19 replies to this topic

[brundall]

Just found this, should humans be concerned?

 

https://www.scienced...008661?via=ihub

 

 

[Turnbuckle]

One might have seen this coming back in 2019 after the following Scientific American article --

 

For very different reasons, NAD+ has also attracted a wave of attention from cancer researchers. Recent studies suggest that cancer cells of many types depend on NAD+ to sustain their rapid growth and that cutting off the NAD+ supply could be an effective strategy for killing certain cancers. The data from these studies paint a more complicated picture of NAD+ and raise new questions about the diverse ways taking an NAD+-boosting supplement might influence health. “It might still slow down the aging part, but it might fuel the cancer part,” says Versha Banerji, a clinician-scientist at the University of Manitoba. “We just need to figure out more about the biology of both of those processes, to figure out how we can make people age well and also not get cancer.”

https://www.scientif...ng-supplements/

 

 

[albedo]

pay-walled ... I will try and read as soon as possible ... which animal model they use?

 

[Turnbuckle]

Mice. One of the papers referenced by the SA article is here -- https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC6448588/

Humans. Another paper from the SA article said this --

 

Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT), the rate-limiting enzyme in mammalian NAD+ synthesis, produces NAD+ precursor nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) to drive NAD+-dependent processes. Interestingly, NAMPT expression is extremely low in the mammalian brain compared with other organs (7, 8). However, NAMPT is highly expressed in several cancers, and features of cancer cells, including proliferation, invasion, and tumor growth, exhibit a dependence on NAD+ (9–11).

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC5187672/

 

 

[albedo]

Thank you. Could be interesting a comment from David Sinclair on the issue.

[Daniel Cooper]

My read on that is that it isn't going to cause you to get a brain cancer, but if you are unfortunate enough to have such a cancer it might potentially make it grow and metastasize more quickly.

 

I would like to hear what Sinclair has to say on this issue, but we must keep in mind that he isn't exactly a disinterested party.

 

 

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 18 November 2022 - 03:07 PM.

[Phoebus]

Sinclair has to decide if he can profit off this information before commenting 

[Daniel Cooper]

Sinclair has to decide if he can profit off this information before commenting 

 

If the man brings something useful to society - more health, longer life, etc., - then he ought to be paid. I have no issue with that whatsoever.

 

I'd much rather depend on someone's profit interest to figure out these things than their altruism and generosity as the former is much more reliable than the latter.

[albedo]

The paper is making noise. I was yesterday at a presentation at NUS by Prof Riekel Houtkooper on NAD+ for health aging and when questioning about these results the answer was very prudent on interpretation, he did not read the paper yet, small group of mice etc etc ....

You can follow the presentation and Q&A (e.g. min 54 on) on line: https://bit.ly/3EJTWpO

[ambivalent]

If the man brings something useful to society - more health, longer life, etc., - then he ought to be paid. I have no issue with that whatsoever.

 

I'd much rather depend on someone's profit interest to figure out these things than their altruism and generosity as the former is much more reliable than the latter.

 

 

I would say I have this the other way round, profits become the master as is the case in BP. If we are driven by profits then we may not find better solutions unless they are more profitable, altruism, at its best, is flexible. 

 

Sinclair does seem a little thin skinned at times which reveals a rather large ego but he does seem to have scientific integrity. 

 

The cancer risk is always in the background and never seems to have had the attention it requires. Reseachers seem to go on the absence of evidence line while of course not seeking to find evidence of absence.

Edited by ambivalent, 18 November 2022 - 01:02 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

I would say I have this the other way round, profits become the master as is the case in BP. If we are driven by profits then we may not find better solutions unless they are more profitable, altruism, at its best, is flexible. 

 

Sinclair does seem a little thin skinned at times which reveals a rather large ego but he does seem to have scientific integrity. 

 

The cancer risk is always in the background and never seems to have had the attention it requires. Reseachers seem to go on the absence of evidence line while of course not seeking to find evidence of absence.

 

Altruism is to say the least .... unreliable.

 

I have a fancy iPhone because Steve Jobs was interested in profit, not because Steve Jobs was a nice guy looking out for the interest of humanity.

