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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!