Immune system boost 'fights cancer'

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

A way of firing up the body's immune system in order to attack cancer has been discovered by US researchers.

The immune system is delicately balanced so it attacks invaders but not the body's own tissues.

Animal studies suggested that shifting the balance could open up new treatments for cancer, the team from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said.
...
The researchers were trying to disrupt Treg's function - effectively taking the brakes off the immune system - so it would attack cancer.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23724220

[Th1onein]

1. Funny they're just now figuring this shit out. Cancer is a money making industry.

Look up Coley's Toxins.

[DesertDiamond]

2. Spot on, Th1onein! Holistic medicine has known about the immune system's ability to fight cancer

forever. Is the western medical industry really just now waking up to it?

[Th1onein]

3. Of course, we have more "modern" methods now, which don't work as well, but they're, well....modern.

A randomized trial of patients with nodular lymphoma (now known as follicular lymphoma) was discussed at a 1983 conference. Of the patients who received Coley toxins and chemotherapy, 85% had a complete response, in which all signs of cancer disappeared. This was compared with a 44% complete response rate in the patients who did not receive Coley toxins.

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/pharmacologicalandbiologicaltreatment/coley-toxins

[kelliekat44]

32. Money maker indeed. The NIH and NCI won't like this much. Count the money devoted to just

cancer research since 1948. Astronomical for little gain until recently. The one investigative reporter looking into this windfall of research dollars died several years ago. (Terry Dolan). He was mostly ignored by Congress, the media and the bio-medical community because he threatened the bottomless pit of Federal spending on biomedical research. It wasn't that he didn't believe in biomedical research...he just knew that a lot of money was being wasted and that changes were needed in the way the money was distributed and managed.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Oh, another bogus conspiracy theory. As if the 1% doesn't get cancer. nt

[Th1onein]

13. Yeah, they're full of high ideals.

You don't get it. This is a systemic problem. When you've got an industry that is fueled by money, you're not going to get cures for anything; you're going to get "treatments," and the disease that you're supposed to be cured of treated as a chronic disease, because that keeps the money flowing. Scientific research has long ago left the realm of the cures behind; they handed off that goal to the large companies that fund research. And what in the world would these companies want with a cure for anything?

I used to think the way that you think about this. Until I entered this world and saw how it worked. It's a crime against humanity that nothing but socialized medicine can cure.

Ever heard of the Warburg effect? Why has it just now, over 70 years later, been pursued in any meaningful way? I'll tell you why: because there was no money in it.

I study cystic fibrosis, and I could tell you some horror stories of scientists, very high up in the field, who lived for decades off of funding for the testing of a drug that they knew, KNEW, couldn't and wouldn't work. But they paid their house payments, their car payments, socked away money in their retirement funds, knowing this. If you know anything about CF, you know that it is a disease of the lower airways, and that it is supposed to be a channelopathy; ie., specifically, a chloride channel doesn't function properly. This compound was supposed to act on a redundant channel, but what they didn't tell you was that that channel was not even expressed in the lower airways!

It's not a conspiracy theory; it's how the system works. And it does not work to your benefit.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Re: Coley Toxins: You don't get more 1% than John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Coley started his investigations after the death of one of his first patients, Elizabeth Dashiell, from sarcoma. Dashiell was a close childhood friend of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who later indicated that her death was what first motivated his subsequent funding of cancer research.[9][10]

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Warburg effect is a result and a characteristic, not a cause.

Otto Warburg postulated this change in metabolism is the fundamental cause of cancer,[6] a claim now known as the Warburg hypothesis. Today, mutations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes are known to be responsible for malignant transformation and the Warburg effect is considered rather, to be more a result of these mutations and an associated characteristic of cancer cells, than a cause.[7][8]

[Th1onein]

19. I know exactly what the Warburg Effect is.

I'm sorry, I don't agree with the idea of oncogenes. I think that the case is the opposite. That the genes and their product are there, and that they must be affected by high levels of glucose in order to change the cell into one producing ATP in the cytosol, instead of through the Kreb's cycle. Warburg thought that damage to the mitochondria caused cancer and that when the cell started producing ATP in the cytosol, it was cancerous. The mitochondrial processes are "Off," but not because of damage to the mitochondria. There is something else at play.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. Interesting. Thanks. nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. Not just lower airways. Cystic fibrosis also affects endocrine, sinuses, growth.

I suspect there is more to the science part of the story than house payments and companies sending money down ratholes for treatments they can't make money off of because they won't work.

Or is the real villain the scientist who did not explain this to the companies that funded his research?

[Th1onein]

20. I know what CF is. My son died of it.

I have been researching this disease since 1995. There is a lot of money making in any disease; and a lot of scientists willing to sell their soul for the funding, even if they know that they are on the wrong track.

