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New Links Found Between Bacteria and Cancer

Shipud writes "A recent study by a group at the University of Maryland School of Medicine shows that bacterial DNA gets transferred to human cells, in a process known as lateral gene transfer, or LGT. LGT is known to occur quite commonly between bacteria, including bacteria of different species. In fact, that is how antibiotic resistance is transferred so quickly. The team has shown that certain types of tumor cells acquire bacterial DNA that may play a role in tumor progression. Another group at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill has shown that gut inflammation leads to a radical change in the microbial population there, which encourages growth of E. coli that can disrupt the inflamed cells' DNA, leading to cancer. Both studies enable us to ask new questions such as: how does inflammation change the landscape for bacterial colonization? Can bacteria indeed harness inflammation — and then cancer — to flourish and remove competitors from their newly found ecosystem? And can we use this information to fight cancer?"

107 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. the republicans were right all along by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I always knew the gays were behind cancer.... LesbianGayTransgender=LGT...... the republicans were right all along

    1. Re:the republicans were right all along by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      its LGBT - you left out the bacon

    2. Re:the republicans were right all along by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's simple cancer is just abnormal cell growth that the body's immune system can't kill. What causes cancer?? Here's a list in no particular order.

      1. Bacteria
      2. Viruses, Vira??
      3. Fungus (yeast)
      4. Radiation (alpha, beta, gama)
      5. Electromagnetic radiation (cell phone towers, cell phones, AC, etc.)
      6. Genetic damage
      7. Carcinogens in the environment (air, water, food)
      8. GMO
      9. Nanotech

      How to stop it??? NOT vaccines. Build your immune system to kick ass. Remove yourself from 4, 5, 7, and 8. 1, 2, 3, 6 and 9 are a part of life. Your body replaces all your cells every 90 days to 1 year depending on what cells you are talking about so if you fix all the things that cause cancer you can be fixed.

      Research things like hemp, vitamins and minerals and ways to remove those things from the list.

      end of line.........

  2. Re:So... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

    The number 1 killer in the first world, by a wide margin, is heart disease, caused by aging muscles and blood pressure increases. In the third world, lots of relatively simple, preventable illnesses are a common cause of death.

  3. I think I may need new glasses by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1, Funny

    At first, I thought the title was "New Linux Found Between Bacteria and Cancer".

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:I think I may need new glasses by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1
      That's understandable, because a distributed development model is obviously involved:

      LGT is known to occur quite commonly between bacteria, including bacteria of different species. In fact, that is how antibiotic resistance is transferred so quickly.

      But I guess that Linus still thinks he invented DVCS with e-mail patches before the bacteria did. Good luck for him that their patent on that has already expired.

      Also notice that for the bacteria people, it's all about the kernel. Or nucleus, whatever.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:I think I may need new glasses by Artifakt · · Score: 2

      Duuuh! Bacteria don't use Linux, they run something with a microkernel archetecture.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
  4. Re:So... by Jmc23 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You do know heart disease is a relatively simple, preventable illness right? It just requires you to stop eating so much of the poisonous garbage they call 'food' in developed countries. More so in the US with it's love for chemicals.

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  5. Re:Captain obvious says... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Has everyone forgotten "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure"? Our society's biggest disease is ignorance and arrogance.

    That's silly. We need people working as hard as possible during their peak earning years so they can pay the maximum amount of taxes so we can fund things like cancer treatment, the regulatory machine, and foreign wars. Cancer gets most of them after they retire and we need the money *now*. Relaxing and eating well would reduce the tax revenue significantly - your public policy prescriptions go against the prevailing behavior of modern governments.

  6. lateral transfer / evolution by davids-world.com · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh, thanks. I've just learned something. I have used resistance to antibiotics as an example of real-time observable evolution. If it is actually lateral transfer, then this example won't hold. Good to know!

    1. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The genes for resistance still have to be evolved by some bacterium. The gene transfer just helps with spreading those genes far and wide.

    2. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by similar_name · · Score: 1

      Why wouldn't the example hold? How does a lateral transfer of genes differ from a vertical transfer of genes as far as evolution is concerned?

    3. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's still evolution. It's change in response to the environment. LGT (Lateral Gene Transfer) is a Big Deal in the bacterial world - it evolved. You can amplify the effect by causing a selection pressure (ie, put an antibiotic in the flask). But, you can also have de novo point mutations that cause antibiotic resistance - that's done thousands, if not millions of times a day all over the planet. The clever little protists have figured out an even more efficient way to do things.

      That's certainly evolution in action.

      --
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    4. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Why don't you consider lateral transfer to be evolution?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    5. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by davids-world.com · · Score: 1

      Perhaps because the classic evolution model typically involves vertical transfer? But, of course, the selection process continues to work very well, so you're right from that perspective. "HGT has been shown to be an important factor in the evolution of many organisms." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer

    6. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Or rather, a mechanism by which evolution may occur.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    7. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Oh, thanks. I've just learned something. I have used resistance to antibiotics as an example of real-time observable evolution. If it is actually lateral transfer, then this example won't hold. Good to know!

