Scientists cure cancer, but no one takes notice

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.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Scientists_cure_cancer__but_no_one_takes_notice

Hasn't been peer reviewed and published in a major journal. When that happens, I'll believe it.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Here is the http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6WWK-4MV1J7C-4-2&_cdi=7133&_user=10&_pii=S1535610806003722&_origin=gateway&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F2007&_sk=%23TOC%237133%232007%23999889998%23641847%23FLA%23display%23Volume_11,_Issue_1,_Pages_1-98_(January_2007)%23tagged%23Volume%23first%3D11%23Issue%23first%3D1%23date%23(January_2007)%23&view=c&_gw=y&wchp=dGLbVlz-zSkWA&md5=6a08d7209b7f37111f1ed7b6af6b3797&ie=/sdarticle.pdf
">complete article (no subscription required).

It is incredible and most wonderful information.

Maybe if used with something else. By itself no. For one thing it causes peripheral neuropathy which limits how long you can take it and how much you can take. Especially if you are older which is when most people get cancer. Young people seem to be able to tolerate it without getting PN at much higher doses for longer periods.

DCA works one of two ways to stop cancer (or maybe both at the same time). It works as the University of Alberta says by countering the Warburg effect by restarting the Mitochondria and causing Apoptotic cell death or it works by eliminating the lactate byproduct of oxidative stress caused by the Reverse Warburg effect. In the second theory lactate is one of two fuels created by oxidative stress caused by cancer cells in the stroma cells surrounding a tumor.

That is the opinion of a stage IV metastatic colon cancer patient who never had high school biology but does have personal experience with DCA.

One or both of those two theories may be correct because DCA worked for me. I am now on regular chemo which I started five weeks ago having stopped DCA because of PN which my oncologist thinks might be becoming cumulative. DCA is after all a neurotoxin.

I was first diagnosed with colon cancer in November 2006, resected surgically in December 2006 and no chemo till April of 2011. From December of 2006 till April of 2011 is a very long time for metastatic colon cancer patient to live let along feel well. I feel fine and have not symptoms of cancer. I have been cared for during all this at one of the top two cancer hospitals in the US and have been seen by over 30 doctors of various specialties including alternative medicine, surgery, radiation, numerous clinical trial physicians, 5 oncologist etc.

In the first 3.5 months that I took DCA it reduced my main tumor 70% and then it kept both my tumors stable for a long time. You can live a normal lifespan with cancer if you can just keep it stable.

If you could keep DCA working and keep it from causing PN, while not a cure, stable is the same thing.

And since DCA works on the metabolism of cancer it should work for most cancers.

I think DCA could be a cancer cure if used with other therapies. It may take 20 years for someone to find out what.

There are a number of trials of DCA in the works and lots of research. I know I am talking to them.

Should have checked my post better.

Cancer cells in a tumor cause oxidative stress in stroma cells surrounding the tumor. This stress creates lactate and ketones which become fuel for the cancer cells. This is the Reverse Warburg effect theory which turns cancer theory on its head by suggesting that cancer cells do not create their fuel via glycosis. DCA eliminates some or all of the lactate fuel that cancer cells need. I know that when taking DCA I could ride my bike harder and longer without the pain in my legs that is caused by lactic acid buildup. Athletes have been known to use DCA for performance.

If true then a cure for cancer might involve such simple things as DCA, Metformin and NAC (N-acetylcystein) a cheap super antioxidant.

I know a researcher who is looking for money for a clinical trial for this stuff and I for one am tempted to bet my life on it real soon, chemo is killing me.

DCA is cheap. A years supply cost me $400. Metformin is a cheap drug for diabetes and NAC is super cheap common remedy for emphysema, bronchitis, tuberculosis, bronchiectasis, amyloidosis, pneumonia and more.

The only problems cancer has caused me in the last 4.5 years is the byproducts of trying to get rid of it. The PN from DCA and now the side affects of chemo. But yes cancer will kill me and quick if I do nothing. Without chemo or DCA or something else even though I feel OK, it could kill me in a few days.

