Simple, cheap and effective drug against cancer discovered

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Odd that the mitochondria have control over cell termination? One would have though activating dormant mitochondria would have provided an extra boost in cell growth/devision due to extra energy provided.

Begs the question though... how do the cancer cells work without mitochondria? I was under the impression all Oxygen respiration was due to these little symbiots?

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Karlos wrote:
An even stranger note, there was an article recently describing the action of capsaicin on tumour cells, killing them by the exact opposite behaviour, i.e. shutting down their mitochodria :-?

Hmmm... I think there are some really subtle interaction going on which we are not aware of...

On a more distressing note (for me anyway)... capsaicin is bad for you!?!?! :-(

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Anaerobic respiration is really quite inefficient compared with Aerobic, so one would expect a "device" (organic equiv.) like a cancer which demands a huge amount of energy to use the most efficient method...

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motorollin wrote:
Just found another article which says that cancer cells "have either wholly or partially switched to anaerobic respiration". It does not, however, address the efficiency of anaerobic compared to aerobic respiration.

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moto

I suppose Anaerobic does have the advantage of not requiring an oxygen supply... this would allow the cancer to grow quickly without an effective blood supply...