      Lateral transfer is, arguably, just an example of the fact that 'evolution' isn't merely something that happens to individuals. In the case of bacteria, a novel mutation can increase in prevalence either through reproduction by the organism carrying it, or by transfer to other bacteria. Just because nothing makes a complex system more fun than adding more variables(and/or nature hates biologists), both the bacterial population and the distribution/makeup of the laterally-transferrable DNA sequences floating around on top of the bacterial population evolve...(And did we mention the viruses that are probably in on the action?)

    8. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Perhaps because the classic evolution model typically involves vertical transfer?

      But, of course, the selection process continues to work very well, so you're right from that perspective.

      "HGT has been shown to be an important factor in the evolution of many organisms." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer

      There's a lot of lateral gene transfer in humans, as well(just ask your parents, though sometimes they weren't strictly lateral at the time); bacteria just make it more obvious because gene transfer/recombination and reproduction are more or less wholly separate processes, while mammals and such combine gene transfer and reproduction into a single operation.

    9. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by similar_name · · Score: 4, Informative

      The male isn't really transferring genes laterally though. They're being combined with the females egg and falling squarely in the realm of fertilization/reproduction. With that said. There is some evidence that there is a lateral transfer of genes between the mother and baby. Male DNA has been found in the brains of mothers' of sons. My understanding is it's harder to find evidence that the sons receive genes from the mother laterally since he will already have an X chromosome from her.

    10. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by sociocapitalist · · Score: 1

      Oh, thanks. I've just learned something. I have used resistance to antibiotics as an example of real-time observable evolution. If it is actually lateral transfer, then this example won't hold. Good to know!

      Didn't it have to evolve before it could be laterally transferred?

      --
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    11. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's interesting. So maybe if a woman has children from two men, the second child may end up having some DNA from the father of the first, passed through the mother.

    12. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      It's still evolution, right? The precise mechanism is different, but it's still a change in the organism, which is then favored by natural selection.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    13. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by Artifakt · · Score: 1

      In classic models of natural selection, a gene comes into existence through mutation, and then spreads widely because it is subject to natural selection. The time it takes to spread widely depends on how long a generation is for the organism, and how much of an advantage the gene confers over its alternates. Lateral transfer lets a gene spread widely regardless of how much of an advantage it confers (or doesn't). In the long run, it will be natural selection that determines if the gene really confers an advantage and stays around, but in the short run, the gene is spreading from some other cause than natural selection. Mendel's Code with Mutation and Darwin's Natural Selection are the two theories that together make up the Theory of Evolution. Where you don't have both of those, you don't have Evolution, you have something else.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    14. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by similar_name · · Score: 1

      Evolution is replication with error and selection. The DNA in the bacteria is replicating and is still prone to whatever mutation rates bacterial DNA normally has. The only thing that is happening is the DNA doesn't confine itself to the organism it created. It replicates away and spreads to the organisms around it. Selection acts on that. The DNA is still under all of the rules of evolution.

      At a molecular level, DNA is a replicating molecule. It just so happens, that if you replicate something and it's not a perfect copy each time you're going to wind up with evolution. There is always some kind of selection going on. Whether it's that there is oxygen or there isn't there's going to be selection.

      Lateral genes don't spread widely without the effects of natural selection. It may occur faster than what we see in more complex organisms but it's still there. If there were not pressure for antibiotic resistance the genes wouldn't have spread any faster than any other neutral genes that we don't notice. And detrimental genes aren't going to spread far.

    15. Re:lateral transfer / evolution by blue+trane · · Score: 1

      Why can't the knowledge be passed on? Memes instead of genes.

  7. Inflamation - What gives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't have any proper medical education, so can someone tell me why so much of modern medicine involves controlling or preventing inflammation? It seems to cause or contribute a lot of dangerous conditions.

    What is the natural biological benefit (Why did we evolve it?) that inflammation is supposed to achieve?

    1. Re:Inflamation - What gives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Inflammation is good for the short term by letting you know something is wrong and has a protective element. Problems occur when there is too much inflammation or it lasts too long. On average, it's a good thing.

    2. Re:Inflamation - What gives? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's been a while since "Human Infectious Diseases"; but my understanding is that the inflammatory response is a component of the 'Innate immune system', a very, very, old, comparatively rudimentary; but fast-responding complement to the more recent immune system with pathogen-specific antibodies and killer T cells and things.

      The inflammation itself is partially a cause of the changes that tissues undergo to do damage control and partially serves to increase supply of particular chemicals and cell types at the site of the issue(leading to the redness and swelling that are most obvious.

