We've just solved Cancer

[Psych]

Source: http://hubpages.com/hub/Scientists_cure_cancer__but_no_one_takes_notice

Canadian researchers find a simple cure for cancer, but major pharmaceutical companies are not interested.

Researchers at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada have cured cancer last week, yet there is a little ripple in the news or in TV. It is a simple technique using very basic drug. The method employs dichloroacetate, which is currently used to treat metabolic disorders. So, there is no concern of side effects or about their long term effects.

This drug doesn’t require a patent, so anyone can employ it widely and cheaply compared to the costly cancer drugs produced by major pharmaceutical companies.

Canadian scientists tested this dichloroacetate (DCA) on human’s cells; it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells and left the healthy cells alone. It was tested on Rats inflicted with severe tumors; their cells shrank when they were fed with water supplemented with DCA. The drug is widely available and the technique is easy to use, why the major drug companies are not involved? Or the Media interested in this find?

In human bodies there is a natural cancer fighting human cell, the mitochondria, but they need to be triggered to be effective. Scientists used to think that these mitochondria cells were damaged and thus ineffective against cancer. So they used to focus on glycolysis, which is less effective in curing cancer and more wasteful. The drug manufacturers focused on this glycolysis method to fight cancer. This DCA on the other hand doesn’t rely on glycolysis instead on mitochondria; it triggers the mitochondria which in turn fights the cancer cells.

The side effect of this is it also reactivates a process called apoptosis. You see, mitochondria contain an all-too-important self-destruct button that can't be pressed in cancer cells. Without it, tumors grow larger as cells refuse to be extinguished. Fully functioning mitochondria, thanks to DCA, can once again die.

With glycolysis turned off, the body produces less lactic acid, so the bad tissue around cancer cells doesn't break down and seed new tumors.

Pharmaceutical companies are not investing in this research because DCA method cannot be patented, without a patent they can’t make money, like they are doing now with their AIDS Patent. Since the pharmaceutical companies won’t develop this, the article says other independent laboratories should start producing this drug and do more research to confirm all the above findings and produce drugs. All the groundwork can be done in collaboration with the Universities, who will be glad to assist in such research and can develop an effective drug for curing cancer.

You can access the original research for this cancer here.

This article wants to raise awareness for this study, hope some independent companies and small startup will pick up this idea and produce these drugs, because the big companies won’t touch it for a long time.

And apparently no one cares.

Edited May 14, 2011 by Psychology

[Phoenix Wright]

It's still being tested isn't it?

[Psych]

I'm not aware of what is actually being tested, but this hasn't been being covered by practically any large news corporations, just showing they don't want something unless it'll make them money.

[eclipse]

Look at the date of the original research project:

http://www.dca.med.ualberta.ca/Home/Updates/2007-03-15_Update.cfm

From what I'm reading, it sounds like they were about to do human testing. No word on whether or not it worked.

[Freohr Datia]

Welp... That's awesome that they know the cure!!!

But it really irks me how selfish people can be. Human race --> fail.

In a world like this we need money to live pretty much, but they'll be killing everyone else for wanting to get that money.

I shouldn't be so surprised that people are acting like this... But I am still sort of incredulous.

Twitter. Should help spread the word haha

*just pressed the preview post and saw the other posts*

I hope that this will end up working out. It'd be nice to find a way to prevent this.

[Phoenix]

In my teenage years I heard about a lot of apparent cures for pretty much any disease you can think of. So I admittedly grew up hating the F.D.A. and anyone involved with them with a passion. My grandfather died of cancer not terribly long ago and it hurt so much worse than it normally would have because I knew the doctors weren't going to consider any kind of alternative methods at that stage. Neither would anyone in my family. This doesn't mean that said alternatives would have worked at all, but nothing is more infuriating than the profits factor causing companies and organizations to try and suppress what might otherwise save millions of lives, and paint anything natural or un-patentable as some kind of scam.

As for this, it in no way surprises me. I honestly don't care if it's a cure or not, because I've read about quite a few already. What bugs me is how consistent and persistent this kind of thing is. Anyway I wouldn't call cancer "just solved" per se. This is just another episode of people finding a highly effective method of treating cancer that's being ignored.

[Excellen Browning]

You don't need pharmaceutical companies to fund you, you can set up your own company easily to manufacture the drug. Pharmaceutical companies may not be wanting to invest into you, but there's more than enough other places to go to (government, cure cancer funds, investment societies, you name it) for that. Cancer is cause of death no.1 in my country, if there really were a panacea for cancer like this those would immediately jump on it.

Furthermore, that article is from 2007. This is 2011. Science moves. I look up just the wikipedia article and read that all this hype was based on the results of some goddamn simple in vitro tests. Excuse me if I'm not interested in such a hollow claim. They've now done an in vivo test on 5 patients and one of them died after three months. In tests on mice it shows it will actually help the cancer in certain cases.

