Lukraak_Sisser
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2009
- Messages
- 6,028
This (probably long) write up is in response to the thread about true cures
While I have no doubt that most posters here know most of these facts, maybe it will help one or two readers to decide what path to choose should they get this horrible affliction.
This is ment as nothing more than a very brief summary, extended information can be found through any GP, hospital or library
What is cancer?
Cancer is the lump term for a genetic error that causes cells within your body to suddenly ignore their normal reproductive rate and start multiplying without limit. This causes these cells to both use up nutrients at a rate your body is not designed to handle and to physically damage any organ they end up in by pushing the normal cells away.
How is it caused and can it be avoided?
All cancer is the result of an error in the host's DNA, which alters the control pathways used in cell division. The agent causing this damage however can be incredibly varied. Mutagenic compounds are one of the more common causes, as is radiation and viruses, but errors in DNA replication during a normal cell division are also possible.
While it is possible to limit the amount of man made mutagenic compounds you are exposed to, there are a large number of natural causes that are unavoidable. One of the most dangerous substances for DNA is oxygen and its radicals and while cells are optimized to limit the oxygen contact with DNA, it is not totally perfect. Natural radiation, like the cosmic background radiation is equally unavoidable.
What is amazing however is how well your body actually copes with this constant barrage of damage. Even as you read this a significant portion of your cells are busy dealing with DNA damage by using the host of DNA repair mechanisms available to them. Without these mechanisms no complex organism would survive for any length of time
If there is a repair mechanism, why do we have cancer?
As with all things in nature, the repair mechanisms are not perfect. Occasionally errors do slip through. The majority of mutations is either not dangerous or directly lethal, killing a single cell outright. However as we age it is possible for a series of non-dangerous mutations to accumulate or for that chance error that does cause cancer to occur. And this is where all cancers start to be totally different.
For example: a single mutation in a protein in your liver could cause cancer, whereas that same mutation in that same protein in your skin does absolutely nothing. Each cancer is the result of a unique error in a specific part of the body.
This is what sets it apart from other diseases. A bacterial infection can easily be identified as to which species and which action to be taken. But to fully understand what causes a cancer we would really need to isolate and analyze each individual instance (which is currently still not feasible).
Can it be cured?
Due to the high variability of the disease the answer to this is not a clear yes or no. Some types of cancer are trivial to treat, others currently impossible, all of which depends on what exact error is causing the cancer. This is what, in my opinion, also opens the route for quacks like sharecures. We have gotten so used to doctors telling us that things can be cured with a single pill, that we find it hard to swallow when the honest answer is 'maybe'.
Why does my immune system not work against cancer?
The reason for that is again as varied as the disease. First of all, our immune systems have evolved to deal with external threats. A normally functioning immune system does not attack the cells of its own body as this would be fatal in the long run (it does happen and is called autoimmune disease). Since cancer comes from host cells the initial non response is due to the fact that the immune system simply does its normal job. In fact most cancers keep displaying the normal body proteins and are never recognized by the immune system as a threat. Some cancers do lose the ability to fool the immune system, but generally they are present in places your immune system cannot reach or are already too large to be dealt with.
How do cures work?
The primary way is to kill off rapidly dividing cells. While this also kills of cells in your body, the hope is that this will kill the cancer before it kills you. This is not an ideal solution and an immense amount of research is focused on trying to find a better way. A number of chemicals have been found to cure a single type of cancer exceedingly well, but due to the variability of the disease this is also a hit and miss approach. If, for instance, someone is diagnosed with colon cancer all medication that happens to have worked against this in the past can be tried to see if it helps the patient. Again, this method is highly inefficient, but at the moment it is the best available.
Surgery is another option, but only on certain forms and even then it is possible that a few cells escape attention and start the process all over again.
Why aren't there more cures?
I'll give a rough example on how new medication is tested and found.
First a cancer cell line needs to be found, which means a cancer that can exist outside of a human body. This cell line then is tested against all potential medical components (usually in the tens of thousands) to see if a particular component will kill off the cancer cells.
Any components that do this will then be tested against normal human cells to see how toxic they are.
Anything that shows significantly less toxicity against normal cells is then brought on to the next trial.
Usually that involves infecting mice or rats with the cancer cells, then giving them the compound and determining if it has any effect at all.
This is generally the stage where it is found the compound does nothing or is too toxic.