      As for it being associated with a laundry list of unpleasant diseases, I'm told that it's a combination of:

      1. Inflammation is (when it's working correctly) a stress response/damage control mechanism, that kicks in in response to certain environmental stresses and pathogens, so people who are inflamed a lot are also unpleasantly likely to be people who are being exposed to something that isn't doing them any good.

      2. Like scarring, inflammation is one of those 'unpleasant; but it beat dying for most of evolutionary history' arrangements that wreaks a lot of havoc in the process of saving you from infection or tissue damage; which was a much better trade-off before we had access to modern medicine to deal with our acute illnesses and injuries; but also wanted to live to be 90.

      3. The immune system, innate and acquired, is sort of your own personal military-industrial complex, and has a nasty tendency to sometimes go off the rails and start killing civilians in an increasingly paranoid response to minimal or nonexistent security threats, giving us autoimmune disorders.

    3. Re:Inflamation - What gives? by BoRegardless · · Score: 2

      Inflammation if not caused by micro-organizms can lead to invasion by them and when it goes through the blood stream is referred to a Sepsis.

      Sepsis is ultra-serious and life threatening. Inflammation in organs can damage internal organs.

    4. Re:Inflamation - What gives? by AdamHaun · · Score: 1

      can someone tell me why so much of modern medicine involves controlling or preventing inflammation?

      I'm not a doctor either, but I can help answer this part. Inflammation hurts -- think headaches and pulled muscles. There are also a lot of chronic, painful conditions that involve inflammation, like arthritis. It's a big deal for your quality of life.

      --
      Visit the
  8. Re:So... by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Funny

    More so in the US with it's love for chemicals.

    Well at least it's not like your country, where you eat too many apostrophes and occasionally puke them out when you're ranting.

    --
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  9. Re:No, It's Called Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
    From your link:

    Also termed lateral gene transfer

  10. antibiotics and statistics by cablepokerface · · Score: 2

    Can they therefore derive that people who have had to take much antibiotics throughout their lives for other conditions, statistically have less cancer?

    1. Re:antibiotics and statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      A bio-diverse flora reduces the chance of cancer and many other issues. So no, antibiotics are bad for you in the long run, but can help you survive the short-run. You can always have a fecal transplant from someone with a good flora. It's as nasty as it sounds and it is an official medical procedure.

    2. Re:antibiotics and statistics by curious.corn · · Score: 1

      Well, nasty... it seems to work much better than all other treatments, including massively destructing and disfiguring surgery procedures. Now, getting an enema or swallowing a pill of purified bacterial matter may entice a giggle or two, but so does eating french cheese, which is just rotten milk - by the bacteria that thrives under toenails... I've been having irritable bowel for a decade, and I'm going to ask my GP about this transplant... I don't mind :)

      --
      Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
  11. Re:So... by crakbone · · Score: 2

    I think he was talking about recent articles like the one below that have shown connections from inflammation and major diseases. http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/29235

  12. Re:So... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You know that this is complete and utter garbage, and that people still get old, right? That you're a moron throwing around your ignorance like a giant ill-informed medicine ball?

    "Chemicals" doesn't mean anything. You want to talk about specific chemicals and their poorly understood interaction with biology, well, that's just dandy. Like want to talk about metabolization of monosaccharides versus polysaccharides? Be my guest. Want to think that mysterious "chemicals" beyond human comprehension, then you're a goddamn moron.

  13. Re:So... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

    Nah, that's just me. Syntax gives me indigestion, it's why I can't be a monkey coder.

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    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  14. Re:So... by Sique · · Score: 2
    You know that in the long run, we are all dead? And this means that there will be for each of us a reason to die? The different death causes are sitting around and throw dices, and the one who gets the lowest number, wins. If "run over by a car" throws a 24, but "measles induced heart problems" are scoring 17, you will die at age 17 with heart problems and not with 24 in a car accident.

    There are some players we managed to get out of the game. Many infections are no longer allowed to play. Thus higher numbers win more often now, and our average life expectancy increases. But the sum of all death cause margins will still be 100 percent, and if we manage to get each single cause to a margin of less than 1%, it just means, that we have to have literally hundred of different ways to die.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  15. Re:So... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1, Troll
    People getting old has nothing to do with what the US thinks age related diseases are. Here's a hint for you brainwashed person, 'age related' diseases are actually different from country to country. They aren't actually consequences of getting old! It depends on the specific type of damage that your diet and lifestyle causes.

    Chemicals does mean something to people that aren't pedantic myopes without contextual abilities. Compare prosciutto and bacon. What's funny is how much additional chemicals people apply to their bodies to try and get rid of the stink as their body tries to process all the chemicals they ingest. Big money in chemicals.

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    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  16. Re:So... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

    Apparently having a basic understanding of biology, nutrition, and chemistry is "brainwashed". The difference between prosciutto and bacon is how the poor-little-piggy is butchered. You'll find prosciutto with plenty of damned preservative phosphates, basic salting, and antibiotics as common bacon, and you can, in fact, find bacon that is 100% organic with no such treatment.