I hadn't noticed that the Cancel Cell article and the article linked in the OP are from 4 years ago.

Here is an article from 1 year ago with some updates on the status:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100512/full/news.2010.236.html

on continuing DCA research...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetate

For at least one type of cancer, it had the reverse effect. It made that cancer grow faster. So not a generic magic bullet, but maybe real progress in treating some types of cancer. It's been through Phase II trials in Canada, and will soon enter Phase III testing. Some doctors are already prescribing it off-label. The drug has been around since 1864 (that's during the Civil War!) so it has passed into the public domain. Nobody owns a patent on it.

According to wikipedia These results received extensive media attention, beginning with an article in New Scientist titled "Cheap, ‘safe’ drug kills most cancers".

I would love for it to be true but the idea that pharmaceutical companies could keep such a HUGE advancement hushed is a bit beyond the pale.

The drug companies may not be interested in a cheap unpatentable cure for "cancer" but I guarantee you that there are large organizations who would run with this and make it readily available.

It seems like most of these cancer cure organizations are more interested in fund raising, paying their staff (thus guaranteeing their job) etc...than finding the actual cure.

Cancer is one of the (if not THE) most lucrative "businesses" in American capitalism. I sound like a cynic, I am.

In the last few decades (especially) I have seen greed surpass all other human endeavors.

edited for mistakes in punctuation.

must be climbing high quickly on that business list!

It's not, however, in a peer reviewed journal and it is very preliminary. Their big problem now is receiving sufficient funding because it's a cheap non-patentable drug.

On the other hand it's a legal substance and apparently completely non-toxic and safe, so why not try it at least in cases where everything else has failed?

http://www.dca.med.ualberta.ca/Home/Updates/2007-03-15_Update.cfm

:thumbsup:

PB

Although it has been theorized that they were a separate symbiotic cell that long ago got incorporated in somehow, they are not now cells.

So the article is inaccurate at least.

Apparently the drug targets the mitochondria of cancer cells. At first blush, it looked like the article meant that it bolstered mitochondria from other cells to attack it or something.

You're right, Mitochondria are organelles, not cells.

so they don't need to be turned on. They ARE "turned on" for the lifetime of the cell/organism

They live mostly by glycolysis and the mitochondria are not functioning or at least not functioning correctly. The dichloroacetate supposedly makes the mitochodria function correctly again which allows the cells normal self desctruct mechanisms to work again.

How else with they crush families with false hope and lies just to bilk millions out of insurance companies?
Duckie

Or is it only in the for-profit healthcare countries that these things are discovered and covered up?

Are the medical researchers in, say, Sweden, just too damned stupid to cure cancer?

Wait, wait, don't tell me, what makes the national healthcare systems work in other countries is that they get payments from US health insurance companies to keep the lid on their own health research programs.

How does this global conspiracy work, exactly?

Guarantee, if there were a cure for cancer, they'd keep a lid on it so tight in this country or try to say it was a lie for as long as it possibly could.
I'm extremely jaded by the cancer industry in this country. Watched my mother in law die of cancer. Oncologist was a money grubbing whore. Told her if plan A doesn't work, we will try plan b, heck, he had plans all the way through z and a few with numbers too. Whatever it takes. She died three months later. Did you know that if your first chemo doesn't work, if you have to switch, the chance of the second chemo working goes down exponentially? Yeah, we found that out because her pulmonologist shot from the hip and actually told her the truth. If she hadn't taken the Chemo her death would not have been as quick nor as painful. Do not try to tell me that the cancer industry in this country is not out for money and would rather suck you dry than be honest and tell you there is nothing that they can do. And do not tell me if they found a cure in Sweden that it wouldn't be buried with Jimmy Hoffa as long as possible, then you're naive.
Duckie

So if the Swedish national health care system was just keeping itself busy buy curing cancer day in and day out, nobody in the US would ever hear about it.