 

There's nothing wrong with people acting in their own self interest. Unless you are Mother Teresa, most of what you personally do is in your self interest rather than the result of your altruism. Which is kinda weird if you think about - the majority of people that decry the profit motivation go about their own lives day to day doing what is in their self interest rather than committing sequential acts of charity. And yet, they expect others to do the opposite.

 

There's nothing wrong with the profit motive per se - the problem is when the interested parties jigger the system in their favor as has happened with the FDA (see: Regulatory Capture). They use government bureaucracies to erect barriers to competition, stifle innovation (because innovation is disruptive to existing business), and seek to establish government sanctioned monopolies.  We see all of this from the FDA.

 

Altruism is great when you can find it. But, what we need in the medical field is more innovation which means more real competition and lower entry barries. It should not cost $3B and 10 years to get a drug through the FDA approval process. That helps no one but the pharmaceutical companies as it essentially removes the possibility of a start up bringing a disruptive technology to market by themselves. They must partner or in most cases be outright purchased by the incumbent pharmaceutical establishment. In the mean time people will suffer and die waiting on this interminable process to play out and they will pay far more if the new drug or treatment if actually makes it to market (someone has to pay for that $3B after all). And in some cases these new treatments will never see the light of day - an established drug company may decide it's more in their interest to purchase a new technology and squash it rather and cannibalize a lucrative existing business.  

 

The problem we have isn't a failure of capitalism, it's a failure of government. The government's regulatory agencies aren't doing what they are chartered to do - look out for the interest of the public and are instead looking out for the interest of those they are supposed to be regulating.

[Mind]

This headline about NR rings very familiar. I have engaged in numerous discussions in the forum about various therapeutics that "could" increase cancer risk. The same things that are beneficial to healthy cells are beneficial to cancer cells. As long as the balance of the therapeutic effect is in favor of the healthy cells, then things should be okay.

[Harkijn]

Here's a neat summing up of the many shortcomings of this research:

[Turnbuckle]

People are using these new versions of niacin because of the marketing, while no one is marketing niacin and nicotinamide because there is no profit in doing so. But these old supplements are definitely safer than the new ones. 

 

NR--

 

While previous studies have linked commercial dietary supplements like nicotinamide riboside (NR), a form of vitamin B3, to benefits related to cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological health, new research from the University of Missouri has found NR could actually increase the risk of serious disease, such as development of breast cancer and brain metastasis.

https://www.scienced...21111155632.htm

 

 

Niacin --

 

Glioblastomas are generally incurable partly because monocytes, macrophages, and microglia in afflicted patients do not function in an antitumor capacity. Medications that reactivate these macrophages/microglia, as well as circulating monocytes that become macrophages, could thus be useful to treat glioblastoma. We have discovered that niacin (vitamin B3) is a potential stimulator of these inefficient myeloid cells. Niacin-exposed monocytes attenuated the growth of brain tumor-initiating cells (BTICs) derived from glioblastoma patients by producing anti-proliferative interferon-α14. Niacin treatment of mice bearing intracranial BTICs increased macrophage/microglia representation within the tumor, reduced tumor size, and prolonged survival.

https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/32238578/

 

 

Nicotinamide --

 

The prevention of common skin cancers and precancers is possible by taking an inexpensive, widely available, oral pill twice daily. The pill—the vitamin B3 supplement called nicotinamide—cut the rate of new squamous-cell and basal-cell skin cancers by 23% compared with placebo after 1 year among patients at high risk for skin cancer. Nicotinamide also reduced the risk for developing actinic keratosis, a common precancer of the skin.

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC4570055/

 

 

[ambivalent]

Altruism is to say the least .... unreliable.

 

I have a fancy iPhone because Steve Jobs was interested in profit, not because Steve Jobs was a nice guy looking out for the interest of humanity.

 

There's nothing wrong with people acting in their own self interest. 

 

 

I would say Jobs was interested in success and status, money has been a metric of that. Take Gates, Bezos, Buffett they are now seeing greatness, apparently, as some measure of responsibility, of redistributing wealth. They, basically won the game and have accidentally became obscenely wealthy in the process. People may argue whether or not it is true, but it aisn't suprising development of the human condition - philanthropy comes when success and money is no longer enough. 