    You're essentially saying here: "No get the filet mignon, it's less toxic than the ribeye, you know, because it's french". There is no logical basis to your beliefs, and if you can cite so much as one "chemical" by name that you honestly believe to be the source of heart disease, I will be utterly surprised.

    I certainly can name several, by you'll be surprised at just how natural they are.

  17. Re:So... by metiscus · · Score: 1

    l-carnitine is one for sure

  18. Re:So... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 2

    I'll have to agree with i kan reed, you're way way way on the outer fringes. How about the world lifeexpectancy link the AC gave you. Or, if you're a wikipedia truster you'll see the same thing - heart disease is the number one killer worldwide. The US rate is lower than the world wide rate, so maybe it's time to change your rant, like maybe drop it entirely and catch back up with the real world.

    --
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  19. Re:So... by camperdave · · Score: 1

    Tell me about it. One stray semicolon can ruin your whole day. Also, what's up with code that fails to work properly except when it is connected to a debugger?

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  20. Re:So... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

    Probably a write or read past the end of an array. Debuggers love allocating extra space and accidentally making that stuff safe. Use a memory profiler; Valgrind will sort you out.

    Interestingly, that may be what's happening in the first half of the paper. They spend a lot of time rambling about laboratory contaminants as though they're apologetic high school students trying to explain why their vinegar-and-baking-soda volcano burned a hole in the teacher's desk.

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  21. Paleo by Dripdry · · Score: 1

    It would help explain why the paleo diet is supposed to cut caner risk drastically: Without all the etra carbs there is less inflammation in the body. Food for thought :)

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    -
  22. Re:So... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

    Sodium chloride, man. That shit will do you in. And watch out for that shifty DHMO guy, too. Nothing good comes of a chemical with "HMO" in its name.

    --
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  23. Re:So... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    Had to look it up. You're saying something that is statistically associated with lower risk of heart disease as a cause of heart disease. It's actually being considered as a treatment, according to wikipedia. I find the basis for that assertion a little "woo"ish for my tastes, but that's aside the point.

  24. Would diet matter? by ubrgeek · · Score: 2

    Specifically taking probiotic supplements, yogurt, etc?

    --
    Bark less. Wag more.
    1. Re:Would diet matter? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "Specifically taking probiotic supplements, yogurt, etc?"
      no, becasue they don't work. Clinical probiotics MIGHT have an effect. :
      http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/probiotics/

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  25. Re:So... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    DHMO(or as I like to call it, hydrogen hydroxide), is actually an important part of treating heart disease. Sodium chloride was the particular example I was thinking of, so way to steal my thunder, jerkface.

  26. Re:fight cancer? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

    Don't bother. You'd get more bang for your buck if you sprinkled fibreglass in their bedsheets every night.

    --
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  27. Re:So... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

    That NaCL is only dangerous if you don't have a way to get rid of excess, you know, by doing things like moving around... ok, I see you're point. Don't worry about DHMO though, I hear that in the US they think the stuff is so dangerous they have to cut it with acids and carcinogenic chemicals before the populace will even touch it.

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    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  28. Re:So... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    More so in the US with it's love for chemicals.

    Your rant would be much more convincing if you gave some indication that you understood basic chemistry. YOU are made up of chemicals. Everything you eat, even the nutritious stuff, is made up of chemicals. The people who told you that "chemicals are bad" are fearmongering without knowledge, don't listen to them.

    Also, your knowledge of heart disease seems to be lacking....I'll bet you got it from the same people that told you chemicals are bad.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  29. Re:So... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

    I dunno about that; heart failure is found in 100% of DHMO overdoses. The rat LD50 for DMHO is only 90 g/kg.

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  30. Re:So... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
    Don't be fooled by a static statistic. Try taking a look at global trends in relation to the spread of a western style diet. Also, try using that brain to come up with at least one plausible reason why the US rate of death might be lower and contemplate how prevalence of cardiovascular disease is not the same as death due to cardiovascular disease.

    Maybe you're just a young kid that doesn't remember when this scientific information came out decades ago?

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  31. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  32. Re:So... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 4, Informative

    Fun science fact: it takes twice as much MSG to kill a rat than it does salt if you count by number of molecules, and 5.5x as much if you count by mass.

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  33. LGBT by evilviper · · Score: 2

    bacterial DNA gets transferred to human cells, in a process known as lateral gene transfer, or LGT.

    Fox News called it... Gay marriage is going to kill us all!

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  34. Re:So... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    No, people who complain about 'chemicals', that's a shibboleth of people who are clueless about food. If you can't explain what you mean more clearly, then you probably don't know what you're talking about.

    And in fact, the rest of your post confirms it. Chemical byproducts? Industrial waste? Those are definitely not what is causing heart disease in the typical American diet.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  35. Re:So... by Roman+Coder · · Score: 1

    Unless he's working with a language like Java, which then makes me think its a threading issue (debugger changing the timing/duration of the running code/threads).

