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Harvard Scientists Aim To Stop Cancer In Its Tracks
Shuntros writes "BBC News is reporting progress from scientists at Harvard Medical School towards strangling the growth of cancer cells. By starving cells of a certain type of enzyme, growth essentially ceases. 'The fact that proliferating cancer are able to consume glucose at a much higher rate than normal cells was first discovered by the German Nobel prize-winning chemist Otto Warburg more than 75 years ago. He also showed that the amount of glucose the cells needed to keep their vital signs ticking over was minimal, allowing them grow and divide at the prodigious rate usually associated with foetal cells.' Certainly not a cure by any stretch of the imagination, but putting the brakes on cancer growth in this way is very much akin to the revolution that was AZT."
Not a chance. Fatty acids in the body are broken down by a process called beta-oxidation. The short carbon chains then enter the Krebs cycle (the same cycle used for ATP generation from glucose) and ATP (adenosine triphosphate - the energy currency of the cell) is released.
"On top of all the drug is not patent encumbered"
That means that no patient is going to be cured by the drug. Getting a drug to pass all the tests is so expensive, that no drug company is going to do that without patent protection for the drug. It is only then that they can earn their money back (and make a profit) .
Only if the government is going to step in and provide the funds does it give patients a chance.
Bert
Cancer typically kills older people. In large swathes of the developing world, as life expectancy increases, cancer starts to become a major issue. But that doesn't in itself mean that the diet caused it. Just that people are now living long enough to get the disease. Correlation does NOT equal causation.