Its amazing how they manage to get those Volvos here when nobody's looking.

Will you freaking let it go?!

So you'll just have to put up with it.

Because I am sick and tired of puerile fiction as a substitute for discussing reality.

And most of the time when I'm like that I'm doing it in a way that is tongue in cheek just to make the obsessive people crazy, right?

I can understand that there are people here at DU who go into careers in medicine and medical research because they have the requisite motivation and talent to do so, and don't need to be insulted.

Some parents of autistic kids do the anti-vax stuff for psychological reasons too. Nonetheless, the level of non-vaccination they have inspired in part is hurting other people.

Someone who hates a minority group as a consequence of a bad encounter with one individual is likewise racist "for a reason".

My father died from a debilitating disease, and not some international conspiracy to kill him.

:shrug:

And you are absolutely right that their mantra is "what's next? What else can we do?"

But keep in mind that most doctors are also trained to fight to the last possible treatment. It's their mindset - they are trained and trained and trained never to give up. "Where there's life there's hope" and so on, even if palliative care would be more appropriate (something I've learned being involved with Hospice care). Some patients wouldn't have it any other way - I bet there are DUers here who are really, really happy their oncologist didn't give up on them..

But some patients, (like your MIL) are harmed by this mindset. So sorry you had to deal with that.

That's why I believe so strongly in the importance of having hospice as another option.

-- terminal cancer back in -- 1930, I think? With his beam ray device. It made the front page. Fourteen or sixteen cases. His gizmo and his incredible microscope were tested by the Smithsonian and by one of the big clinics, might have been the Mayo. With his microscope, which used polarized light, if I understand it correctly, you could see living viruses. His technology has only recently been matched, apparently. So, he could watch the living organism while he zapped them, to find their "mortal oscillatory frequency." He said all living organisms had one of these, I think. So if you zapped a bacterium or a virus with the right frequency, it would shatter, basically. He also said that cancer was caused by viruses, and that you just had to zap the right virus to get rid of the cancer.

So, he cured a number of cancer cases that had been judged terminal. A couple of the cases he had to treat twice. All this came out in the news...

Then a fellow, he's infamous, he is, but his name escapes me at the moment, the editor of the Journal of the AMA went to him and offered to buy him out. Rife said no. Lo and behold, the FDA made his gizmo illegal. Yes, suppressed. Still suppressed. But by now everybody believes all electromagnetic medicine is pure quackery. Maybe that isn't so?

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rife
Rife Society: www.rife.org
Book: The Cancer Cure that Worked: http://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Cure-That-Worked-Suppression/dp/0919951309

Quite a few people have been very interested in his gizmo. It's still illegal for doctors to use, but people can build them and use them on themselves. I have been interested in it because I have CFIDS/ME.

I have a PDF scanned copy of a Sunday magazine article from the UK about 20 years ago, maybe 15. Sorry I can't remember more of the details, such as the year of the cancer cures. If anyone is interested, and I can figure out how to post the article, I would be happy to do so.

I'm interested.

By the way, I was reading the Wikipedia, and they are not presenting the whole story. Of course.

I used to know of a fellow who built these machines and sold them who had CFIDS himself. That's what I have. They put him in prison, and he relapsed. He had gotten much better.

I don't believe it can cure CFIDS, because it isn't caused by viruses, but once you have CFIDS viruses are what you make really sick.

The problem they do not mention in the article on Wikipedia is the frequencies, or lack of them. Rife had one of his microscopes right there, so he figured out the right frequencies for lots of organisms, and could then zap them. We do not have his list of frequencies, I think, or it is not complete. And there are more organisms today that we would like to zap. But without his microscope, you can't determine the correct frequencies.

There are people, in Germany I believe, who have been building microscopes like this. I'm not sure, it's been years since I looked into it. Of course, maybe we've finally got them here, too. Why not, if they've got them in Germany? But you and I and Joe Schmo certainly can't afford these microscopes. So that is the problem with curing people, once you have got your hands on a real beam ray thingey that works with plasma, rather than a "zapper".