    --
    "The future can only affect the present if there is room to write its influence off as a mistake." - Yakir Aharonov
  36. Paranoia: They really are out to get you. by Guppy · · Score: 3, Informative

    The immune system, innate and acquired, is sort of your own personal military-industrial complex, and has a nasty tendency to sometimes go off the rails and start killing civilians in an increasingly paranoid response to minimal or nonexistent security threats, giving us autoimmune disorders.

    Consider the evolutionary theory of pathogen Molecular Mimicry -- infectious agents that adopt motifs that resemble normal host antigens should have a selective advantage. In an absolute form, the theory is not completely accepted -- immunological cross-reactivity between host and pathogen could be due to evolution, or it could be due to chance -- and examples exist that support either case. But I think it is likely that the mechanism operates at least some situations.

    The consequence is that a somewhat over-active immune system may actually be the optimum state, with the particular degree of paranoia being the amount that best balances the trade-off between autoimmune disease risk against infection outcomes.

     

    1. Re:Paranoia: They really are out to get you. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Oh, being the immune system is definitely a "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you" situation, because oh boy are they ever. It's just not much comfort to people who have plenty of access to antibiotics; but no longer have a functional pancreas...

  37. Re:So... by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    So would you rather die from malnutrition and cholera at the age of 30 in Uganda, or from heart disease due too much rich food at the age of 75 in America?

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  38. Re:So... by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    Even worse, the poor sap is organic! Unfortunately he won't get that either.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  39. Re:So... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    Again these anonymous "chemicals". You keep telling me to open my eyes, but then flailing wildly in all directions when I ask where to look with, what I assure you, is quite capable vision. You don't understand what you're saying, and worse, you don't understand that you don't understand what you're saying.

  40. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  41. Re:So... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
    Nice made up false dichotomy. btw, hardly anybody dies at age 30 of cholera or malnutrition in any country, and life expectancy is a lot higher in Uganda.

    However, I would prefer to grow and cook my own food and die by any unintentional mistake than to die slowly by overtaxing my waste disposal systems by the intentional addition of non-natural ingredients solely for the sake of increasing a companies bottom line.

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  42. Re:So... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
    If you belong to the small percentage of people who can't process those and your body warns you by perceiving them as having a horrible taste and odor, then yes avoid them. Generally good to avoid celery due to it's high level of pesticide residue though.

    Though in general, sulfur smells aren't my idea of toxic spill smells, more just like a round trip to hell.

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  43. Just so you know. by geekoid · · Score: 1

    Those aren't new questions.

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  44. Re:So... by jbengt · · Score: 1

    You do know heart disease is a relatively simple, preventable illness right?

    You do know that that some people that exercise often and eat properly still get heart disease? And that it is is associated with inflammation, right? And that low-level infection/inflammation is a contributing cause to clogged arteries? And that all sorts of things go wrong with the body and metabolism due to old age, regardless of the good diet you may follow, including stiffening of the blood vessels and valves, reduction in immune system response, slower repairs to injuries, poor hormone levels, etc.?

  45. Re:So... by jbengt · · Score: 1

    People getting old has nothing to do with what the US thinks age related diseases are.

    As someone with a Dad who is 92 years old, and in relatively good health, for his age, I will have to vehemently disagree with you.

  46. So where is the epidemiological evidence? by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 1

    If some, any, cancer were transmitted through bacteria , then it would produce a infectious footprint in the epidemiological record.

    Where is that footprint?

    1. Re:So where is the epidemiological evidence? by ebno-10db · · Score: 1

      infectious footprint in the epidemiological record.

      What's an infectious footprint? Since bacteria lack feet, I don't see how they can leave footprints.

    2. Re:So where is the epidemiological evidence? by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 1

      Funny. Mod parent up.

  47. Re:So... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    I wasn't saying otherwise. I was just saying that in the first world, we have good enough medicine, that non-bacterial problems represent the biggest health concerns.

  48. Re:So... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

    I see your stupid anecdote and will raise with the people of the caucasus mountains. Call.

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  49. Re:So... by blue+trane · · Score: 1

    What if we can make suicide (death with dignity, etc.) the leading cause of death? Would we still be rolling the dice then?

  50. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    one role of carnitine is to produce NO which is a vasodialator and may have a therapeutic role, as can nitroglycerine. a problem is that under conditions of high oxidative stress, where superoxide dismutase is not effectively neutralising superoxide radicals from metabolism, O_2^-, the superoxide combines with NO to form NOO-, peroxynitrate, which is particularly harmful.

    is the problem the NO or is it the excess O2- due to an impaired SOD enzymes and or deficiency in Glutathine (needed for SOD to perform the reduction of O2- on its way back to water via h2o2).

    some of the "chemicals" (lol) i'd refer to might include glutathione deficiency which can lead back to an overload of toxins in general. Also Fluorine is a bioaccumulative toxin, your kidneys can only excrete about half of the intake, at best, the rest builds up in your body over your lifetime. "Hardening" and "Calcification" of the blood vessels is almost certainly Fluoride combining with Calcium, not Calcification.

