Simple, cheap and effective drug against cancer discovered

[JaXanim]

Karlos wrote:
- - -
It's quite ironic when you consider the sheer effort invested in cancer research that answers may lie in some of the simpler substances we've employed for ages for other purposes.

It's all about money. Nobody will make any money if DCA proves to be the silver bullet. I wish these DCA investigators every success, the world deserves something free for a change.
JaX

[Karlos]

I totally agree.

[JaXanim]

@Karlos
I think our avatars have something going here!
JaX

[Quixote]

JaXanim jibed:

It's all about money. Nobody will make any money if DCA proves to be the silver bullet.

:-( This is why big business medical research laboratories haven't produced cures in the last thirty years or so.  Instead, we're treated to various ongoing treatment programs, which require that you (or your insurance company, which means, well, everybody) -keeps paying again next month.  And the next, and the next....

You're renting good health, instead of buying it.

[Karlos]

JaXanim wrote:
@Karlos
I think our avatars have something going here!
JaX

Well, I did get the idea of the blinking eyes from yours ;-) When we had 15,000 bytes per avatar to play with I could be a bit more adventurous, but now a glowing cigar and blink is about all I can squeeze in before I'm reduced to sacrificing the palette to less than 128 colours :-)

[Karlos]

@Quixote

This is one of the reasons I gave up in my original field. My PhD was sponsored by a pharmecutical company that shall remain nameless. Their attitude towards drug research and production was pure corporate gain.

On top of all the dead leads the project was turning up and being faced with the prospect of post doctoral research before I could get a decent R&D job, I figured I'd jump ship whilst I still had some life left in me.

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
Odd that the mitochondria have control over cell termination?

Not really. Mitochondrial oxidization leads to cell death.

bloodline wrote:
One would have though activating dormant mitochondria would have provided an extra boost in cell growth/devision due to extra energy provided.

Maybe it does in the short term. But eventually the cell will be oxidised to the point of breakdown. Ironic really that without oxygen we would die, but the oxidization of cells causes aging and, eventually, death.

bloodline wrote:
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?

Anaerobic respiration maybe?

--
moto

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
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?

motorollin wrote:
Anaerobic respiration maybe?

From http://www.outsmartyourcancer.com/ModernSageArticle2.pdf:

In the 1930s and 1940s, two-time Nobel prize-winning scientist, Otto Warburg, demonstrated that all cancer cells share the important trait of being primarily anaerobic.  Whereas all healthy cells in our bodies require an oxygen-rich environment, Warburg was able to show that cancer cells actually thrive in an oxygen-depleted environment.  He further proved that, rather than using oxygen, cancer cells use glucose fermentation for their energy needs.

Glucose fermentation -> Lactic Acid + Energy.

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moto

[bloodline]

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...

[motorollin]

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

[bloodline]

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.

--
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...

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
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...

... and without the harmful effects of oxidisation.

[edit]
Could this be why cancer sufferers are sometimes underweight and very very tired? Because the cancer cells are leeching all of the glucose for anaerobic respiration?

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moto