Should there be anything that doesn't kill the mice AND has a positive effect on the cancer human trials can be set up.
This means finding people that have probably got the same cancer, giving them the medication and seeing what happens, generally over the course of 10 years with a control group added.
Then, and only then is it possible to bring a new medicine on the market, that will help against one version of one subtype of cancer.
The costs of such a single trial are in the millions of dollars and the majority give no result yet are performed anyway in the hope that they do work.
Will things get better?
Most likely yes. Its becoming easier, cheaper and quicker to do a complete genetic analysis of a cancer cell line. Most likely such techniques can be routinely used in hospitals within the next decade or two. Once a database is established with which medication helps which subtype of cancer it will become possible to tailor medication far more precisely. Also research and development is constantly continuing so more and better medication is in the works. Life expectancy after cancer diagnosis is in general increasing.
Why write this?
Cancer patients are in a terrible position. Their own body has betrayed them and unlike what is shown on tv, it is not always possible to offer a cure. It can therefore be tempting to go to sites like the true cure one as an alternative. While I have no personal problem with people trying alternative medicine as a supplement to the regular medication, that site (and others) actively try to convince people that they should not use the regular medication. They suggest that there is some vast conspiracy out there with the aim of making money, while making money themselves out of the same patients.
However there is a difference. Regular medication is the result of untold man-hours of research, development and testing with rigorous controls in place. True cures (and similar sites) is a single guy/girl on the internet claiming to use quantum flux capacitors with unobtainium while using zen radiation to get god to align your spirit, who have not a single one true control or test. Just some text on their webpage claiming people were helped by them.
As someone who has worked in a cancer research institute, I can tell that the people who worked there all genuinely do care and are working day in and out to try to understand and beat this horrible disease. The same for all doctors I know, the reason they went into medicine is a desire to cure people, not to be part of the conspiracy for the money.
I have lost/am losing family members to cancer. If there was a miracle cure out there that the Evil Scientists(tm) are hiding, I would have given it to them. There is not.
Anyone reading this that either suffers from this disease or has family members, you have my sympathies.
The only thing I hope to get from this is that no-one stops using the currently available medication by listening to quacks like sharecures. If nothing else, at least a doctor in the hospital will be honest with you and help to the best of their ability, even if it can only be painkillers.
While I have no doubt that most posters here know most of these facts, maybe it will help one or two readers to decide what path to choose should they get this horrible affliction.
This is ment as nothing more than a very brief summary, extended information can be found through any GP, hospital or library
What is cancer?
Cancer is the lump term for a genetic error that causes cells within your body to suddenly ignore their normal reproductive rate and start multiplying without limit. This causes these cells to both use up nutrients at a rate your body is not designed to handle and to physically damage any organ they end up in by pushing the normal cells away.
How is it caused and can it be avoided?
All cancer is the result of an error in the host's DNA, which alters the control pathways used in cell division. The agent causing this damage however can be incredibly varied. Mutagenic compounds are one of the more common causes, as is radiation and viruses, but errors in DNA replication during a normal cell division are also possible.
While it is possible to limit the amount of man made mutagenic compounds you are exposed to, there are a large number of natural causes that are unavoidable. One of the most dangerous substances for DNA is oxygen and its radicals and while cells are optimized to limit the oxygen contact with DNA, it is not totally perfect. Natural radiation, like the cosmic background radiation is equally unavoidable.
What is amazing however is how well your body actually copes with this constant barrage of damage. Even as you read this a significant portion of your cells are busy dealing with DNA damage by using the host of DNA repair mechanisms available to them. Without these mechanisms no complex organism would survive for any length of time
If there is a repair mechanism, why do we have cancer?
As with all things in nature, the repair mechanisms are not perfect. Occasionally errors do slip through. The majority of mutations is either not dangerous or directly lethal, killing a single cell outright. However as we age it is possible for a series of non-dangerous mutations to accumulate or for that chance error that does cause cancer to occur. And this is where all cancers start to be totally different.
For example: a single mutation in a protein in your liver could cause cancer, whereas that same mutation in that same protein in your skin does absolutely nothing. Each cancer is the result of a unique error in a specific part of the body.
This is what sets it apart from other diseases. A bacterial infection can easily be identified as to which species and which action to be taken. But to fully understand what causes a cancer we would really need to isolate and analyze each individual instance (which is currently still not feasible).
Can it be cured?