    Yes, we can now image this using NMR that specifically images the presence of F atoms. In this way we can see the build up in blood vessels and the heart.

    TLDR: keep brushing your teeth with toxic waste, from the phosphate fertiliser and aluminium industry, its "good" for you.

  51. Re:Captain obvious says... by blue+trane · · Score: 2

    We the People need to reject the feudal economics that says a government can only spend what it takes in, and vote accordingly. We must remember that Lincoln created over $400 million greenbacks to raise money without increasing taxes or borrowing it. Reagan proved deficits don't matter. Japan has a 230% debt-to-gdp ratio and a currency it keeps trying to devalue. The US has had a national debt since Alexander Hamilton in the first administration assumed the states' war debts; none of the predictions of grandchildren being worse off than their grandparents have ever come true.

    Debt is a distraction. The focus should be on innovation and the advance of knowledge. Knowledge confers the greatest survival fitness by better enabling us to predict and adapt to sudden catastrophic change.

  52. Re:So... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    The death rate is much lower in the US, fourfold lower in fact and in the third lowest grouping. The US does have a huge consumption of soda and fast food as both are cheap with their associated high grease and added sugar. So we have more diabetes than we used to, and perhaps worse cardiovascular disease, but compared worldwide, apparently not more so. Note - we also live longer, so some of these diseases, diabetes and heart disease, are more prevalent the older you get. Decades ago people were dying from complications from smoking and alcohol consumption, both of which have appeared to have been reduced some.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  53. Re:So... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    Wikipedia is hardly a source of trusted information. I'd rather go to WHO directly thank you.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  54. Re:fight cancer? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    You have nightly access to your enemies bedsheets?

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  55. Re:Captain obvious says... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    We are in the midst of an 'economic war'. Acts of 'economic war': pegging currencies, printing money, dumping.

    Don't infer wider results until you see how this mess works out.

    Counter anecdote: Germany's post WWI debt.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  56. Re:So... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Byproducts. Just because you can't comprehend how that explains clearly doesn't mean I'm the idiot. Most non-idiots understand that the

    The problem with your post is that the words are completely orthogonal to reality. Next you're probably going to tell me, "if it's natural, it's good for you." Please do, I will laugh.

    I don't think you are an idiot, I think you lack knowledge. If you gained knowledge (and from real repositories of knowledge, not the propaganda you currently digest), you would not sound like an idiot, and this conversation would be much more enjoyable.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  57. Re:fight cancer? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

    Surely you should be asking the AC?

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  58. One reversing heart disease with nutrition by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 1

    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
    "Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. Searching for and treating obstructive plaque does not address the areas of the coronary vascular tree most likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Doctors would be forced to educate our citizens that their heart disease risk is determined by what they place on their forks. Millions of lives would be dramatically extended. To abandon the theory of stretching and cutting out areas with plaque would shut down interventional cardiology, nearly all cardiovascular surgery, and many suppliers of the biotechnology. In many cases, interventional cardiology is the major income generator to hospitals. The ending of this ill-conceived, out-dated and ineffective technology would dramatically downsize hospitals in the United States and free up over $100 billion annually in medical care costs. Besides being ineffective, interventional cardiology places the responsibility in the hands of the doctor and not the patients. When patients finally realize they must take control of their heart problems with aggressive dietary modifications (and when needed medications for temporary periods) we will essentially solve the health crisis in America.
    The sad thing is surgical interventions and medications are the foundation of modern cardiology and both are relatively ineffective compared to nutritional excellence. My patients routinely reverse their heart disease, and no longer have vulnerable plaque or high blood pressure, so they do not need medical care, hospitals or cardiologists anymore. The problem is that in the real world cardiac patients are not even informed that heart disease is predictably reversed with nutritional excellence. They are not given the opportunity to choose and just corralled into these surgical interventions.
    Trying to figure out how to pay for ineffective and expensive medicine by politicians will never be a real solution. People need to know they do not have to have heart disease to begin with, and if they get it, aggressive nutrition is the most life-saving intervention. And it is free."