Is there a way I can send it as an attachment? Do you want to PM me your email address? It's a scan of an old Sunday-supplement kind of article from the UK.

I just had to go look at it, and then search for it.

http://www.rife.de/files/epearticle.pdf

Do you really believe that there are people at drug companies that would withhold or hide something that would save the life of their own parents, spouses, or children?

Really?
:tinfoilhat:

Please read the thread. There's no such thing as this one single monolithic curable disease called "cancer". There are thousands of different diseases, some will be almost curable (CML), some won't. New discoveries will help some, not do anything for most, and hurt some.

Let it go.

Really.

...and was in fact being mostly facetious. :shrug:
I guess you guys aren't as smart as you think you are.

persons deluded by the modern-day patent medicine men.

If your intent was to parody the hopeless and deceived, I guess you kinda suck at it.

...since you couldn't tell the difference.

I shall waste no more on you.

YES. I *DO* believe there are people at the major international drug companies who would hide a cure for any disease you care to name without a second thought so they could continue providing a treatment instead. The idea should be a given, something we assume to be true and work to minimize.

A better question would be, "Why do you think there aren't deeply unethical people working for a given, major international corporation?" Your assumption is that all scientists working for all pharmaceutical companies, and all corporate officials overseeing all research of those scientists, are ethical and moral people, and business has shown us over and over and over again, to the chagrin, detriment, and outright death of uncountable numbers of people, that that just is not the case at all.

Everything else you said was true, but really....

If you're making money working for BP, you can afford higher gas prices.

If you're making money working for Pfizer or Merck, and you "hide" some imaginary single-pill "cure" for "cancer" (which is actually cancers, but we digress), then no amount of money in the world is going to get that "secret cure" to your kid, your wife, or your mom when he or she needs it.

Do you REALLY think that NO ONE with a dying loved one would have broken the Code of Silence and let on that there was a "cure" out there? Really? :tinfoilhat:

Cure vs. treatment isn't some easy black vs. white "good guys" vs "bad guys" thing. Most of what we can cure, we are curing. What's left is the hard stuff - the viruses, the cancers, the autoimmune diseases - which we only recently (last 20-30 years) learned how to treat, and the cure is likely to be buried in genetics, which we're just learning how to work with. Cures may be coming, but they're not going to be the single pill or injection you're envisioning.

Are there deeply unethical people in Big Pharma? Abso-fucking-lutely. The sales managers at Purdue who decided Oxycontin wasn't being prescribed widely enough. The jackasses at Merck who were so scared of losing their jobs that they turned a blind eye to data on the Cox-2s. Did these dickheads pour millions and millions into defeating the government health care that I myself desperately need? Yes, which sucks. Have they hogged research and directed it only to patentable products? Yes, which sucks.

So to boil it down for you:
Deeply unethical people at Big Pharma? Absolutely.
People sitting on a "cure" that could save their own kids? Absolutely not.

industry cause deaths every day.

Things Pharma companies do:
- block important health care legislation
- spend obscene amounts of money lobbying for pharma-friendly legislation
- try to weasel around studies that might show a potential blockbuster is flawed
- pay doctors to be on "advisory boards" so they'll continue writing and promoting their drugs
- pretend the cheaper versions of their drugs sold overseas might be dangerous

Things pharma companies want to do, but can't do so much anymore because the FDA is cracking down on them:
- bribe doctors outright to prescribe their drugs
- push hard for off-label use that might kill people (Oxycontin comes to mind)
- sell over-priced branded "me-too" drugs

Things pharma companies don't do
- Control the FDA (believe me, they hate and distrust the FDA more than any Big Pharma Conspiracy Theorist does)
- Sit on a "cure" for cancer or diabetes or any other long-term affliction

they will save the govt. TONS of money-a!

