Researchers Find Potential Cure for Cancer 324
MECC writes "Researchers at Johns Hopkins University may have found a way to kill cancer cells without radiation or toxic chemicals. The group is taking the step of patenting the idea, as this new approach using sugars may hold real potential for the fight against cancer. This is not the first approach to use sugars, the article states, but is (by the researchers' estimation) the most successful. From the article: 'Sampathkumar and his colleagues built upon 20-year-old findings that a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate can slow the spread of cancer cells. In the 1980s, researchers discovered that butyrate, which is formed naturally at high levels in the digestive system by symbiotic bacteria that feed on fibre, can restore healthy cell functioning ... The researchers focused on a sugar called N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, or ManNAc, for short, and created a hybrid molecule by linking ManNAc with butyrate. The hybrid easily penetrates a cell's surface, then is split apart by enzymes inside the cell. Once inside the cell, ManNAc is processed into another sugar known as sialic acid that plays key roles in cancer biology, while butyrate orchestrates the expression of genes responsible for halting the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells.'"
Patenting (Score:2, Interesting)
Nice to know they're spending their time filing for patents instead of, well, trying to use it to cure cancer.
Cancer stem cells (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't hold your breath... (Score:3, Interesting)
A bit too early to get excited... (Score:4, Interesting)
It is partially offtopic... (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of our body is made of muscle or fat cells, yet sarcoma is quite rare.
Has someone studied a way to make the other kinds of cells so resistent to cancer ?
Re:I hate to say this... (Score:4, Interesting)
The "health care industry" can be relied upon to act in self interest of each of it's parts, not the whole.
If Ford came up with a car that everybody wanted to buy (this is a thought experiment, so doesn't have to be anything short of pure fantasy) and it lasted four times as long so they could only sell a quarter of them. What do you think would happen? They call up Toyota and say "you know, we all make some money here we'll just shelve this".
No.
They go at it full blast and try to make as much money with what _they_ can do, to hell with every other segment of the industry.
So, the first research place to come up with a better cancer treatment and even if it is cheap overall, if they can patent it and make more money than they do now (keep in mind, they know other smart folks are working on the same problem, they gain NOTHING by keeping it secret) they'll do it.
You are stupidly assuming the paranoia about the big health care industry is correct. Big oil, big pharma, big lumber, whatever... they only act in concert because it's a mob rule where their self interest seems to make them do pretty much the same sorts of things. As soon as one can break out of that pattern and make more money, they'll do it. Or, perhaps some other company comes along with a "disruptive technology" and does it. Either way, the status quo is due to the issues involved, not due to collusion amongst the parts of the industry.
You are so GD right! (Score:2, Interesting)
Non-Profit is just a tax status. Meaning, you're more than welcome to make as much money as you want, but you are limited to what you can do with those profits. Some non-profit CEOs do in fact make eight figures a year.
The other thing, to support your argument further, I once knew a nutritionist who worked with folks to reduce their heart disease risk by helping them with their diet. The CEO of the hospital she worked for canned the preventitive program because the heart surgeons were complaining that the preventitive program was hurting their business!
You are right! It IS all about money!
Cute (Score:3, Interesting)
So they have found an high tech method to attack cancer based on the same principle you'd get by eating enough vegetables...
Riiiight....Re:High fibre diet is the answer? (Score:1, Interesting)
Two weeks before Christmas, my grandmother was diagnosed with a 95% probability of having liver cancer. They wouldn't know 100% unless they did a biopsy, but they saw inflammation, huge spots, etc on her liver and surrounding organs. It was bad enough that the doctor, when telling my mother about it, was offering hospice.
Instead of just accepting this, my mom did some research into alternatives to traditional medicines. She found that by eliminating pork, most dairy and red meat, preservative-laden foods (sodium nitrate in most deli meats is a good source of headaches), bleached flours (no more Wonder Bread), and refined sugars (substituting with honey, molasses, and natural raw sugar, all in very very small quantities) would help stop filling her body with toxins and consumable material for the toxins to grow upon.
Things she found that would help, include: high fiber foods, beta-carotene-rich foods (your yellow/orange veggies), green leafy veggies, beans (if you do baked beans, you HAVE to get vegetarian, to eliminate the pork), yellow potatos and other root veggies, red and yellow onions, garlic (together with the onions to clean out toxins), tomatos (particularly the lycopene in them), fish (not farm-raised, either), and various vitamin supplements (B-complex and magnesium are two important ones). Minimal amounts of lean, red meat and chicken are acceptable, and supply meat protein. But clearly no pork whatsoever should be eaten. Fresh squeezed (or juiced) fruits are incredible too. Try to have a smoothie of pineapple, papaya, grape, blueberry, cranberry, etc, daily. Basically, the fruits that "stain" are the best ones for you (so, red/purple grape juice, not white).
Microwaving food basically kills any nutritional content, so don't do that. Carrots are best eaten raw, or if juiced, consumed within 10 minutes of juicing. If cooked or after 10 minutes of being juiced, the best nutritional content deteriorates (I remember 10 minutes for some reason, that may not be exact). It'll still be good, but not as good as it could be.
Also pay attention to handling foods. Don't lick a spoon and stick it back in the saucepan, even if you're still cooking it. Wash your hands, especially when preparing foods. Constantly. Yes, germs can kill you.
Basically, all of this is giving her the kind of foods people used to eat before mass production became an issue, prepared the way your grandparents and great-grandparents prepared it: good old-fashioned home cooking. Ever wonder why it always tastes so good? Organic foods play a HUGE role in this.
The doctor didn't care (he had already written my grandmother off) and was willing to support the family's decision, and he also made healthy food suggestions. Upon request because the additional hope it would offer my grandmother, the doctor scheduled an appointment for two months out, which he had not planned on doing. It helped to get to the doctor before the day of the appointment with my grandmother where he broke the news "officially".
Now, a month later, she is up and moving around, energetic, has normal bowel movements with no traces of blood, has a hearty appetite (even though she is still a junk-food junkie), and has been acting and feeling better than she has in a year or more. In her upper 80s, she was more than able to walk, on her own, to her son's home next door for the family Christmas dinner. I expect to see that doctor's jaw drop when she shows up for the appointment feeling better than she has in a long time
Mom has maintained for years, and I agree with her, that the body has everything it needs to fight off any kind of infection or disease, even cancer, as long as it is being supplied with the proper nutrition. In general, fruits clean, veggies heal, and roots/be