Last week scientists cured cancer...but no one cared

[SVZ]

Scientists cure cancer, but no one takes notice

David McRaney
Issue date: 1/23/07

Since the original publication of this article we have been inundated with responses from the public at all walks of life. It is important to note that research is ongoing with DCA, and not everyone is convinced it will turn out to be a miracle drug. There have been many therapies that were promising in vitro and in animal models that did not work for one reason or another in humans. To provide false hope is not our intention. There is a lot of information on DCA available on the web, and this column is but one opinion on the topic. We hope you will do your own research into the situation. So, we have added links to resources at the end of this column. If you are arriving here form a linking website like Fark, then those links will not appear because they tend to grab only the text.

Scientists may have cured cancer last week. Yep.

So, why haven't the media picked up on it?

Here's the deal. Researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada found a cheap and easy to produce drug that kills almost all cancers. The drug is dichloroacetate, and since it is already used to treat metabolic disorders, we know it should be no problem to use it for other purposes.

Doesn't this sound like the kind of news you see on the front page of every paper?

The drug also has no patent, which means it could be produced for bargain basement prices in comparison to what drug companies research and develop.

Scientists tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body where it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but left healthy cells alone. Rats plump with tumors shrank when they were fed water supplemented with DCA.

Again, this seems like it should be at the top of the nightly news, right?

Cancer cells don't use the little power stations found in most human cells - the mitochondria. Instead, they use glycolysis, which is less effective and more wasteful.

Doctors have long believed the reason for this is because the mitochondria were damaged somehow. But, it turns out the mitochondria were just dormant, and DCA starts them back up again.

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.

Here's the big catch. Pharmaceutical companies probably won't invest in research into DCA because they won't profit from it. It's easy to make, unpatented and could be added to drinking water. Imagine, Gatorade with cancer control.

So, the groundwork will have to be done at universities and independently funded laboratories. But, how are they supposed to drum up support if the media aren't even talking about it?

All I can do is write this and hope Google News picks it up. In the meantime, tell everyone you know and do your own research.


This is a column of opinion written by Printz Executive Editor David McRaney. Comments can be sent to printz@usm.edu

[travelbug]

Source, please?

If this is true, it's incredible.

[AliceInWonderland]

a cure to cancer would be such a miracle that i cant even articulate with words. http://www.newscientist.com/article/...t-cancers.html

[SVZ]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...t-cancers.html
Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

New Scientist has received an unprecedented amount of interest in this story from readers. If you would like up-to-date information on any plans for clinical trials of DCA in patients with cancer, or would like to donate towards a fund for such trials, please visit the site set up by the University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board. We will also follow events closely and will report any progress as it happens.

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar.

Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis’s experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died (Cancer Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2006.10.020).

Michelakis suggests that the switch to glycolysis as an energy source occurs when cells in the middle of an abnormal but benign lump don’t get enough oxygen for their mitochondria to work properly (see diagram). In order to survive, they switch off their mitochondria and start producing energy through glycolysis.

Crucially, though, mitochondria do another job in cells: they activate apoptosis, the process by which abnormal cells self-destruct. When cells switch mitochondria off, they become “immortal”, outliving other cells in the tumour and so becoming dominant. Once reawakened by DCA, mitochondria reactivate apoptosis and order the abnormal cells to die.

“The results are intriguing because they point to a critical role that mitochondria play:

they impart a unique trait to cancer cells that can be exploited for cancer therapy,” says Dario Altieri, director of the University of Massachusetts Cancer Center in Worcester.

The phenomenon might also explain how secondary cancers form. Glycolysis generates lactic acid, which can break down the collagen matrix holding cells together. This means abnormal cells can be released and float to other parts of the body, where they seed new tumours.

DCA can cause pain, numbness and gait disturbances in some patients, but this may be a price worth paying if it turns out to

be effective against all cancers. The next step is to run clinical trials of DCA in people with cancer. These may have to be funded by charities, universities and governments: pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to pay because they can’t make money on unpatented medicines. The pay-off is that if DCA does work, it will be easy to manufacture and dirt cheap.

