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Common Diabetic Drug Fights Cancer Stem Cells
SubtleGuest writes "In the latest issue of Cancer Research, a breakthrough study shows that Metformin, a cheap and common diabetic medicine, kills cancer stem cells — the cells postulated to be responsible for tumor resistance and recurrence after chemotherapy (research abstract here). It has been known that diabetics taking Metformin experience lower cancer rates, and now it is apparent why that may be and how it may apply to non-diabetics as well. When combined with Doxorubicin to kill non-stem cancer cells, the results are nothing short of astonishing: total remission in a mouse xenograft model. The results are achieved at levels below the dosage needed for diabetic control, opening many new avenues in cancer treatment and prevention."
Well... you'd get the bad ones too.
right...
Not really. Cancer is one of the more costly ways to die, involving months of very expensive treatments that may or may not work. Its much better for your health insurance company if they can cure the cancer on the cheap and have you die of something less expensive later, like a heart attack or a a car crash.
I had cancer and they gave me chemo (then a high-doseage chemo (bone-marrow transplant)). That wasn't a pleasent feelign either.
Still, I doubt Metformin would have had the permenant effects that did.
This drug regimen is $4/months cheap -- this might threaten the whole cancer industry. I bet results of this trial will disappear quickly or some 'sponsored' research will soon came with a counter claim.
Yeah, just like those magic cars everyone just knows "they" have but that the big mean oil companies managed to stop. And all those wonderful herbal remedies to cancer that those "fat cats" don't want us to use and that cure cancer in a mere few weeks.
Paranoia for the win!
"I deleted a file two years ago and defragmented my hard drive. You should be able to get it back for me, right?"
Don't comment on how simple something should be if you have no understanding of the problem.
But isn't prudent to get the cancer cells into some ecosystem or bioreactor, apply various factors and study them there instead of this Nazi like trial and error research involving those animals ?
If this were feasible, we would have started experimenting on human cancers directly as soon as the first petri dishes rolled out.
They claim to be able to sequence much smaller DNA so why not 'sequence' or look into the cancer here.
Sequencing DNA is many, many steps away from having adequate detail regarding the biochemical differences that will manifest in the organism (or cell). We can't even coimpletely simulate a bog-standard conception-to-birth timeline for typical humans, with various genes switching on and off at different locations and times during development. There are tremendous advances taking place in genetics and will be for some time---but we are nowhere near this level of sophistication at present.
Also inside organisms they are able to highlight and target cancer with some agent and see exactly where the cancer cells are using that PET scanner technique, but unable to use the same path to deliver treatment to those areas.
The 'P' in PET scanner stands for positron. If the treatment could home in on positron concetrations then you're golden. I'll tell you what: you get the positron-homing molecules ready and I'll find a way to superglue the medicinal molecules to them. Deal?
It seams to me that this cancer 'industry' is trying to do prolonged and expensive healing, but not to cure.
It only seems that way because you are utterly ignorant of the underlying reality.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.