Your statement assumes that governments are altruistic and those who have universal single payer health care are not beholden to corporate interests. True that insurance interests have largely been removed from the equation, but don't think for a minute that there aren't some elements of corporate interests, or in some cases government cost savings, corrupting health care decisions in those countries.

I've spent nearly 15 years studying the science and politics of Lyme disease (because I suffer from it) and one thing I have learned, to my great dismay, is that a very small cabal of insurance connected researchers in the US who anointed themselves international experts on Lyme disease, and who, despite volumes of peer reviewed science on the persistence of the bacteria that causes the illness, use their power and status to enforce insurance friendly short-term treatment protocols that have been adopted around the world. Canada's CDC is so joined at the hip with the US's corrupt CDC that when it comes to Lyme disease they literally defer to the US definition of the illness.

As a result, it is even harder for chronic Lyme patients in Canada to find a doctor who will treat them, because the government controls everything. I say this with sorrow because I am a big believer in universal single payer and believe that, in general, Canada has it right. But what you miss in the case of diseases like Lyme, where countries like Canada defer their research to the US and grasp at anything which saves their tax payers money as long as it has the blessings of "mainstream medicine" (and I reiterate that in this case mainstream medicine is defined by a small, corrupt cabal of US based insurance whores and patent whores).

I would point out that European chronic Lyme patients are having an equally difficult time getting appropriate treatment for very similar reasons.

It's so prevalent around me and I know of many cases dx'd and treated, or being treated. I'm curious as to what we're supposedly missing out on?

You understand that Big Pharma would make more from a longer term treatment, yes?

Your example seems to be directly counter to the assertion that Big Pharma seeks to maximize "drug treatment" over "cure".

Mitochondria are organelles... there is one present in every cell of the body.

Who wrote this? Are we supposed to believe in a cancer cure from someone who didn't pass high school biology?

From the article in the OP.

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.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Scientists_cure_cancer__but_no_one_takes_notice

await other reports via other venues. My favorite is Science Daily News.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/

This site does confirm research and calls it "orphan generic drug dichloroacetate".

http://www.sciencedaily.com/search/?keyword=DCA

Also displays google ads for purchase, which are a problematic feature of that site IMO.

Go there and other places to follow up before "buying" into this without consultation with your doctor.

is costing her $4000 a month and her insurance company is refusing to pay for it.

Thanks for the links.

Her disease is so rare that it requires a novel hybrid medication, and because the pool of people ever likely to get this particular sub-variation of this disease is so small as to never generate profit, no US pharma company was interested in putting the medication together. Whereas doctors in Norway and Canada were chomping at the bit for such a case, and there was actually some legal whackiness between doctors competing for the case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid#cite_note-13


Cheap, 'safe' drug kills most cancers - New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971

medical insurance industry survive? We can't have people curing diseases, if people aren't sick, insurance companies can't deny them needed procedures in order to boost their profit margin!

But the language is so wrong for this announcement to have come within 1000 miles of a scientist, doctor, research establishment or University.

B.S. alarm ringing off the wall.

the American Cancer Society:


Overview
DCA has been tested in humans on a small scale for rare diseases of metabolism (energy production), but has recently shown some promise in the lab for cancer treatment. This has led some people with cancer to try taking DCA on their own. DCA is known to cause nerve and liver damage, as well as some other side effects. It may also be able to cause cancer in humans, but that has not been proven.

At this time, clinical trials (studies on human volunteers) have just been started to find out if DCA might be helpful against cancer. No human studies have been completed yet, so it is unclear how or whether it might help, or what the proper dose might be.
http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/PharmacologicalandBiologicalTreatment/dichloroacetate--dca-


I used to be a pediatric nurse who gave chemo at home on kids. I'm now a pediatric hospice nurse. I know lots of pediatric oncologists. I get SO ANGRY when I read posts from people who decide there is a wonderful simple cure for cancer but the doctors are too greedy to care. It's just not true. There are many different cancers and many many different treatments. Pediatric oncology has had some amazing advancements in the past several decades. Most kids with cancer survive now.