And it is not just companies that fund the research; it's also non profit foundations that are supported by the dollars raised by families whose lives are impacted by the disease. We watched the development of this drug, hoped and prayed, raised funds, all for naught. It's a crime against humanity, to do this to families and patients.

There is a lot of politics in science. And when politics rule, science loses. So do the patients. Cancer is one of THE most politically driven areas of research. If you think that doesn't have an effect on the scientific outcomes, you are living in a dream world.

[Nay]

28. Thank you. I have breast cancer, and my radiologist was uncharacteristically honest

with me when he discussed radiation treatments with me. He told me that the latest research proved that 16 days of radiation, rather than 31, had the same outcome as far as who's cancer came back, etc. Thus, his practice was following the 16-day procedure, even though it cost him a lot of money. It is better for patients to have as little radiation as possible.

The shocking part of what he said was that it was a CANADIAN study over a period of 10 years that revealed this, and that the US did not even have such a study going on at all, presumably because a positive result meant that doctors/big pharma would lose money. As it is, most cancer centers still use the 31-day measure despite the Canadian study. I suspect that Canada funds studies like this not only to save a bit of money in its bid to make its socialized health care cheaper, but also to ensure best outcomes for the patients. That's the opposite of what the US does.

Eye-opening.

[Th1onein]

31. Yes. People don't understand that doctors make money off of their chemo, their

radiation, their surgeries. For some reason, they imbue to these people some kind of higher morality. It's just not there, most of the time, I'm sorry to say.

If I had cancer? I would buy some 3BP from a chemical company, find out how to buffer it, and take it intra-arterially. I would NOT take chemo or radiation, OR have surgery, unless the latter was an emergency to save my life.

[CanSocDem]

33. Good posts.

"...it's how the system works. And it does not work to your benefit."



.

[Th1onein]

34. Thanks, CanSocDem. People always get systemic problems confused with conspiracy theories.

They are NOT the same thing.

[Th1onein]

35. YOU NEED TO LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CONSPIRACY THEORY AND A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM.

Sorry, but I'm tired of hearing about conspiracy theories. The system is set up to allow the abuses, and then soon, they become systemic, and the people who benefit from them become powerful enough to LOCK them into the system, so that they are perpetuated.

It's NOT a conspiracy theory. It's a problem with the system.

Go forth, educate thyself.

[MBS]

11. Even "regular" medical research has been focusing on this approach for decades

with serious clinical research going on at LEAST since the 80's, and they've been working especially hard on the idea of using our own immune system to target specific tumor cells. I'm guessing that there's been awareness of the role of immunity in defending us against cancer cells for longer than that. Some of the first experiments (at least that I know about) were with colon cancer. It's to my mind THE way to go.. but the problem has been in getting these treatments to really work on real people with real tumors.

[Th1onein]

14. Let me ask you something......

Young Ko, out of Johns Hopkins, found a compound, called 3-bromopyruvate, that killed cancer cells. In fact, in mice with tumors the size of what would be melons in humans, it dissolved these tumors within one week. And it works on all cancers.

Johns Hopkins fired Ko, gave her patents and her work to other scientists, and now they are developing an analog of 3 bromopyruvate. Now, let me ask you this: If 3 bromopyruvate works, WHY would they be working to develop an analog of it? It takes years to develop an analog with the same properties, that is non-toxic, and then you have to replicate all of the research that went on before, with the new compound. Why waste that time, when people are dying of cancer?

MONEY. Because you can't get a patent on 3 bromopyruvate, and if you can't get a patent, you can't make money on it. In the meantime, you and your family members are taking very toxic chemo drugs, getting radiated, and getting pieces of you cut out, and cut on.

It's not a conspiracy. It's the SYSTEM.

[NickB79]

18. There is massive ongoing research in 3-bromopyruvate

What are you talking about? A simple search reveals many, many scientific papers on cancer research studying and using it:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20420565

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23267123

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22382780

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11523-013-0273-x

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574789108000045

http://cancerpreventionresearch.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2012/03/08/1940-6207.CAPR-11-0338

I couldn't find anything about 3BP analogs being developed, as 3BP IS THE ANALOG, an analog of the naturally occurring pyruvate molecule used in cellular metabolism.

You don't just do a study with 19 lab rats, cure them, and then start handing out vials of 3BP to anyone with a tumor. Even in promising research, it takes many years, with multiple researchers, to ensure that the drug is safe and works as it should. Also, her co-author in research, Dr. Peter Pederson, is still working on 3BP at John Hopkins, which would be weird if your conspiracy theory were true.