Due to the high variability of the disease the answer to this is not a clear yes or no. Some types of cancer are trivial to treat, others currently impossible, all of which depends on what exact error is causing the cancer. This is what, in my opinion, also opens the route for quacks like sharecures. We have gotten so used to doctors telling us that things can be cured with a single pill, that we find it hard to swallow when the honest answer is 'maybe'.
Why does my immune system not work against cancer?
The reason for that is again as varied as the disease. First of all, our immune systems have evolved to deal with external threats. A normally functioning immune system does not attack the cells of its own body as this would be fatal in the long run (it does happen and is called autoimmune disease). Since cancer comes from host cells the initial non response is due to the fact that the immune system simply does its normal job. In fact most cancers keep displaying the normal body proteins and are never recognized by the immune system as a threat. Some cancers do lose the ability to fool the immune system, but generally they are present in places your immune system cannot reach or are already too large to be dealt with.
How do cures work?
The primary way is to kill off rapidly dividing cells. While this also kills of cells in your body, the hope is that this will kill the cancer before it kills you. This is not an ideal solution and an immense amount of research is focused on trying to find a better way. A number of chemicals have been found to cure a single type of cancer exceedingly well, but due to the variability of the disease this is also a hit and miss approach. If, for instance, someone is diagnosed with colon cancer all medication that happens to have worked against this in the past can be tried to see if it helps the patient. Again, this method is highly inefficient, but at the moment it is the best available.
Surgery is another option, but only on certain forms and even then it is possible that a few cells escape attention and start the process all over again.
Why aren't there more cures?
I'll give a rough example on how new medication is tested and found.
First a cancer cell line needs to be found, which means a cancer that can exist outside of a human body. This cell line then is tested against all potential medical components (usually in the tens of thousands) to see if a particular component will kill off the cancer cells.
Any components that do this will then be tested against normal human cells to see how toxic they are.
Anything that shows significantly less toxicity against normal cells is then brought on to the next trial.
Usually that involves infecting mice or rats with the cancer cells, then giving them the compound and determining if it has any effect at all.
This is generally the stage where it is found the compound does nothing or is too toxic.
Should there be anything that doesn't kill the mice AND has a positive effect on the cancer human trials can be set up.
This means finding people that have probably got the same cancer, giving them the medication and seeing what happens, generally over the course of 10 years with a control group added.
Then, and only then is it possible to bring a new medicine on the market, that will help against one version of one subtype of cancer.
The costs of such a single trial are in the millions of dollars and the majority give no result yet are performed anyway in the hope that they do work.
Will things get better?
Most likely yes. Its becoming easier, cheaper and quicker to do a complete genetic analysis of a cancer cell line. Most likely such techniques can be routinely used in hospitals within the next decade or two. Once a database is established with which medication helps which subtype of cancer it will become possible to tailor medication far more precisely. Also research and development is constantly continuing so more and better medication is in the works. Life expectancy after cancer diagnosis is in general increasing.
Why write this?
Cancer patients are in a terrible position. Their own body has betrayed them and unlike what is shown on tv, it is not always possible to offer a cure. It can therefore be tempting to go to sites like the true cure one as an alternative. While I have no personal problem with people trying alternative medicine as a supplement to the regular medication, that site (and others) actively try to convince people that they should not use the regular medication. They suggest that there is some vast conspiracy out there with the aim of making money, while making money themselves out of the same patients.
However there is a difference. Regular medication is the result of untold man-hours of research, development and testing with rigorous controls in place. True cures (and similar sites) is a single guy/girl on the internet claiming to use quantum flux capacitors with unobtainium while using zen radiation to get god to align your spirit, who have not a single one true control or test. Just some text on their webpage claiming people were helped by them.
As someone who has worked in a cancer research institute, I can tell that the people who worked there all genuinely do care and are working day in and out to try to understand and beat this horrible disease. The same for all doctors I know, the reason they went into medicine is a desire to cure people, not to be part of the conspiracy for the money.
I have lost/am losing family members to cancer. If there was a miracle cure out there that the Evil Scientists(tm) are hiding, I would have given it to them. There is not.
Anyone reading this that either suffers from this disease or has family members, you have my sympathies.
The only thing I hope to get from this is that no-one stops using the currently available medication by listening to quacks like sharecures. If nothing else, at least a doctor in the hospital will be honest with you and help to the best of their ability, even if it can only be painkillers.