You're overhyping the shit out of it AND you're grossly outdated.

[Kitsu]

To be a bit more specific, dichloroacetate has not been ruled out as a cancer "cure," but they're still testing it. It led to an increased chance of liver cancer in mice, but only under much higher doses than normal. The main risk among human patients was the potential for neural problems, which is apparently possible even with small doses over long periods of time (after all, it's apparently been used for a long time now for other things).

I was gonna post a conspiracy theory here for why drug companies might not want to adapt a cheap cure for cancer (for fun, of course), but I feel that it would simply serve to kill any credibility I may ever have here, lol.

But yeah, before you start jumping up and down about things, it's often a good idea to do some extra research.

[Fire Emblem Addict]

Ah, the dangers of living in a capitalist society.... Freedom to profit as one wishes, but at what cost? The lives of the victims of this fruitless struggle for wealth?

[Bearissoslow]

From what I vaguely recall about this, isn't it highly situational? It's not necessarily a "cure" iirc, just a way to start actually finding ways to cure it.

[Defeatist Elitist]

I'm really really hesitant to trust the article if it refers to mitochondria as "cancer killing cells", because they aren't. While the leading theory is that mitochondria once were independent organisms, in a modern sense they are firmly classified as organelles, not cells at all. Additionally, they don't really kill cancer cells or anything like that, they're simply the sites of cellular respiration and some similar processes. Basically, the way the OP states this is sort of suspect.

[Ragnell]

I'm really really hesitant to trust the article if it refers to mitochondria as "cancer killing cells", because they aren't. While the leading theory is that mitochondria once were independent organisms, in a modern sense they are firmly classified as organelles, not cells at all. Additionally, they don't really kill cancer cells or anything like that, they're simply the sites of cellular respiration and some similar processes. Basically, the way the OP states this is sort of suspect.

The article's wording of the process is blatantly uninformed, but I could see how the awkwardly described process could work. I'm no biology expert (yet), so correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand it apoptosis ("cell suicide") often is performed by altering the mitochondria, which are normally the energy source of aerobic eukaryotic cells (us). Since according to this article cancer cells can switch off the mitochondria and shift their energy production emphasis to glycolysis (which is far less effective, but requires no oxygen and occurs outside the mitochondria), they avoid reliance on the mitochondria and can thus evade the normal means of apoptosis. If this drug can make those cancer cells dependent on the mitochondria again, then the cells would be vulnerable to apoptosis.

But yeah, I remain skeptical. You know what they say: if it sounds too good to be true...

Edited May 16, 2011 by Ragnell

[monkymeet]

Here's a good writeup about this:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/dichloroacetate_and_cancer.php

[shroudening]

Mitochondria cells? That's a laugh, as there is no such thing. Mitochondria are organelles, not cells.

[Crystal Shards]

That's more than a little sensationalistic, and doesn't give the various medical professionals who are actually studying this right at this very minute very much credit.

And you really can't blame pharmaceutical companies for not jumping on this. They are a company, and they do have costs when developing new medicine. They can't immediately jump on every "cure." You may not be able to patent DCA (that's questionable), but you CAN patent medication with it in it. How many "cures" for cancer have there been now? I mean, the same goes with AIDS, but that's mostly because they're too busy doing animal testing, which doesn't help for that particular illness. But that's another story entirely.

In short, I would take this article with a HUGE grain of salt.

[Fire Emblem Addict]

The article's wording of the process is blatantly uninformed, but I could see how the awkwardly described process could work. I'm no biology expert (yet), so correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand it apoptosis ("cell suicide") often is performed by altering the mitochondria, which are normally the energy source of aerobic eukaryotic cells (us). Since according to this article cancer cells can switch off the mitochondria and shift their energy production emphasis to glycolysis (which is far less effective, but requires no oxygen and occurs outside the mitochondria), they avoid reliance on the mitochondria and can thus evade the normal means of apoptosis. If this drug can make those cancer cells dependent on the mitochondria again, then the cells would be vulnerable to apoptosis.

But yeah, I remain skeptical. You know what they say: if it sounds too good to be true...

My cell biology is getting a bit rusty but I don't think eukaryotes can survive using fermentation alone since aerobic respiration is something like 10x more efficient than fermentation (glycolysis only forms 2 ATP so it alone cannot even provide for a prokaryote). Although the mitochondria does regulate apoptosis, other mechanisms such as lysosomes are responsible for autophagic cell death (which is basically a cell digesting its own organelles as a means of suicide). I think the point of this article is that the mitochondria is no longer regulating apoptosis (i.e. not allowing it to occur) in cancer cells and the new drug can restore this ability.

Edited May 31, 2011 by Fire Emblem Addict