Since we are on the subject of cancer - allow me to pen down a few thoughts for those interested in the subject.
(a) You already know that ...Cancer could be caused by hundreds of different mutations in the genome that would disrupt a cell cycle control pathway. Which means it becomes increasingly difficult to find a single bullet solution to all cancers.
(b) You already know that ... Even if you find a way to target cancer cells, how do you differentiate between good cells vs. bad cells
(c) You may kindda know that... Researchers are trying hard to find specific markers on the cancer cell membrane, to differentiate them from good cells and target them for destruction. The WASP venom thing is another idea ... but venoms have been known to target calcium/calmodulin channels. So nothing too fancy.
(d) You may not know that... The most promising research in cancer therapy is to disrupt metabolic pathways of cancer cells. You see, doesn't matter what pathway led to the cause of cancer ... but they all need food to divide. If you could terminate their food supply, disrupt a metabolic pathway .. then there is a chance of stopping them...as a generic bullet for all cancers, irrespective of what mutation caused it. Furthermore, the metabolic pathway of cancer cells and normal cells are distinguishable.
(e) You may not know that ... cancer prevalence depends heavily on vitamin D levels. People living around the equator have a 40-60% lesser chance of getting cancer than people living in the US, Canada or Europe. This is even true for people living in Florida. We don't get enough UV-B from the sun, not like centuries ago when we didn't have to work indoors and didn't use sunscreen. People with dark or darker skin have an even bigger risk.
The risk of getting nonmelanoma skin cancer from UV-B is relatively low, and it's easy to treat. Melanoma skin cancer is dangerous, but not related to sun exposure. Taking vitamin D using pills or getting enough sun exposure (without sunscreen) without getting burnt may be the cheapest and most easy way to reduce cancer risk.
Below some links, these about breast cancer. AFAIK these numbers are similar for other cancers like liver, lung, colon, etc.
Sorry, what? Please provide some sources for these claims.
As far as I'm aware melanoma is most definitely related to sun exposure and there is no consensus opinion on vitamin-D and cancer prevention, with the most evidence being for it being protective against certain bowel cancers..
There's some data to speculate that chronic non-burning levels of sun exposure is protective against melanoma while acute burning exposure is inductive. Until the data becomes more clear get some sun exposure but do not burn.
This is exactly what I mean. Burning is not good, never. It damages the skin and that can cause cancer. Getting 1 MED of sun / UVB a week is however OK it seems.
What 1 MED is for you depends on where you live, what time of the year it is, and what skintype you have. If you take a sunbath of one hour in New York in July, and the next day your skin if mildly rose but not burnt, than 1 MED = 1 hour of sun for you, under those circumstances. Then you can divide that into two or three parts spread out over the week. So for 1 hour, you can sit in the sun for 20 minutes three times a week. That will give you enough vitamin D without causing nonmelanoma skin cancer.
In Mexico the sun is brighter, so that would shorten your 1 MED period. In november in NY the sun is less bright, so that would make it longer and probably even harmless.
If you read the article, it has an answer for (b) that so far works in culture and in human tumors inside animal models; Not quite the real thing, but probably the farthest you can get before human trials, and it is quite far.
With respect to (a) - yes, there are tens or hundreds of fundamentally different cancers. But there's a reason we call them all "cancer" - which is they do have common traits (unchecked growth, glycolisys as the preferred and often singular mode of metabolism - a.k.a the Warburg effect mentioned in the article), so it's not unthinkable that a few bullets could work for significant majority of cancers. It appears that the naked mole rat, a cancer-free rodent[1], has multiple mechanisms against cancer, one of of which is an overcrowding control.
I've read numerous accounts of the usefulness of fasting in fighting cancer (including complete remissions), but no scholarly articles that go far enough. The ignorance about fasting's effects on the human body and how long a relatively person can fast with no irreversible damage (hint: close to 50 days), is quite staggering. The body switches to ketones as an energy source, which the vast majority of cancer cells cannot use. I have found peer reviewed papers showing that fasting makes chemotherapy significantly more effective. It could be your (a) bullet, because it relies on the (b) differentiation.
Wikipedia[0] doesn't list an exact date, but apparently, the Warburg hypothesis dates to around 1920. The Nobel Prize for this discovery was awarded to him in 1931.
I've first read about Warburg and his discovery in 1999, and I asked every MD I met at the time about it - not a single one was aware of it. Somehow, everyone is so specialized today that knowledge that should be common isn't. I assume once a successful therapy based on this effect is developed, though, it will become common knowledge.
"The most promising research..." ...Varies, at the moment it is definitely immune system related, in other words: It is all about how we can reignite the fire of the immune system against the cancer cells which often have immunosuppressive micro-environments (the stop the attacks of the body against the tumor by inactivating immune cells). (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6165/1432.full (2013))
Regarding (d), has fasting/starvation ever been researched as a cure/treatment? I know there was one study about it mitgating the effects of chemotherapy.
I have seen a documentary on Arte.TV about fasting. It's from T. De Lestrade und S. Gilman, 55 minutes long - not available online any more, but the information pages are there with comments [1] (German), [2] (French). I found the French version on youtube [3].
It's the most complete documentary that I have ever seen on this subject. Fascinating documentary, starting explaining that the biggest studies on fasting as cure was done in Soviet Union with tens of thousands of records about patients with different pathologies. Ends with the newest findings in USA where fasting was used to cure cancer.
As opposed to diseases, cancer is new every time. If somebody's cancer cells evolve to become resistant to some treatment, this resistance cannot spread to other people. As such, you're only looking at evolution in a comparatively small ecosystem and over comparatively short times.
(a) You already know that ...Cancer could be caused by hundreds of different mutations in the genome that would disrupt a cell cycle control pathway. Which means it becomes increasingly difficult to find a single bullet solution to all cancers.
(b) You already know that ... Even if you find a way to target cancer cells, how do you differentiate between good cells vs. bad cells
(c) You may kindda know that... Researchers are trying hard to find specific markers on the cancer cell membrane, to differentiate them from good cells and target them for destruction. The WASP venom thing is another idea ... but venoms have been known to target calcium/calmodulin channels. So nothing too fancy.
(d) You may not know that... The most promising research in cancer therapy is to disrupt metabolic pathways of cancer cells. You see, doesn't matter what pathway led to the cause of cancer ... but they all need food to divide. If you could terminate their food supply, disrupt a metabolic pathway .. then there is a chance of stopping them...as a generic bullet for all cancers, irrespective of what mutation caused it. Furthermore, the metabolic pathway of cancer cells and normal cells are distinguishable.
Read more: Warburg effect and a paper that was published this year: http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150626/SLU-researchers-fi...