drug/treatment does not cure, or if some unknown side effect does occurr. It's sad but in todays society covering you a$$ is an absolute necessity. There are just to many people ready to take advantage of others. I am including both those with the cure, and those who are sick and demand someone to blame.
(ok, maybe I am cynical, but I still have hope.) | |
|
fluflu
|
Joined: 9/25/2005
Msg: 18 | |
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/2/2007 7:56:54 PM | | It makes me so angry to hear this stuff. My husband died 2 years ago of cancer. I remember the doctors bringing us into this tiny room with a huge window and telling us that they were going to stop all treatments because he was not getting any better and my husband saying how he knew they had a cure but they didn't want anybody to have it because of financial reasons. It just sickens me...everything that people go through with this disease. I honestly don't think it's true...but if it were I would be very very mad. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/3/2007 12:36:13 AM | The cynicism in this thread is sickening. I spend a few thousand a year in medication (yes, "I" do...I have no benefits) so I know how expensive medications are and I know the pharmaceutical companies make a profit from it. I'm not always happy about that, but I understand we aren't living in a philanthropic paradise. That's how any company stays solvent to do business; by making a profit. You can also bet your bottom dollar that I wouldn't be swallowing a bunch of pills every day that I wasn't sure had been thoroughly tested and proven effective and safe by qualified medical researchers. Nor would I be taking it if it didn't do what it was supposed to do with a minimum of nasty side effects. If you think that research, testing, and proof, and the people that provide the proof come cheap, you're kidding yourselves.
Yes, perhaps people may die that could have been saved. "Perhaps" and "May" are huge words in that context. Perhaps they won't, and they may not. Just because you haven't heard anything in the news, doesn't mean things aren't happening. The media rarely reports on the daily humdrum activities of any research, medical or otherwise. You think whether or not Lab Rat #3985B lived or died is big news? Nope. It could come out tomorrow for all anyone knows. It could also prove to be less effective than previously thought, and not a cure after all. If you had an illness, any illness terminal or otherwise, would you want to take an unproven drug that could harm you further or kill you? I wouldn't. There's also the complaint that they'll treat you but they won't cure you because there's no profit in a cure. Pure garbage. Some things simply have no cure, like it or not. There are human medical conditions that can be controlled through treatment, but there simply is no cure.
Nor should we forget, that as horrible as cancer is, there are many many other diseases, illnesses, and disabilities out there that the pharmaceutical companies must also research and produce medications for. Do you really think they should drop everything and work on the cancer cure only? That's the impression I get from some here. I know I'd be pretty damned angry and worried if my pharmacist told me I couldn't have my meds this year, and/or maybe next because the drug suppliers had stopped everything except cancer research.
Bottom line... get real. Things in this world take time and money to develop, produce, and distribute. You may want things Now, but generally that just isn't the way it works in the real world. And just because you aren't getting it Now doesn't have to be because of any corporate conspiracy or government plot or blatantly negligent lack of concern due to minimal profitability. If there is a true cure for cancer, I do hope they find it and that it works as well as is speculated. Just keep in mind, cancer isn't the only thing in your body that can kill you, and those things need time too. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/3/2007 1:05:26 AM | | If I think what the OP is refering to i seen this on the news recently. The researcher in the interview pointed out this substance used in their findings is an old one. The reason why no pharmacutical companies won't jump on it and develope and do more extensive research on it is for no other reason that it can't be patented because it has been around for so long, and it its a very cheap substance to make. Yes it all boils down to corperate greed on treating illnesses rather that curing them. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/3/2007 5:02:07 AM | Big Pharma answers to their stock holders whose main goal is to make money. Not to the patients buying their products. So people cannot be cured as they would stop selling their drugs. Most natural and un-patentable solutions are discredited. Rockefellar who holds the patent on chemotherapy, and mind you makes billions off this scam, was once quoted "A cured patient is a lost customer" Can you trust this industry? I think not.
