Scientists cure cancer, but no one takes notice
By: David McRaney
Posted: 1/23/07
EDITORS NOTE:
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. For those visitors, here is a link to the original research: www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca
END NOTE
Scientists may have cured cancer last week.
Yep.
So, why haven't the media picked up on it?
..EZCODE BOLD START-->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...EZCODE BOLD END--> 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.
..EZCODE BOLD START-->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...EZCODE BOLD END-->
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. ..EZCODE BOLD START-->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...EZCODE BOLD END-->
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. Once again, DCA was in use for many years as treatment for rare metabolic diseases. Yes, it could be a new chemo agent, but it has also demonstrated dangerous permanent side-effects on peripheric nerves (but so does taxol, to a certain extent). The original study, which I invite everyone to look up [Cancer Cell (2006) 11, 37-51], did NOT test for this effect, unfortunately, but only looked at general and liver conditions of rats which were given the chemical.
By the way, pharmas HAVE done research on DCA in the past as treatment for type II diabetes, but did not like the compound because of its toxicity on nerves. And, even if it is using an already described compound, a new use for a therapeutic agent can be the object of a new patent (which is probably what the university of Alberta is aiming for, ironically, as indicated by their sudden silence on the subject !).
The authors hypothesize that the effect of DCA is attributed to its capacity to inhibit PDHKs. Very few PDHK inhibitors exist on the market (they were first developped to treat type II diabetes), but you can bet there will be a renewal of interest quite soon. And those new, probably more selective and less toxic molecules are WAY patentable.
Personnally, I find the highly hopeful tone of the paper a little premature, but then it was published in grant-hunting season, and research grants have become hard to come by in Canada since our change in government. Phase 2 studies are being done on this right now in Canada. It does show some promise but remember medicines that stopped or slowed cancer in cultured cells or rats mostly failed when tested in humans.
If these phase 2 tests are successful they will move this on to phase 3 testing with a larger number of patients.
Keep in mind that cancer cells by their very nature are mutations of normal cells and are very devious. In the past whatever medications were aimed at them sometimes worked for a while but the mutating cancer cells (the ones that lived because they weren't affected by it) found a way around the medication aimed at it.
Remember that if you were to look at a cross section of a tumor most of the cells in the tumor would be different from each other. Their individual biochemistry would be different as well.
Because of the nature of cancer a full "cure" may be along way off, but that does not mean that we can't make it manageable by slowing the cancer down, or stopping its progression for some period of time.
DCA may yet prove to be of some worth in the fight against cancer. If the current and future clinical trials are successful it could be another weapon in the arsenal against this disease. I don't believe it. The world does not work that way.
This is probably a scam to bilk investors. While DCA has promise, many of the DCA posters sound like alternative medicine promoters. Don't offer false hope!!!
As already mentioned, drugs like DCA have cured cancer in cell cultures and animal models many times. Nothing has translated to a cure in humans.
Human metabolism is quite a different environment than human tumors in animals or cell cultures.
This news represents hope but, don't hold your breath for a cure. This type of news (cure in mice) was hyped almost 10 years ago with anti-angiogenesis drugs (angiostatin and endostatin). While more refined versions of the anti-angiogenesis drugs mostly have produced longer survival times, they have not been the cure originally hyped.
The theoretical mechanism by which DCA works is to target a support function of cancer cells not the actual problem (the mutated genes). Therefore, I believe if DCA or a derivative is proven effective at treating cancer, it will be an adjuvant therapy and perhaps offer survival advantage but not a cure.
A example of a class of drugs which attack a cancer support function are the anti-angiogenesis drugs which target the tumor blood supply.
I also suggest you check out the original Canadian researchers website. Even he is playing down the media overexaggeration.
http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/... |
