5 replies to this topic

[advancedatheist]

The War on Cancer: A Progress Report for Skeptics, by Reynold Spector, MD. (Skeptical Inquirer, Jan/Feb 2010)

http://www.box.net/s.../cdxtl7z7rb.pdf

[niner]

A very sobering report. A couple things jumped out at me. I had no idea that cigarette use was so low in America as recently as 100 years ago. The rise in cigarette consumption, and corresponding rise in lung cancer is shocking. The fall in the rate of stomach cancer since 1930, now only about a third of what it was, is also interesting. Animal research has shown that the common preservatives BHA and BHT (antioxidants) prevent stomach cancer. It has been proposed that the fall in stomach cancer is due to the increase in the use of these preservatives in packaged food. The trend in stomach cancer may now reverse as the public seems to equate "preservative" with "toxic waste" and manufacturers are removing them in favor of more expensive or less effective alternatives. Lung and stomach cancers are the only major cancers that have seen a large change in occurrence rates in the past century.

I thought that the author's view of the prospects for improved cancer treatments were perhaps overly glum. He says: "We
will make no progress if there are five hundred or more genetic abnormalities in a single cancer cell. Where would one begin?", but that is the case after a cancer cell has had time to thoroughly disregulate. If we develop sophisticated detection and diagnostic tools so that we can catch cancers very early and determine if they are dangerous or not, we will make a lot of progress. This will come with time.

[Jay]

Interesting article -- thanks for the summary. One minor modification:

Lung and stomach cancers are the only major cancers that have seen a large change in occurrence rates in the past century.

Esophageal adenocarcinoma has increased 6 fold - relevant for the people here who complain of GERD.

[kismet]

I think mortality is consistently and (unfortunately) slowly improving and that really matters.

I am not gonna read any of it any time soon, but some people are more optimistic than others: http://www.cancer.or...nts.aspx?id=334

Edited by kismet, 08 December 2009 - 05:57 PM.

[Mind]

I thought this was another interesting read about the war on cancer: http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC4202687/

 

The author likens it to the war on terror and how a scorched earth policy (current theory) might not be the best. I would say this is valid right now and that some alternative pathways to managing cancer could prove beneficial, however, I think we are rapidly reaching a stage in technological development where we CAN track and kill every guerrilla (cancer cell).

[resveratrol_guy]

I thought this was another interesting read about the war on cancer: http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC4202687/

 

The author likens it to the war on terror and how a scorched earth policy (current theory) might not be the best. I would say this is valid right now and that some alternative pathways to managing cancer could prove beneficial, however, I think we are rapidly reaching a stage in technological development where we CAN track and kill every guerrilla (cancer cell).

 

This is an outstanding contribution (deserves a newer thread, though). Executive summary: "kill 'em all" does not work on tumor cells; instead, it angers the surviving cancer stem cells and causes them to come back with more aggression, above and beyond merely evolving around whatever targetted therapy you used to kill most of their comrades.

 

There was some promising research several years back (for example) which showed success in improving survival by seeking to plateau tumor size, as opposed to either destroying it or letting it run rampant -- kind of negotiating with the cancer in order to let it survive provided that it stops making war on the system. Many murderous armies have been subdued in this way.

 

I think it would be foolish to assume that the social metaphor is too abstract to be useful; after all, cancer cells are organisms who, like humans, live at the nexus of individual and group desires. There may be a way to exploit this to our advantage: might we be able to put tumor cells on welfare? In other words, just as in intergenrational welfare systems for humans, we actually sap them of their ability to combat the system by giving them just enough free stuff to keep them (barely) alive? The natural evolutionary response, if the social analogy is accurate, would be for the cells to become dependent upon the chemotherapy, instead of resistant to it. The group would evolve toward lazy dependence, outcompeting (if not, in fact, combatting) the few aggressive cells who would otherwise kill us, but could not win the interest of their feeble-but-complacent comrades.

 

The question is... what drug can we addict the tumor to, without affecting normal cells? I don't know, but it might be something which would support Warburg glycolysis, but in a very taxing way which would rob the cells of their nefarious capacities. But being naturally lazy (like the humans which they comprise), not having to work for a living would probably be more appealing than waging intercellular warfare.