7 replies to this topic

[rwac]

Chemotherapy can backfire and boost cancer growth: study

Cancer-busting chemotherapy can cause damage to healthy cells which triggers them to secrete a protein that sustains tumour growth and resistance to further treatment, a study said Sunday.

Researchers in the United States made the "completely unexpected" finding while seeking to explain why cancer cells are so resilient inside the human body when they are easy to kill in the lab.

They tested the effects of a type of chemotherapy on tissue collected from men with prostate cancer, and found "evidence of DNA damage" in healthy cells after treatment, the scientists wrote in Nature Medicine.

http://ca.news.yahoo...-164516832.html

[MrHappy]

http://naturalsociet...ncer-far-worse/

I came here to post this, but you beat me to it.

[tham]

You don't really need the above protein and the subsequent drug resistance
it causes, for chemotherapy to shorten the life of a cancer patient.

p53 is our main genetic defense against cancer.

Both chemotherapy and radiation damage p53 permanently.

The result is, when the cancer relapses, it steamrolls over the virtually
defenseless patient, unfazed by second-line drugs or other forms of treatment.

You may remember what happed to Bill O'Rights when, within two months
after his chemo, the cancer relapsed very aggressively and and metastasized
all over him in no time at all.

[Laura Johnson]

a very good reason to go natural... '-))

[joelcairo]

This is an important unintended consequence to be aware of. One of the big new things in cancer research is analyzing the tumor microenvironment and how the physical and chemical signalling affect the behaviour (I don't think it would be wrong to call it the "decision-making") of cancer cells.

However, first of all, there a lot of different chemo drugs that work in different ways.

Second, the WNT16B protein is invoked by NF-kappaB activity. This chain is one of the central axes of cancer activity, and there are scads of phytonutrients that can inhibit it to some degree or another. Without checking my notes in detail, the list probably includes all the usual suspects (curcumin, EGCG, quercetin, cinnamon, walnuts, milk thistle, apigenin, etc.). Therefore it should be possible to minimize WNT16B expression by taking therapeutic doses of a spectrum of anticancer nutrients - hopefully ones that have been tested and found not to conflict with the action of the chemotherapy drug.

Edited by joelcairo, 03 October 2012 - 06:16 PM.

[Graham Jason Duncombe]

This is an important unintended consequence to be aware of. One of the big new things in cancer research is analyzing the tumor microenvironment and how the physical and chemical signalling affect the behaviour (I don't think it would be wrong to call it the "decision-making") of cancer cells.

However, first of all, there a lot of different chemo drugs that work in different ways.

Second, the WNT16B protein is invoked by NF-kappaB activity. This chain is one of the central axes of cancer activity, and there are scads of phytonutrients that can inhibit it to some degree or another. Without checking my notes in detail, the list probably includes all the usual suspects (curcumin, EGCG, quercetin, cinnamon, walnuts, milk thistle, apigenin, etc.). Therefore it should be possible to minimize WNT16B expression by taking therapeutic doses of a spectrum of anticancer nutrients - hopefully ones that have been tested and found not to conflict with the action of the chemotherapy drug.

It would be interesting to examine whether the subjects were concomitantly taking any antioxidants, as highlighted in this study:
http://rsob.royalsoc...3/1/120144.full

Antioxidants reduce the efficacy of chemotherapy agents and worsen treatment outcomes.

[joelcairo]

Antioxidants reduce the efficacy of chemotherapy agents and worsen treatment outcomes.

I don't think this is really true as stated. Some antioxidants can interfere with the chemotherapeutic effect of some drugs under some circumstances. There are plenty of cases where a substance which could be labelled an "antioxidant" has been shown to synergize with various cancer drugs.

[DeanFoley]

There is a huge body of evidence supporting chemotherapy. This study, vastly oversimplified by the media, does not show chemotherapy to be dangerous. Instead, it simply shows what has long been known; chemo can affect healthy cells, and cancers don't respond to chemo equally. It's much more effective in certain types of cancers than others, and part of the reason for that is that the effects of killing the cancer cells is counterbalanced by tumour growing chemicals which it stimulates the release of.

In short, this just adds to our insight of why SOME types of cancers are resistant to chemo. It does not invalidate chemo as a treatment.