cancer
mikethemadbiologist | January 18, 2007There's an article in the New Scientist about researchers who are using dichloroacetate ('DCA') to treat many different cancers. According to the article, here's what DCA does:
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…
oracknows | January 17, 2007Drat! Real life has once again interfered with my blogging. Fortunately, there's still a lot of what I consider to be good stuff in the archives of the old blog that has yet to be transferred to the new blog. Today looks like a perfect time to transfer at least a couple more articles from the old blog. This particular article first appeared on December 5, 2005. For those who haven't seen it before, pretend I just wrote it. For those who have, savor it once again.
There was an interesting article in this week's New York Times Magazine about Susan Sontag's last battle with cancer, written by…
oracknows | January 11, 2007Online prayer benefits breast cancer patients?
At least that's what they were saying a couple of days ago on the Internets:
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Praying online in a support group may help women with breast cancer cope with the disease more effectively, a new study shows.
Dr. Bret Shaw of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues found that breast cancer patients who used a higher percentage of religion-related words in their communications with an Internet support group had lower levels of negative emotions, better functional well-being, and more confidence in their ability to…
purepedantry | January 9, 2007Evidence has been found for the stem cell theory of cancer development. For those of you not aware of this theory, it holds that cancers originate from cells that have inadequately differentiated from their stem cell origins. This would contrast with more standard theories of cancer development that have cells de-differentiating from a more mature state.
Evidence for this theory has been fleeting, but researchers at USC may be on to something. Laird and colleagues, publishing in Nature Genetics, look at the DNA methylation state of certain genes in colorectal tumors in comparison to normal…
oracknows | January 8, 2007Last week, our Seed overlords published on the flagship an Agence France-Presse article about a survey in Britain whose results showed that large numbers of people believe that cancer is due to "fate" rather than risk factors that can be modified to decrease one's risk of developing the disease:
LONDON (AFP)--More than a quarter of people believe that fate alone will determine whether they get cancer, not their lifestyle choices, according to a survey conducted by charity Cancer Research UK.
The poll of more than 4,000 adults across the country asked people if they thought they could reduce…
oracknows | January 8, 2007It was just last week that I was made aware of the sad news that Katie Wernecke, the 14-year-old girl with Hodgkin's lymphoma whose parents' battle to reject radiation therapy and additional chemotherapy made national news in 2005 and who ultimately went for high dose vitamin C therapy at an altie clinic in Kansas, had relapsed. (Even now, altie vultures are advertising their wares in the comments of the post in which Katie's father announced her relapse, and chastising a lone MD who posted a comment begging the family to try conventional medicine while there's still a chance.) As regular…
purepedantry | January 3, 2007Men with no sons have an increased risk of prostate cancer in relation to those with at least one son:
The researchers in the Mailman School's Department of Epidemiology analyzed the relative risk of prostate cancer by the sex of offspring among fathers registered in a family-based research cohort in Israel. From this cohort of 38,934 men, followed from the birth of their offspring (in 1964 through 1976) until 2005, the authors conclude that genes on the Y chromosome may be involved in prostate cancer risk in this population.
"We surveyed vital status and cancer incidence, and found a strong…
oracknows | January 3, 2007Two days after the holidays are over, and I'm still taking care of unfinished business from last year. Still, the study I'm about to discuss is making the rounds of the blogosphere, and because it's about breast cancer risk I felt the need to weigh in. This is particularly true, given some of the representations of this study that are popping up in the press and in the blogosphere, particularly among right wing bloggers. Let's start with a BBC news story about the study:
Women who exercise by doing the housework can reduce their risk of breast cancer, a study suggests.
The research on more…
oracknows | January 2, 2007Believe it or not, there are times when I really, really wish I weren't right.
No, I'm not implying that I'm right so much of the time that I wish I were wrong more often. I'm human and therefore perfectly capable of being wrong, sometimes spectacularly so. (Of course, as we all know, that sort of thing rarely happens on this blog, right? Right?) But sometimes, even as I know I'm right about something, deep down I hope that I'm not. Usually such cases involve watching patients choosing alternative medicine reach the point where they have to the consequences of their choice. Despite all my…
oracknows | December 21, 2006I'm about a week late on this one.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if some of my readers were wondering why I hadn't weighed in on this story when it broke late last week. (Either that, or no one was wondering, and I'm just displaying some of my surgeon's ego for all to see.) Part of the reason was perhaps because Dr. Charles had handled this whole study well, and I didn't see any need to weigh in. Another part of the reason is because the study came out right when I had to come up with another Your Friday Dose of Woo for last Friday. But, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that…
oracknows | December 14, 2006It appears that I'm even further behind in my reading than Abel Pharmboy, because he pointed me to a couple of articles in an issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology that I haven't even cracked open yet. It's probably still sitting in the pile of journals on my desk that haven't been touched yet because I haven't gotten around to them. The issue contains two articles of interest, but I think I'll only touch on one of them for now because it's highly relevant to my previous posts about Abraham Cherrix, the 16 year old with relapsed Hodgkin's disease and refused additional chemotherapy in…
terrasig | December 12, 2006I finally just got around to reading the 1 Dec issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology and was struck by two, back-to-back articles that address two interesting aspects of alternative medicine in cancer treatment. Mind you, I'm a basic scientist but I find the struggles that oncologists face to be quite interesting in this regard.
