Slashdot Mirror
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."
I wish I was a mouse. Then I'd get all the good cancer treatments.
... and Metformin was one of the first drugs I tried. Too bad it made me feel HORRIBLE .
Not just all caps horrible, but bold and italic horrible, too. Fever, nausea, chills, cramps, and headache. We even tried ramping up the dose, starting in very small amounts, to no avail. Only afterward did the doctor tell me that a significant fraction of the population has the same reaction.
(I finally broke down and just took insulin and Actos. Works great to control blood sugar. Also works great for gaining weight.)
I can see the fnords!
It's a slippery slope. If we allow this treatment to go through, what next? Take away their caffeine?
After that we cut off their supply of Robert Smith tunes.
That's right; no Cure for cancer say I.
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
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.
The frequency with which potential treatments are announced has increased, and the number of existing, effective treatments has increased (both of these pretty much work since whenever).
So you see more noise about things that might work, and those things face a higher bar when actually tested out, thus there are more failures.
If you step back and look at survival rates for various cancers, they have gone up significantly, even in just the last 10 years (some of this may simply be due to increased awareness of carcinogens, but some of it is likely to be due to better treatments).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Translating these results into some meaningful treatment for normal adults is highly likely to face a lot of roadblocks and complexities.
I generally agree with this, but there are two things that raise this above the usual "cures cancer in mice" hype.
The first is that these are xenografts, which means they're dealing with authentic human cancers, which are in general far tougher to kill than cancers in other species (we are tuned up for great longevity for obvious evolutionary reasons, and therefore incredibly cancer resistant compared to most species, meaning the few human cancers that do become malignant are incredibly hard to kill.) A quick look at the paper shows they've used multiple cell lines for the xenographs, which is also good.
The second is that there is already evidence of reduced cancer rates in humans taking this stuff (pancreatic cancer only, and diabetics only, so limited but suggestive data.)
The full paper is available at:
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/69/19/7507
and it really is one of the few on the topic that I'd honestly say has results that can fairly be characterized as "dramatic".
You're right: they may lead to another dead end. We've seen a lot of those before. But this looks like solid research and very promising results. Clinical trials on humans are in the works, with patient enrollment starting perhaps as soon as next year.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.