Here is a post from another forum by a very talented PhD scientist who spent his career at Lawrence Livermore labs:
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HI, all.
I want to let you know about what appears to me to be a major
breakthrough in research on cancer treatment. I'm not selling
anything, and I was not involved with the research, but I think it's
very exciting! I hope you won't think I've parted company with my
sanity when I tell you this.
I'm referring to work recently published by researchers at the
University of Alberta in Canada. The full paper can be found at the
following site:
depmed.ualberta.ca
I'm not exaggerating when I call this a major breakthrough.
Briefly, these researchers have found that a relatively simple, non-
patentable substance, namely dichloroacetate, which has been used in
the past to control lactic acidosis in children with mitochondrial
disease, is able to knock out a variety of types of cancer cells
without causing systemic problems. They have demonstrated this by
experiments in three types of human cancer cell cultures and in mice.
This substance works by blocking the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase
kinase, causing pyruvate to be converted to acetyl Co-A and be fed
into the Krebs cycle, instead of being reduced to lactic acid as
normally occurs in cancer cells, and thus forcing the cancer cells to
change their metabolism from glycolysis to oxidative phosphorylation,
like normal cells. As a result of this change, they are able to
cause these cells to undergo apoptosis and die, rather than being
immortal as cancer cells are. In the mice, they put this substance
in their driinkinig water, and they began to see effects on their
cancer within one week!
Because it operates on a feature that is common to all cancer cells
(as shown by Otto Warburg in 1930, for which he won the Nobel prize),
this substance promises to be a universal treatment for all types of
cancers.
Because it is nonpatentable, it should be relatively inexpensive.
This also means that non-pharma money will have to be found for the
phase II and III clinical trials, and they've started a fund for
that. Because there is already a history of using this substance in
humans to treat lactic acidosis in mitochondrial disease, it is
already known that the side effects are minimal.
I am fairly familiar with the biochemistry of the intermediary
metabolism, and I can tell you that the paper looks good to me. I
would invite comments from others on this. If this is what it looks
like to me, the ramifications are huge to society, the economy, the
cancer industry, and to all of us as individuals. I think this will
make it even more imperative that we figure out what to do for
Alzheimer's, because the average life expectancy is going to jump.
When futurists used to talk about the possibility of "a cure for
cancer" being found, I always thought they were nuts! I don't think
so anymore.
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