From curesearch.org the research info page for families and doctors: http://www.curesearch.org/our_research/index_sub.aspx?id=1484

Cancer is the most common disease-related cause of death for ages one to twenty, and the fourth most common cause of all deaths, after accidents, homicides, and suicides.

However, death rates for most types of childhood cancer have declined dramatically since the 1970s. The principal reason for this is the progress made in treating leukemia, especially ALL, which accounts for about one third of all pediatric cancer cases.

Since the 1970s, deaths from childhood cancer have declined dramatically. The overall decline in mortality was nearly 40% between 1975 and 1995, about 2.5% per year decrease, even while the incidence increased by 0.8% per year.
In 1995, 34% of childhood cancer deaths were due to leukemia. The death rate from leukemia fell nearly 50%, or about 3.4% per year, from 1975-95, while the incidence increased.
In 1995, nearly 25% of childhood cancer deaths were due to CNS tumors, primarily brain. The death rate from CNS/brain tumors fell 23%, or about 1.1% per year, from 1975-95, while the incidence increased, mainly in the mid 1980s.

This thread has one big unrec from me.

BTW I have seen families with little income throw away thousands of dollars on "cures that the drug companies and doctors are too greedy to give to patients" and watched the kids die anyway. I guess the parents can then say they tried all they could to the best they could. But, it makes me soooo angry.

Thanks for your post.

:thumbsup:

the research and trials in the way they would a drug they could patent and make good profits on. FDA required trials can be incredibly expensive.

Like so much more has been learned about Vitamin D and it's levels and role in many disorders. Most are university studies. If it were something new and patentable drug companies would be rushing to buy the rights from university

It is not about if they care or not. For profit companies want to profit and you can't with things like this

But it doesn't mean cancer researchers don't care, won't use time and research for what is promising. Science is a wonderful thing

It has to be so hard to lose those patients you have connected with over weeks of treatment and ten fold as hard treating children. You have my greatest admiration. To my personal nurses, Michelle and Melanie, to you, and to all the oncology nurses out there. Thank you.

The pediatric oncology rotation I did was the hardest of all. I only left the hospital crying at the end of the day a few times -- two of them were wonderful kids with cancer who died. It takes a special person and a special talent to care for these children. To take that talent and compassion to make a child's and family's final months better in every way humanly possible is an immeasurable gift.

It makes me so sad to see people saying "I need to send this info to a friend who is dying of cancer". I want to PM them and say "please don't do that to your friend - this is old news and probably not right for his/her particular cancer."

I think the problem is that we all can't be literate in every field, so those who aren't scientifically literate aren't stupid, but don't have the skills to evaluate the articles and the subsequent arguments, and it just feels better to them to think "there's a cure, if we could just get the Bad People to take it out of the vault".

(Mitochondria is a cell? Talk about pathetic journalism!) And you're 100% correct. Absolutely beautifully said and you hit the nail on the head. I had the same experience with both adults and kids. In this sense, the Internet is a fabulous thing and a gift to people with illnesses and injuries. There is a wealth of reliable information to be gleaned from the Internet. There is an even greater amount of misinformation and shysters waiting to convince people searching for answers that they have the answer, and it'll only cost $98.95 a month to take their useless pills, $10,000 for their "proven" curative of the day....after all, Alice, the friend of your friend took this stuff and was cured so it must work, right?

I know many dedicated doctors who would be all over this if it was true. Saying that the entire medical community doesn't want to cure cancer because "there's no money in it" is a blatantly false overstatement and overgeneralization.

Mitochondria can cause cancer due to DNA mutation. Getting this original prokaryote (mitochondion) to turn on the mother cell would be useful if the cell was cancerous?

It pains me to read such biologically ignorant statements as "In human bodies there is a natural cancer fighting human cell, the mitochondria, but they need to be triggered to be effective." Mitochondria are intracellular organelles where aerobic respiration occurs in EVERY eukaryotic cell, including every human cell.