 

Many are driven to brilliance in a range of fields not because of money but through acknowledgement of that achievement, but money is an unavoidable bi-product and in truth we don't construct society to be any other way. It is also corrupting too of course,

 

We cannot of course rely on atruism to get things done, I agree, but it certain frames we expect it, as in every day life. De Grey at his public persona best represents altruism attitude towards aging, though too often appears ego-driven but in the case of SInclair, if a guy is has plenty enough money then I would certainly not expect him to trigger social harm for the withdrawal of its sale, given he has been the chief advocate and understands better than anyone the benefits. That is pretty shocking. I am thin slicing, so perhaps he has an explanation.

 

Self interest when at the signifcant expense of others I will always have an issue with - and that's where governments come in, they define the structures which determine the boundaries of self-interest, limiting its rampant form and motivating indivudals in a way that dovetails with the needs of the society. That's not too hard to do. But the west is utterly broken in this regard. Governments have been captured by coorporations.

 

The problem, I would say is in part with regulatory capture of the FDA, but even as independent they can only regulate the industry as it exists.  But the narrowness of that industry - that's down to the goverment and its barely ever discussed in politics. 

 

Nobody on these forums would argue against the goverment spending tens of billions a year researching non-patentable compounds for treating illness and disease. We all know if a coorpration could make more money peddling a less effective drug, they would. That's a huge inherent problem of the system. And drug companies are only interrested in creating solutions, rather than exploting the vastly larger of possibilities that already exist in the world. That's ok, we cannot blame them for that; however, that nothing of comparable scale exists via public money to explore the rest of the solution space is blameworthy and that those coorporations - out of self-interest - actively ensure goverments do not create such bodies to ensure the best healthcare solutions for its citizens, is well, utterly monstrous.  

 

Society wants those solutions - we all do - we would want to know, say, of extremely large doses of vitamin d, say, would act as anti-biotic and is safe - rather than experiment ourselves. But of course BP has the power to indoctrinate a society.

 

At the beginning of covid it was interesting to note the suite of therapies researched and propsed by China  including generics if I recall, some Chinese soup as well as vitamin C. You would never see this in the West, even when the evidence for vitamin D was so strong, for example. Also Cuba, a country ostricised, with a legendary health care system.

 

Let's not consider these governments to be remotely benevolent, they are just acting in their interests which coincide with the interests of the masses in that regard - a healthy population supports the country and the goverment's ambitions. In the west, though, making the country sick and profitting from treating that sickness enables power.

 

If Xi or Castro could assume or maintain power through meeting the demands of BP, then they obviously would, but nevertheless other countries no matter how unattractive to us do create successful models of how things could be done.

 

All of us here have found have found some solutions through experimentation, in places where only citizens seem to be looking and that is because the world is full of self-interested powerful organisations which have either destroyed or prevented the existence of social structures designed to defend the interests of the many and left hidden non-profitable solutions  - that is the problem with unchecked amoral self-interest. 

Edited by ambivalent, 19 November 2022 - 04:30 PM.

[albedo]

A perspective from lifespan.io:

https://www.lifespan...g-cancer-worse/

[smithx]

A vendor's take on it:

https://renuebyscien...recent-article/

 

Their main point:
 

 

Importantly, the study did not show statistically significant negative results for NR.  Not only was there not much difference between these two groups statistically but sample sizes were too small to be statistically significant.

From the study:

    “By week 10 of the experiment, 7 out of 10 mice in the NR-supplemented group formed detectable tumors (70%) while only 5 out of 9 mice in the control group (55%) had tumors”


These results are not statistically significant and sample sizes were too small to rule out statistical anomalies. A calculated p-value on these results is 0.65, which would not be considered a significant result.

 

 

[Daniel Cooper]

A vendor's take on it:

https://renuebyscien...recent-article/

 

Their main point:
 

 

For sure 7 out of 10 is closer to 5 out of 9 than the raw percentage might suggest given the small sample. A statistician would be tempted to say "those are the same number".

[Gern]

I would argue against government involvement in any research. Money, politics, corporate interests, special interests and research have become so intertwined it is impossible to tell anymore what is true and what is not. I’m definitely in favor of more research in general. I just wish we didn’t have politicians and administrators deciding which research will be funded.

[joesixpack]

For anyone still concerned about cancer and NR, this article may help.

 

https://www.scienceo...nr-cause-cancer