    The original article is yet another reason for eating a high quality anti-inflammation mostly-plant-based whole-foods diet of the type that MDs like Joel Fuhrman or Andrew Weil suggest. Still, it can be hard to overcome the "Pleasure Trap" on your own,
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
    http://www.bluezones.com/

    Fuhrman suggest a diversity of phytonutrients helps prevent cancer. But the original article is a different angle on the actual operating principle of such prevention.
    "Eat For Health -- The Anti-Cancer Diet"
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
    "As reported by the U.S. government and Center for Disease Control (CDC), cancers of the colon, breast, prostate and lung are the top four deadliest cancers in the modern world. After billions of dollars devoted to researching drug treatments for cancer and minimal increases in life expectancy for those undergoing chemotherapy for most common cancers, many authorities such as the National Institute of Health and the American Cancer Society, have been issuing a stronger voice advocating more preventive measures to reduce cancer incidence. Diet has become a key element in the fight against cancer.
    The most recent scientific advancement in the anti-cancer research is the identification of specific foods and food elements that offer powerful protection against cancer. These foods are essential for both prevention of cancer and also inc

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  59. Re:So... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 2

    So... forgive me, but why didn't you? The link was right there on the Wikipedia article you cited.

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  60. Re:So... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

    If you think these processes should all be sped up you may want to reduce your ability to produce melatonin.

    Evolution sure does. It's set up that way for a reason: shorter life expectancies during times of abundance yield a more rapid mutation rate. This is the sublime hand of God's design in action. (What a great guy, eh?) It's immensely futile to be upset about our hard-wired suicidal tendencies, since they're supposed to clear space for our children—but feel free to rewrite them, if you really think it's best for the world.

    Jennifer Anne Luke did her phd on the accumulation of Fluoride in the pineal where it accumulates to levels higher than even the bones over 1000-10,000+ ppm, as a universal enzyme inhibitor it greatly reduces production of melatonin.

    Only until puberty—Luke's thesis abstract states that after that, melatonin levels return to normal, although the onset puberty is certainly accelerated.

    You may have heard that children are reaching puberty at abnormally young ages in many parts of the modern world.

    I sure have—but don't forget that there are other implicated causes, like BGH in milk and xenoestrogens (such as from plastics.) If Fluoride really can be implicated in an epidemic of precocious puberty, then there must be some other variables; it's too widespread to fit the data.

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  61. Re:So... by camperdave · · Score: 1

    Actually, it was an optimizing compiler. My code ran something like this:
    If (Func1() or Func2()) then ...

    The compiler decided that if Func1() returned true, there was no point in executing Func2(), as it wasn't going to make the OR statement any truer. The debugger had different ideas, though, and ran both Func1() and Func2(). Both functions needed to run for the program to work properly.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  62. Re:So... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

    Aha! Yeah, never do that. In perl, this behaviour of the short-circuiting || (or) operator was noticed, so they extended the return value to provide a freaky combo if statement inspired by the ternary operator. It's simultaneously brilliant and revolting, like most things in perl.

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  63. Re:So... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

    So, umm, you didn't look up the trend through the 20th century. Perhaps I'm not trendy enough, but trend used to mean a pattern over time, not so much a pattern across space.

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  64. Re:So... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    I don't digest propaganda, it gives me indigestion. Have you ever considered the possibility I sound like an idiot precisely because I did not digest the prevaling propaganda?

    This might be worth considering, if you had any knowledge at all. Prevailing propaganda or niche propaganda, you got your propaganda from somewhere, and swallowed it whole.

    I can tell because it doesn't match reality.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  65. Re:So... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    No, you don't do well with hard science. Earlier you said that if people didn't eat certain kinds of food, they would not have heart disease. Show the scientific evidence you have that supports that (preferably in a peer reviewed journal) and then you will be getting closer to science. Right now you're flailing in the wind.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  66. Re:Captain obvious says... by blue+trane · · Score: 1

    Consider Weimar Germany, compared to the United States of today. Germany had just lost a world war, to the US. Germany had its factories taken over by force by France, as part of its reparation payments because of losing the world war. Germany was a new democracy.

    The US is a sovereign nation that has a strong military and has not lost a world war to anyone. The US is not being compelled to pay reparations to any country that defeated it in a world war. The US has a centuries old tradition of constitutional democracy.

    Also, note that Hitler started printing his own money when he got into power.

    We can create as much money as we want. Debt does not matter (see the Modigliani-Miller theorem). What matters is what we use the created money for: if we use it to advance knowledge and innovation, we will continue to raise standards of living and produce things others want.

  67. Re:So... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    It's not my job to do other people's thinking for them

    I know, you can't even handle thinking yourself. Or rather, it is your research ability that is lacking.

    nor is this the appropriate forum for proofs.

    You've adequately demonstrated your lack of knowledge, don't worry.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  68. Re:So... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    I did not look up the disease trends through time, but I did note the increasing lifespan from 1900 onwards, a gain of about 20 years. If you knock out all those things that kill you earlier, you're going to be left with age increasing diseases like heart disease and diabetes, the latter of which, Type II, generally starts around 45, and with a peak diagnosis around 55-60. If you die before that, as in earlier days, then obviously as the lifespan increases the incidents will also increase. It's not as black and white as you make it out to be. I'm also not arguing that the US doesn't have a few unhealthy eating habits. Just that your statements are on the extreme side.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  69. Re:So... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    Because a previous post was already linked to WHO information and was referenced. Also, this is slashdot - those were the first 3 results in a google search on "death heart disease rank". I wasn't making a full argument, merely posting a secondary link the GGP might find more palatable, given the apparent anti-establishment viewpoint they exhibited. A WHO link probably would not have made any impact on them. Shockingly enough, those types of people trust wikipedia more than government backed studies. And, as you point out, the WHO link is on the Wikipedia page - along with others. So what's your point?