Every cell still contains mitochondria, at least during some portion of it's life cycle. I'm not sure how your question is relevant to that circumstance. The possession of mitochondria for aerobic cellular respiration is one of the the hallmarks of ALL eukaryotic cells (there are a very few, single-celled eukaryotes that are exceptions, and in mammals mature red blood cells lack mitochondria, but they lost their mitochondria secondarily and have no bearing on this discussion anyway-- all multicellular organisms on Earth have mitochondria in their cells otherwise).

my first reaction was "mitochondria is a kind of CELL??? Have I forgotten that much biology?? Yikes!"

that made it obvious it was either not credible, or very poorly written.

Best. Parasite. Ever.

Edit: Besides fetuses.

I'll wait for the peer-reviewed paper.

Someone has posted the correct info - that there are human trials, but none has been completed.

Be assured there are plenty of medical professionals who get cancer, as well as the families of medical professionals.

This drug is harmful and should not be indiscriminately taken. If someone has no other alternative, the correct thing to do is to take the info to your doctor and ask. You can always research trials.

I have lived through several miracle cancer cures that did not actually kill cancer in the living human body. Unfortunately, there always those that die because of it.

solar panels.

Exxon employees can still buy gas even if they jack up the price of fuel and suppress any competing form of energy.

Pharma company employees aren't going to deny themselves, their kids, their spouses and their parents a potential "cure". :tinfoilhat:

over the way things are done than the customers that pay for it all .And the 7% are the only ones denied nothing,and the 93% lump it.

You think they wouldn't tell the world if the bosses were sitting on a cure for a cancer that they themselves or their kids might have?

A surprising percent of the people at Novo Nordisk (and BD, which makes injection devices) for example, are diabetics themselves. So they're keeping mum about discoveries and findings that might "cure" diabetes? I don't think so.

to pyruvate, step in creation of atp to fuel cell processes.

whoever wrote this doesn't seem to have basic bio/chem when they write things like:

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.

Since mitochondria once were stand-alone organisms that hitched a ride with some other organisms to eventually evolve into a symbiote.

But I doubt the writer actually knows this.

written by someone who's turned it to misleading hash.

as the OP states

From the article:


DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule. And researchers at the University of Alberta believe it may soon be used as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer.

Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the U of A Department of Medicine, has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast, and brain tumors.

http://www.dca.med.ualberta.ca/Home/Updates/2007-03-15_Update.cfm

I hope this will help people with cancer. It sounds like it is promising.

There are many cancer drugs being researched now. Some work very well. Many current meds do cure people from their cancers. There are many effective drugs out there. This will probably become one tool that many oncologists will use.

:kick:

after all, they are not in the grip of drug companies there.

that raises a big red flag right from the start.

Edit: nevermind. saw the link to the cell.com article upthread.

Sid

Instead of arguing about the particular article, the source, etc, just very simply go to PubMed and type in a search terms to find all of the published journal articles on that topic. Easy.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=dichloroacetate

with a click of the mouse I can translate the page into Spanish and show it to my patients.

It links you to all sorts of great research

mitochondria aren't cancer fighting cells and glycolysis is simply the breakdown of glucose for energy, it doesn't kill cancer either.

I think there's a reason no one took notice of this.

Not understanding mitochondria are not cells (first-year biology "The Cell and its Structures") make this highly suspect.

https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/02198.htm


While mildly toxic and irritant, it's nowhere near as bad as I expected. There have been several clinical trials already. Try googling "DCA safety". Or see http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01111097 for an example.

The medical research is genuine, but I'll bet the researchers would cringe to see how the author of this blog portrayed their work.