Their are ways to cure yourself from almost all illness, but it is suppressed and discredited. Our bodies are designed to heal itself anyways, the processed foods and prescribed drugs create blockages in our own internal healing system so you have to rely on drugs...and more drugs...and then more drugs. Over 300,000 people in the US alone die from pharmaceuticals and another 400,000 from Doctor Malpractice..
Our Dr's are trained to treat the illness not treat the cause....ever notice most Doctors have a pharmaceutical bible they refer too when figuring out what to prescribe to you?
Eliminating the parasites in one's body, then doing a complete natural detox to your internal organs, then eating properly will do you more good then any bottle of pills.
I gave up on standard medicine about 3 years ago, changed my eating habits, got off all meat and dairy, did a parasite cleanse, detoxed a few times over this period and have yet to even have a sniffle....my energy levels increased, I lost weight, and so on and so on. Started drinking Almond, Rice and Soy beverages, lots of fruits and vegetables, including Maca, Chthorella, Goji berries, etc..etc..
http://zap.intergate.ca/parasite.html
http://curezone.com/clark
A few good places to start your own research. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/3/2007 8:41:17 AM | You can almost bet that it will stay covered up, because of the money loss to Drug companies, and the goverment.
No matter how long the line up might be for this drug (if proven successful), would be, the ones that need it the most won't see it, or even have a chance.
There is one thing for sure, you would never hear of any goverment official to die of cancer. I know that the goverment won't go that extra mile, to help find a cure for people that are dieing from this horrible disease, but they sure would go the extra mile to get more tax dollars out of you........right up to the point of taxing you when you are dead.
If this medicine is proven to work and Drug companies, and the goverment, won't do anything about it, because there is no money in it for them, then i'm sure it will some how be availiable on the black market...........just my 2 cents worth.........Curly | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/3/2007 10:41:24 AM | People: If their truly is a cure for cancer, one way or another it will come out. An old remedy that is already patented means that the chemical recipe is recorded and anyone with the appropriate chemistry equipment could duplicate it. Conspiracy theory holds no standing here. Research takes time, money and patience. Maybe it kills the root of cancer, but what if it also does something like stop the reproduction of white blood cells altogether after prolonged exposure? That needs to be ascertained before releasing a remedy to the public. ANY medication you take has some unwanted side effect whether constipation or the possibility of a rash etc. The Medical world has to make certain that any medicine does not kill the patient in a means other than the one they are trying to cure.
If a medical therapy goes wrong, practitioners can loose everything to the "cured" seeking compensation. People die. We are not immortal. Living through the death of a loved one is a part of life. It was not all that long ago that someone my age would be considered of a 'mature age' or even 'getting on in years,' (I'm 25) Life expectancy of the general populace was closer to 40 years, not the 75 or more we are alloted now. Sure, there were exceptions. Hell, Cancer should have killed me 6 years ago, and it may have been labeled 'tragic" by others. I rather believe that we all have one common purpose:
Worm fodder.
Besides, it is far easier to evade taxes when you are dead. Why would the government want to kill us? And dead, we cannot purchase pharmaceuticals for those companies to stay in business either. Cancer is not the be all and end all of disease. Patience fellow humans, research takes time.
~Limestone | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/3/2007 12:15:09 PM | | One thing is for certain...cynicism and the belief in government and corporate conspiracies will never die. It's much easier to make stuff up than to really think some things through. | |
|
| The Cure for Cancer?
Posted: 2/3/2007 2:32:31 PM | Ok, a lesson in basic business strategy:
Businesses, including pharmaceutical companies are in business to make money. This much is true.
BUT
IF this report is true and the drug actually works, then even if one or more companies choose not to produce it because they'll lose money on their other drugs, SOMEONE ELSE WILL! And they will get the business (and probably more because of it) and the shortsighted company will lose their sales of the other drugs anyway. So it actually would be in a company's best interest to manufacture the cheap drug and at least salvage what they can of their sales.
As for the "cure" itself, yes, it takes years or even decades of research and testing before a drug can or should be released. Just because it works on cultured cells in a lab, does not mean it will work inside the body. These reports of "early indications" are released on purpose to raise funds for more research. And THAT is a good thing. | |
|
|
|
Home
login 
