Scientists Cure Cancer, But No One Takes Notice

Guybrush · 03-20-2012, 02:01 AM

I wanted to share this with you. It seems cancer research has taken a giant leap forward, but that this research is having a hard time reaching patients and people in general.

Please read : Scientists Cure Cancer, But No One Takes Notice

Another article : The dichloroacetate (DCA) cancer kerfuffle

Basically, there is a drug (dichloroacetate) which may help cure many forms of cancer. It works by reactivating mitochondria, organelles that are functioning in normal cells but not in cancer cells. These organelles are able to kill off their cells by a process called apoptosis and this medicine helps the cancer cell mitochondrias do that.

The "problem" is that dichloroacetate is an old drug which was discovered back in the 1800s and has been used to treat some rare metabolic disorders. It's old enough to be public domain and is unpatentable. No major pharmaceutical companies can patent a sellable DCA drug. You would think that would be a good thing as it means anyone should be able to use it relatively cheaply, but as these companies sell expensive anti-cancer medicines, that means they do not want to support the development of drugs like this which will compete against their own products. So, I was hoping to help spread a little awareness about this.

You know me as a sceptic and I am sceptical in regards to this as well. I don't believe it's the cure which will end all cancer and I think DCA's potential as a cancer drug may so far have been a little exaggerated. But even if it will only help with certain forms of cancer, it still does look promising and as long as it can help, that's another step forwards .. right?

This drug is not available to people with cancer in Norway, but if it garners some attention, universities and so on can get enough donations so that they can afford to start clinical trials etc. Help spread the word.

mr dave · 03-20-2012, 06:59 AM

According to wikipedia while the drug isn't formally available there are plenty of patients, doctors, and scientists using and administering it in a non-clinical environment as a non-approved drug. Same as it does demonstrate some biochemical modifications but no actual improved survival. It's a good starting point. Though, where it does act like a carcinogen in large doses are we really just trying to fight fire with fire here?

Also where dichloroacetate is a trace product only created as a side effect of chlorinating water... does this mean drinking from the public pool will help keep cancer away?

Guybrush · 03-20-2012, 10:09 AM

There was a news story here about a guy who had cancer and got treated with DCA in Canada which rapidly decreased the size of his tumour. Doctors in this country can't and won't treat people with it unless they're willing to break the law. As for efficiency, I believe the reason it can't be said to have demonstrated improved survival is that there has not been enough large scale clinical trials to test it as a drug for cancer yet. Hence, a lot of the evidence for its effectiveness will be anecdotal or come from animal experiments.

As for the side effects, they are supposedly quite trivial. There are negative side effects if dosages are too large, but that goes for any drug - or even clear, clean water for that matter. At a certain dosage, just about anything can be toxic.

Phantom Limb · 03-20-2012, 10:27 AM

I tried to tell my neighbor who got bone cancer a few months ago about this, but he didn't seem very interested and I didn't wanna push it on him (or make it seem like I knew more about cancer than him). I know when I get cancer (cause we're all gonna get it in the future) I'll use this stuff, but it will be hard to spread the word about it because they haven't done extensive clinical trials, it's not patentable, and who's gonna believe someone who says they've found the cure for cancer? It sounds a little far-fetched.

(found out about this on Stumbleupon btw)

~~someonecompletelyrandom~~ · 03-20-2012, 10:28 AM

Wow, this really needs to be developed. Thanks for sharing, tore. I'll spread this around where I can.

**Goofle** · 03-20-2012, 10:56 AM

Cheers for the info tore. Spreading the word on Twitter, quite a few RT's already, and many more doing the same.

**Frownland** · 03-20-2012, 06:58 PM

What types of cancer are susceptible to DCA? I'd like some more information to share with my friends and I'm too lazy to do the research myself.

GuitarBizarre · 03-20-2012, 07:02 PM

Interesting to note that the university doing the research haven't updated their website since 2010, the last tests involved 5 patients, and there were high dosage side effects.

This story is going around like a chain mail it seems. Its bunk.

Also, Cancer is a collective term for literally thousands of different illnesses, like the common cold is an umbrella term for lots of different virii. It won't be "Cured" all at once, it will be systematically hunted down piece by piece.

iluvwubs · 03-20-2012, 09:02 PM

I don't want anything that effects mitochondria. clearly you never played Parasite Eve..

Guybrush · 03-21-2012, 01:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuitarBizarre

Interesting to note that the university doing the research haven't updated their website since 2010, the last tests involved 5 patients, and there were high dosage side effects.

This story is going around like a chain mail it seems. Its bunk.

It's likely slow going because large clinical trials cost a lot of money and there's no financial backing from pharmaceutical companies and one of the universities supposedly backed out leaving one of the research teams financially stranded. One of the points here is raising a little awareness so that hopefully, researchers will get funding to work on this. After all, you can't just capture people with cancer and drug them. And 5 people is not nearly enough data for anything much.

And so what about high dosage side effects? As I wrote earlier, just about anything is toxic at a high enough dosage. Even regular painkillers can be harmful, you know that.