...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid

In high doses, DCA actually causes cancer.

just in time and finally

But treating mice in the laboratory is a long way from proving a cancer drug not only kills cancer cells, but actually improves survival. There are a lot of drugs that shrink tumors, but don't improve survival. When DCA was used in humans in 1983, it effectively reduced lactic acidosis and normalized blood pressure. The drug itself produced no known toxicity, but 12 of 13 DCA-treated patients still died.

In animals, DCA induces liver toxicity and neoplasia (yep, cancer!). DCA is actually a by-product of water chlorination, chlorine being one of the most toxic molecules on the planet.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi68.html

I have already decided that I will not have radiation treatments or chemo if diagnosed. So this would do not harm.

Drug is reported to interfere with the Warburg effect (tendency of tumor cells to become more acidic, partially due to overproduction of lactic acid and enhanced glycolysis).
More acidic cells are better able to survive in the low oxygen centers of solid tumors.

Here is a phase I/II clinical trial in humans for glioblastoma, but only 5 patients (need at least several hundred to prove efficacy)

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

It doesn't cure them, but it is effective in controlling the cancer when used in combination with radiotherapy

I've got a good friend with advanced lung cancer... I want to learn more about this and pass it on to her.

Thanks for the link.

I keep seeing this story, and it's always blown out of proportion. It is NOT a cure for cancer, any more than the current treatments are. It's just another possible treatment option that's not getting funding for research.

My wife has brain cancer, and I really wish this were a cure. Hell. I'd move to Canada. This medication is readily available in America, as it is approved for veterinary use, so you can get it if you want it. But it's not proven to cure cancer. It's just another treatment (so far).

Being cheap isn't the same as being effective.

It is used for a metabolic disorder that I have. I read that it could cure some kinds of cancer and came across some message boards where there were some desperate cancer patients trying to find out where they could buy some. It was so sad. The drug manufactures don't want make it available because it's so cheap.

They are organelles within human cells.

Calling this a cure at this stage of investigation is premature.

Glycolysis is not a cancer fighting method. It's a basic metabolic process that is employed by all (or virtually all) living organisms.

I don't know anything about the rest of the claims, but the things I'm reading that I actually know anything about make me very skeptical.

It was reported on CNN that the drug companies have cut cancer research and are putting their money in a sex pill for women! No joke! More money to be made.................

really?

As for the "sex pill" for women - they've been working on that for a long time. I do market research and I did some preliminary work on a product like that 10 years ago (it fell through because it had unpleasant side effects, like hot flashes). Sadly, you know what male OB/GYNs said about it? "Women over 40 don't want sex" and "I don't want my patients running out and getting STDs". Seriously. So the companies will have a lot of work to do to get by ignorant male physicians to make something like that successful.

Big Pharma... once again, proving why it should be destroyed.

.

like a number of cancer therapies will no longer be profitable. The pharmaceutical industry cannot have this.

Here's a more objective article on the issue for 2010.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/05/dichloroacetate_dca_and_cancer_deja_vu_a.php

As is read it it's basically saying that it does not seem to be a magic bullet and there is more work to be done.

Cheap, 'safe' drug kills most cancers , NewScientist, 2007

DU discussion in 2007 here.


Let's see: A drug that kills many types of cancer cells, is safe, is already on the human market, is not under patent and is relatively inexpensive.....



Now 4 years out from this report, is anyone surprised that Big Pharma isn't interested in the slightest?

Even on DU, there are a lot of scientific illiterates.

A big chunk of the site's clueless enough to think the moon landings didn't happen either.

Most DUers don't seem to have taken even the most cursory junior high school science course.

This site is full of scientific illiterates.
This country is full of scientific illiterates.

- and they're quite proud of it!

everybody loses somebody to it... I just did over a year ago.

Cancer cells use glycolysis rather than aerobic respiration, and there are other off patent agents that can be used for this purpose, and some drugs being developed.

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/65/2/613.abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17499003

It is a good move in the right direction, but it is an idea that has been around for years and it isn't a cure per se, just an improvement.

They do not fight cancer cells - they are not part of the immune system

This is pseudoscience bullshit

yup