First is an article (free full text here) from a feature called, The Art of Oncology: When the Tumor is not the Target. The title alludes to some high-profile legal cases that arose over the summer, but does not discuss specifically the Cherrix case:
Do…
oracknows | December 6, 2006Although I've mentioned before that I am a surgical oncologist, but I recently noticed that, in nearly five months of blogging, I've yet to explain exactly what that is or what it means. I've written about all sorts of things, ranging from alternative medicine, to the evolution-creationism conflict, to the Holocaust, to even trying my hand at reviewing music.
True, I've discussed a fair number of anecdotes based on patient stories. Certainly those stories can give a feel for what I do in the clinical part of my duties, but they don't really explain what my specialty is. I've also spoken about…
oracknows | November 22, 2006A few days ago, I posted a response to another physician who was not happy with me, no, not happy with me at all. What made him unhappy was the vociferousness with which I criticized the creeping infiltration of woo that is insinuating itself into medical school curricula and expressed dismay at the threat that I see to evidence-based medicine (EBM) from it. He interpreted this vociferousness as "anger," but in reality it is more frustration, a dismay that was exacerbated by his defense of including unproven therapies in his practice. I did not respond so harshly somuch because I think that…
oracknows | November 8, 2006I've written before about how frequently alties like to point to testimonials as "evidence" that their treatments work. Indeed, from the very beginning, in one of the earliest posts I ever wrote, I explained just why breast cancer testimonials for alternative medicine should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Of course, most of these testimonials are either given by true believers or used by people selling alternative medicine, and they are used mainly to sell product. That's one reason why I've emphasized that evidence from well-designed clinical trials is the best way of assessing what…
oracknows | October 27, 2006No, I'm not talking about "Iron Justice," a guy who regularly posts to misc.health.alternative and seems obsessed with iron metabolism as the be-all and end-all of health and disease, with a particular affinity for iron overload as the cause of seemingly all disease, although he might make an amusing target at some point in the future. This time, it's something different. This week, as every week since inaugurating Your Friday Dose of Woo, I was sitting back, contemplating what flavor of woo I should have a little fun with. As is often the case, it was hard. No, it wasn't hard because of lack…
terrasig | October 19, 2006The real news in this story is how the lead researcher responsibly tempers the interpretation of his 15 October report in Clinical Cancer Research.
From United Press International:
Grape seeds may help attack colon tumors
DENVER, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Chemicals found in grape seeds have been found to inhibit growth of colorectal tumors in both cell cultures and in mice, say Colorado researchers.
"With these results, we are not suggesting that people run out and buy and use grape seed extract. That could be dangerous since so little is known about doses and side effects," said Rajesh Agarwal of the…
terrasig | October 18, 2006SAHA, or suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid, was recently granted orphan drug approval by the US FDA for skin lesions resulting from cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.
SAHA (vorinostat, Zolinza) will be marketed by Merck as they acquired in 2004 Aton Pharma, who had been developing the compound. (This free Nature Biotechnology article, while dated, gives background on the acquisition and the then-development of other similar compounds.) Merck's press release is farily detailed and available in PDF format.
I'm somewhat surprised that more has not been made of this approval since histone deacetylase…
terrasig | October 5, 2006This other thing called the day job has interfered with my finishing the last bit of the curcumin series (on the piperine/Bioperine bioavailability enhancer) and a new post for The Friday Fermentable. I've also got some biz travel scheduled today, so I hope that gives me some wine and/or beer fodder for next week.
In the meantime, I urge readers interested in herbal remedies for cancer to revisit this week's posts:
Curcumin for Cancer: Part One
Curcumin for Cancer: Part Two
And, for those inclined toward the fruit of the vine, please be sure to read last week's Friday Fermentable by guest-…
oracknows | October 5, 2006Abel Pharmboy has posted the second part of his series about the use of botanicals, specifically curcumin, for cancer, and how the altie crowd misrepresents what can be achieved. Basically, the dose of curcumin that would be required to have any effect is so high that, as Abel put it, you'd have to "shovel" it in.