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  70. Re:So... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

    Nothing left; I'm satisfied. Except perhaps that I think you need to use more critical reasoning when browsing Wikipedia. Different areas have different ambient levels of quality; they're not all rubbish. Reasonably unobscure articles in the life sciences tend to be very if not completely reliable, simply because there's nothing to manipulate and they're above the reading comprehension of most vandals.

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  71. Re:So... by bbsalem · · Score: 1

    Yeah, carcinoma of the sigmoid will result in a semi-colon!

  72. Re:Captain obvious says... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    If we continue to print money for 'bread and circuses' we will only devalue our currency. Have you looked at how the government spends? Cost based accounting?

    Note how much of our increased money supply has gone overseas. Eventually they will want something for it. Joke will be on them. The price China pays for mercantilism.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  73. Re:fight cancer? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    It was your advice. I know the rules are different for girls...if shes got nightly access to my sheets, she would have fiberglass in uncomfortable places (place anyhow).

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  74. We are lab rats! by bbsalem · · Score: 1

    This debate about what kills us, especially about what is toxic and kills us through cancer, is a discussion about the Frakenstein world business and the government has created for us. We are lab rats. It isn't a matter of who has knowledge and who shold regulate, or what we should know about outr health. It is that we are babes in the woods about decisions that are not driven with our best welfare in mind.

    The greatest gains in human longevity were made by advances in public health, mostly, not treatment of chronic diseases. It is true that the medical profession and the regulatory agencies can claim some success in the safety of the food and drug supply and treatment of disease, but our form of government in the U.S. is to blame for many of the current risks and failures discussed in this thread.

    People of Conservative politics love to pit government against business and blame the ills of the world on too much red tape. In the case of drugs and food additives and the risk of cancer, the problem is too much intimacy between business interests and the regulators and the political fact, in the under funding of the FDA, to investigate and enforce sanctions against mistakes, The Congress has sacrificed the general welfare in order to please business interests who have greater access to them and who fund their reelection and who want to rush poorly tested products into the market and into our bodies. That includes drugs and food additives. America is not run by a democracy or even of representative republic but by what i call an "entrepanocracy" in which the duopoly is in joint support.

    The American Beverage Consul, a trade organization, lobbyist, for soda and soft-drinks, has been running a pair of ads on TV here in San Francisco Bay Area. One ad pats themselves on the back for providing calorie per serving data, which they are required to by law anyway, the other ad had this woman, in the produce aisle BTW, claiming the government is trying to take "free" choice away from consumers by passing laws and taxing beverage makers. Sounds good until you realize that marketing excels at giving the illusion of choice under what is in effect a cartel of two or three suppliers, all of which use the same basic formula under sanction of the FDA, and all federal agencies, cabinet level posts, have the built-in conflict of interest that they promote the interests of a constituancy at the same time has having to regulate it. This is why the denizens of K Street in Washington DC are so powerful. The other problen with the above ad campaign is that the FDA rushed approval for the use of High Fructose Corn Syrup in the 1990's before it was implicated in the spike of obesity we are seeing how, because it was adopted by agribusiness in response to a spike in sucrose prices. HFCS is an ingredient in lots of processed foods and our bodies convert most of it to fat, and obesity is one of the major risk factors for cancer. The other problem with the ad is that if something they are doing contributes to the burden of the government to have to treat chronic diseases of aging, such as type II diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, even just through the 30% or so of the total health care cost in Medicare outlays, the government has a right, and even a duty to mitigate the known risk from HFCS and remove it from the market by product liability suits.

    Of course this sorry state of affairs wouldn't be so acute if conflict of interest wasn't built into the US Constitution, itself, through the way the legislative branch is formed, and through the imposition of bad law that allows special interests in business to impose their will on us.

  75. Re:Captain obvious says... by blue+trane · · Score: 1

    Why should the currency devalue, if we're continuing to increase knowledge and innovation? The focus should be on how to create new things and knowledge advancement. Money is simply a tool to help us towards those goals. As long as we keep innovating we can create as much money as we like. Debt is a complete distraction; knowledge is the key to standard of living increases.

  76. Are you saying by NewYork · · Score: 1

    It's != Its

  77. BlueZones is at least trying by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone
    http://www.bluezones.com/programs/blue-zones-communities/albert-lea-mn/

    Overcoming "The Pleasure Trap" can be hard, and it helps when you have community support.

    Your point illustrates how good health is becoming a geeky info-tech thing?

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.