Paul Clarke, a cancer cell biologist at the University of Dundee in the UK, says the findings challenge the current assumption that mutations, not metabolism, spark off cancers. “The question is: which comes first?” he says.

[SVZ]

Source, please?

If this is true, it's incredible.

No source for that, it's an internal newsletter

[SVZ]

http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/

U of Alberta's medical department's website on DCA

Investigators at the University of Alberta have recently reported that a drug previously used in humans for the treatment of rare disorders of metabolism is also able to cause tumor regression in a number of human cancers growing in animals. This drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), appears to suppress the growth of cancer cells without affecting normal cells, suggesting that it might not have the dramatic side effects of standard chemotherapies.

At this point, the University of Alberta, the Alberta Cancer Board and Capital Health do not condone or advise the use of dichloroacetate (DCA) in human beings for the treatment of cancer since no human beings have gone through clinical trials using DCA to treat cancer. However, the University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board are committed to performing clinical trials in the immediate future in consultation with regulatory agencies such as Health Canada. We believe that because DCA has been used on human beings in Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials of metabolic diseases, the cancer clinical trials timeline for our research will be much shorter than usual.
This website will be updated frequently to reflect progress in our efforts.

[SVZ]

More links to publications in PDF form


Newsweek Article
January 23, 2007


Globe and Mail Article
January 17, 2007

New Scientist Article
January 20, 2007


U of A ExpressNews Article
January 16, 2007

Economist.com Article
January 18, 2007


National Post Article
January 17, 2007

Cancer Cell Article
January 2007

[twitchy]

Damn you're fast! Sorry about posting info that's already up.

[SVZ]

A rebuttal from a medical blog (Not sure if the poster is degree carrying though): http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/20...nterpreted.php

[travelbug]

So they're saying this DCA is more than likely the cure we've been looking for, yet physicians can't prescribe it because it hasn't been through clinical trials with humans? Screw that. I'd be paying a doctor to give me a diagnosis of a metabolic disorder to get that medicine.

[SVZ]

No they're saying it's unlikely at the time that a large pharmaceutical company will pick it up and pay for the clinical trial.

That'll cost about $800-$900 million just for the initial phases.

There's actually a lot of really promising drugs and chemical studies on Pubmed and web of science concerning cancer, but they're just preliminary as well and likely not to get picked up either.

[crumpet]

Let's face it folks: the medical community needs sick people in order to thrive. We don't practice health care in this country, we practice sick care, and for a reason.

[WickedHo]

Cancer cells don't use the little power stations found in most human cells - the mitochondria. Instead, they use glycolysis, which is less effective and more wasteful.

Doctors have long believed the reason for this is because the mitochondria were damaged somehow. But, it turns out the mitochondria were just dormant, and DCA starts them back up again.

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.

Either somebody's a bad writer or I'm stupid. I'll bet it's the former, and I'll blame it on the person's inability to use layman's and scientific terms effectively and interchangably.

*grouses* So, yeah, whatever. Good on them.

[WickedHo]

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

Ok, now I get it!

>>>Dormant mitochondria within the cancer cells can't self-destruct (because they're dormant). DCA "wakes up" the dormant mitochondria in cancer cells. The mitochondria then recognizes that the cell is damaged, so it self-destructs, taking the cancer with it. And all surrounding, healthy cells are left in tact.<<<

[A*O]

Interesting. If, God forbid, I found myself needing cancer treatment I'd certainly be willing to be a human guineapig (or rat) with this drug. Like I said in another thread, I have a friend who works in medical/cancer research and he firmly believes we are on the threashold of finding some really exciting new treatments for cancer. Maybe not a complete cure, but treatments that allow people to live long and productive lives. He says that within the next few years cancer will be regarded as just another chronic illness like diabetes. It requires ongoing treatment of course, but it will be manageable.