Also, they weren't HER patents; she had co-authors in her research, AND a standard contract with John Hopkins that essentially gave them ownership over the results of her research.

[Th1onein]

21. Answer this: Why not use 3BP, itself? Why create another form of it?

That's what Ko did, in Germany. She used 3BP.

I am well aware that scientists sign contracts with their employers. Geez. And, as well, aware that they have ownership over the results of the scientists' research. I point this case out to you to show you that science is political; and especially cancer research.

Where in all of this infighting does the patient benefit? WHY not use 3BP, itself? Why do you have to create another form of pyruvate, when 3BP will serve just fine? Why start all over again?

[NickB79]

22. All the links I posted were using 3BP itself

Read a few of the links. All of them are from the past few years; some are from this year. Like I said, I couldn't find any research into "analogs" of 3BP like you stated. 3BP IS the analog itself, of pyruvate that naturally occurs in the human body. That is why it's effective; it mimics pyruvate (vital for energy production) and short-circuits the cancer's cellular metabolic system.

Since you've made the claim here, please present some corroborating evidence that someone is working on an analog of 3BP.

[Th1onein]

24. They are working on making a synthetic form of 3BP (3BP is a synthetic, itself)

You can call that an analog, or anything else, but it is an analog. (An analog is a compound that resembles another in structure.)

The first citation you give is from 2010. Hardly new research.
The second citation (2013) you give is a REVIEW. Hardly new research.
Third citation, another review.
Fourth citation documents a particular delivery method of 3BP.
Fifth citation was on the potentiating effects of 3BP with PLATINUM drugs--chemo drugs. AND, it was back in 2008; hardly new research.
Sixth citation is on mice AGAIN, and another delivery method--aerosolization.

All of these citations are either reviews, or cell studies, or animal studies. And this is over SEVEN years after Ko made her discovery. While, in the meantime, she has already treated a patient, in Germany, who had lamellar cell cancer, which is non-responsive to regular chemo. WHERE are the human studies? Where are they?

Why do we have to wait for yet ANOTHER form of 3BP? MONEY.

Look, this is a prime example of good research falling into a rabbit's hole. And if you think that you or anyone else with cancer will EVER get 3BP in its present form, as a means of cancer treatment, well, I've got some swampland in Florida to sell you.

[MBS]

25. same with progesterone

The synthetic version, progestin, is inferior to (and arguably more toxic than) real progesterone, but only the former is a major pharmaceutical product. Patent/money issues again, compromising women's health.
It drives me nuts when I see these two compounds described as biologically equivalent.

[Th1onein]

30. You're absolutely right. Only the very naive believes that our health care and

pharmaceutical companies are for the patient. They are not. They are for the dollar.

This makes it very, very important that people use the tools that are available to them, to find the things that keep them healthy. It takes an awful lot of work, but it's literally worth your life, sometimes.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. .

.

[KT2000]

5. another example of alternative

medicine being decades before the mainstream catches on. There must be a high cost immune booster in the works for them to let this out.

[ConcernedCanuk]

6. Dunno if this off-topic or not - "Probiotics"

.
.
.

I've been taking probiotics on and off for almost 30 years.

Acidophilus (a friendly bacteria many of us are short of) - now almost daily.

Recently had 6 bad teeth removed, antibiotics gave me an immediate bad reaction.

Stopped the antibiotics after 2 days, doubled the probiotics, reaction gone,

no problem with infection..

When will doctors stop pushing drugs?????

CC

[jakeXT]

7. There is some evidence that allergies might help to fight cancer

Possible Mechanism

The mechanism of how allergy protects against cancer is unknown, however a couple theories have been proposed. Wang et al suggested that a TH2-bias represents a hyper reactive state of the immune system, which enhances immune surveillance, decreasing the proliferation of aberrant cells7. Likewise, Zacharia et al advocates a broader role of the T¬H2/IgE system, typically described as a system designed to destroy helminthes and parasites that spills over and causes allergy. Instead, the TH2 system may in fact serve to protect against a variety

http://www.aaia.ca/en/does_allergy_protect_against_cancer.htm

[DebJ]

12. Hm,I got allergies after years of smoking.

I still smoke, still have allergies...........don't think I have a lower cancer possibility though.....

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Thank you for posting this. Very interesting medical research. nt

[RandiFan1290]

10. Only animal studies?

If you posted about the cancer fighting success with Cannabis in animal studies this post would be attacked and probably hidden as woo.

[LiberalLoner]

26. Does this mean maybe they can also make the immune system calm down, for those of us

With MS and other chronic autoimmune diseases?

[tridim]

27. Cannabis. nt

[LiberalLoner]

29. Not legal, darn it.