Not saying you shouldn't be sceptical, I'm just wondering how you can call it bunk at this point. After all, current evidence suggests that it is effective in treatment against cancer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2010 Article "Metabolic Modulation of Glioblastoma with Dichloroacetate" Abstract

Solid tumors, including the aggressive primary brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme, develop resistance to cell death, in part as a result of a switch from mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation to cytoplasmic glycolysis. This metabolic remodeling is accompanied by mitochondrial hyperpolarization. We tested whether the small-molecule and orphan drug dichloroacetate (DCA) can reverse this cancer-specific metabolic and mitochondrial remodeling in glioblastoma. Freshly isolated glioblastomas from 49 patients showed mitochondrial hyperpolarization, which was rapidly reversed by DCA. In a separate experiment with five patients who had glioblastoma, we prospectively secured baseline and serial tumor tissue, developed patient-specific cell lines of glioblastoma and putative glioblastoma stem cells (CD133 + , nestin + cells), and treated each patient with oral DCA for up to 15 months. DCA depolarized mitochondria, increased mitochondrial reactive oxygen species, and induced apoptosis in GBM cells, as well as in putative GBM stem cells, both in vitro and in vivo. DCA therapy also inhibited the hypoxia-inducible factor–1a, promoted p53 activation, and suppressed angiogenesis both in vivo and in vitro. The dose-limiting toxicity was a dose-dependent, reversible peripheral neuropathy, and there was no hematologic, hepatic, renal, or cardiac toxicity. Indications of clinical efficacy were present at a dose that did not cause peripheral neuropathy and at serum concentrations of DCA sufficient to inhibit the target enzyme of DCA, pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase II, which was highly expressed in all glioblastomas. Metabolic modulation may be a viable therapeutic approach in the treatment of glioblastoma.

>> Source : http://dca-information.pbworks.com/f...oroacetate.pdf

This is the (afaik) the latest study that they finally raised enough money to do and it's very small scale. As you can see, it concludes that DCA does reduce size of brain tumors at a dosage which is smaller than needed to cause the (reversible) negative side effects and the final conclusion is that it may be a viable therapeutic approach in the treatment of brain cancer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

What types of cancer are susceptible to DCA? I'd like some more information to share with my friends and I'm too lazy to do the research myself.

According to the article quoted above, it helps against brain tumors that form in glial cells which are helper cells in the brain which, among other things, provide insulation for neurons. I believe it's the most common form of brain cancer.

edit :

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuitarBizarre

Also, Cancer is a collective term for literally thousands of different illnesses, like the common cold is an umbrella term for lots of different virii. It won't be "Cured" all at once, it will be systematically hunted down piece by piece.

I agree it's likely it won't be effective in treatment of all cancers, but while there are different kinds, it's worth pointing out that cancer cells across different types generally do share some important traits, like being able to keep their telomers intact with each cell division. The drug targets something which is widely common across different kinds of cancer; non-functional mitochondrias.

03-20-2012, 02:01 AM	#1 (permalink)
Guybrush Juicious Maximus III Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Scabb Island Posts: 6,525	Scientists Cure Cancer, But No One Takes Notice I wanted to share this with you. It seems cancer research has taken a giant leap forward, but that this research is having a hard time reaching patients and people in general. Please read : Scientists Cure Cancer, But No One Takes Notice Another article : The dichloroacetate (DCA) cancer kerfuffle Basically, there is a drug (dichloroacetate) which may help cure many forms of cancer. It works by reactivating mitochondria, organelles that are functioning in normal cells but not in cancer cells. These organelles are able to kill off their cells by a process called apoptosis and this medicine helps the cancer cell mitochondrias do that. The "problem" is that dichloroacetate is an old drug which was discovered back in the 1800s and has been used to treat some rare metabolic disorders. It's old enough to be public domain and is unpatentable. No major pharmaceutical companies can patent a sellable DCA drug. You would think that would be a good thing as it means anyone should be able to use it relatively cheaply, but as these companies sell expensive anti-cancer medicines, that means they do not want to support the development of drugs like this which will compete against their own products. So, I was hoping to help spread a little awareness about this. You know me as a sceptic and I am sceptical in regards to this as well. I don't believe it's the cure which will end all cancer and I think DCA's potential as a cancer drug may so far have been a little exaggerated. But even if it will only help with certain forms of cancer, it still does look promising and as long as it can help, that's another step forwards .. right? This drug is not available to people with cancer in Norway, but if it garners some attention, universities and so on can get enough donations so that they can afford to start clinical trials etc. Help spread the word. __________________ Something Completely Different Last edited by Guybrush; 03-20-2012 at 04:12 AM.

03-20-2012, 10:09 AM	#3 (permalink)
Guybrush Juicious Maximus III Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Scabb Island Posts: 6,525	There was a news story here about a guy who had cancer and got treated with DCA in Canada which rapidly decreased the size of his tumour. Doctors in this country can't and won't treat people with it unless they're willing to break the law. As for efficiency, I believe the reason it can't be said to have demonstrated improved survival is that there has not been enough large scale clinical trials to test it as a drug for cancer yet. Hence, a lot of the evidence for its effectiveness will be anecdotal or come from animal experiments. As for the side effects, they are supposedly quite trivial. There are negative side effects if dosages are too large, but that goes for any drug - or even clear, clean water for that matter. At a certain dosage, just about anything can be toxic. __________________ Something Completely Different

03-20-2012, 06:58 PM	#7 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,548	What types of cancer are susceptible to DCA? I'd like some more information to share with my friends and I'm too lazy to do the research myself. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

03-20-2012, 10:28 AM	#5 (permalink)
~~someonecompletelyrandom~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 4,538	Wow, this really needs to be developed. Thanks for sharing, tore. I'll spread this around where I can.

03-20-2012, 07:02 PM	#8 (permalink)
GuitarBizarre D-D-D-D-D-DROP THE BASS! Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1,730	Interesting to note that the university doing the research haven't updated their website since 2010, the last tests involved 5 patients, and there were high dosage side effects. This story is going around like a chain mail it seems. Its bunk. Also, Cancer is a collective term for literally thousands of different illnesses, like the common cold is an umbrella term for lots of different virii. It won't be "Cured" all at once, it will be systematically hunted down piece by piece.

03-20-2012, 09:02 PM	#9 (permalink)
iluvwubs Groupie Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: america Posts: 47	I don't want anything that effects mitochondria. clearly you never played Parasite Eve..