Scientists cure cancer, but no one takes notice



Canadian researchers find a simple cure for cancer, but major pharmaceutical companies are not interested.

Researchers at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada have cured cancer last week, yet there is a little ripple in the news or in TV. It is a simple technique using very basic drug. The method employs dichloroacetate, which is currently used to treat metabolic disorders. So, there is no concern of side effects or about their long term effects.

This drug doesn’t require a patent, so anyone can employ it widely and cheaply compared to the costly cancer drugs produced by major pharmaceutical companies.

Canadian scientists tested this dichloroacetate (DCA) on human’s cells; it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells and left the healthy cells alone. It was tested on Rats inflicted with severe tumors; their cells shrank when they were fed with water supplemented with DCA. The drug is widely available and the technique is easy to use, why the major drug companies are not involved? Or the Media interested in this find?

In human bodies there is a natural cancer fighting human cell, the mitochondria, but they need to be triggered to be effective. Scientists used to think that these mitochondria cells were damaged and thus ineffective against cancer. So they used to focus on glycolysis, which is less effective in curing cancer and more wasteful. The drug manufacturers focused on this glycolysis method to fight cancer. This DCA on the other hand doesn’t rely on glycolysis instead on mitochondria; it triggers the mitochondria which in turn fights the cancer cells.

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.

Pharmaceutical companies are not investing in this research because DCA method cannot be patented, without a patent they can’t make money, like they are doing now with their AIDS Patent. Since the pharmaceutical companies won’t develop this, the article says other independent laboratories should start producing this drug and do more research to confirm all the above findings and produce drugs. All the groundwork can be done in collaboration with the Universities, who will be glad to assist in such research and can develop an effective drug for curing cancer.

You can access the original research for this cancer here.

This article wants to raise awareness for this study, hope some independent companies and small startup will pick up this idea and produce these drugs, because the big companies won’t touch it for a long time.


http://hubpages.com/hub/Scientists_cure_cancer__but_no_one_takes_notice

I thought I remembered reading about that a while back...


Cheap, 'safe' drug kills most cancers

12 December 2007 by Andy Coghlan

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.

And...

DCA: Cancer Breakthrough or Urban Legend?


http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPrev ... 454&page=1

Feb. 5, 2007

<snip>

It is way too soon to know whether this is a cancer treatment breakthrough or an urban legend or something in between.

I am acutely aware that there are cancer patients out there who are fighting every day for their survival, hoping that there is one last chance to get a treatment that may prolong or save their lives.

For some of you out there to inappropriately make them feel that DCA is the answer to their prayers based on this single early-stage report in a medical research journal is, in my opinion, not acceptable at best -- and despicable at worst.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld is deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. You can view the full blog by clicking here.

Apparently the last few years of research has continued to support the results, though. Not, like smoking gun incredible, but...

http://dca-information.pbworks.com/f/Metabolic%20Modulation%20of%20Glioblastoma%20with%20Dichloroacetate.pdf

http://www.cancer.org/AboutUs/DrLensBlo ... etate-(DCA)-In-Cancer-Treatment.aspx

May, 2010

<snip>

But the miracle drug—after reasonable clinical trials were done—didn’t work after all.

In the case of DCA, internet traffic zoomed with reports of its purported success in curing cancer—in lab animals. Clinics sprung up, and are probably still active. The risk is that we are going to see a resurgence of this now that the new report has been issued.

I am not delusional and think that a lid can be put on this information and the expectations it will generate so research can progress in an orderly fashion. But I am also not delusional in thinking that people aren’t going to be subject to outlandish claims and promises about this new cancer cure. There are people out there who are more than willing to separate desperate patients from whatever they own in an attempt to get DCA treatment—let alone knowing if the treatment even contains DCA, which is in limited supply for human use.

We shall see how this progresses. Hopefully, clinical trials will proceed appropriately.

And I stand by my skepticism, while encouraging further research to answer the fundamental question whether or not DCA really works in treating cancer.

In the meantime, caution is advised. Don’t become the victim of a cancer scam. The scamsters are sure to follow this report as night follows day.

I don't know if it's because of the snip, but that's a confusing read right above this post

Well then click on the article.

i'd rather post about it. i mean, i get what it's saying, but it doesn't seem very well written.

I probably just posted it wrong.

don't leave

Now I'm embarrassed to post.

Glad they've cured cancer though even if the lame stream media wont' cover it.

media is too busy spreading the "osama's dead" lie

This is what has me confused. Benign lumps are not cancer.

Who's 'we'?

so is it cured then or?

without cancer how we gonna make money?

"thoughts of industrialized medicine"

Tomorrow I will buy my car that runs with water as fuel.

they have that and killed the man who invented it...

amazing

Tell me you are joking.