Breaking Cancer's Gene Code
Understanding the genetic underpinnings of cancer is a giant step toward personalized medicine
Reader Comments
Cancer Therapy
They are finally dealing with the fact that everyone is different. What is similar though is that the body has means of dealing with cancer - it's own immune system. Everyone has an immune system. In light of this new discovery, the new film - The Beautiful Truth, which opens in NYC in November explains why Gerson therpy works so well on all types of cancer. It isn't a miracle drug or magic bullet. It simply avoids toxins in the environment and gives a patient well rounded proper nutrition so the body can heal itself. No miracle drug or one miracle food can do that for so many wide ranging cancers caused by many different mutations. It MUST be a well rounded natural approach. I am confident that the findings of this study WILL explain the success of the Gerson therapy which has been around for decades but isn't patentable and won't make millions for the pharmaceutical industry. The billion dollar cancer INDUSTRY will have to change. And that will be a very good thing.
Acute care for a chronic ailment is inappropriate
If you look at "The China Study" by Columbia biochemist Colin Campbell, you'll see that animal protein is a carcinogen. That's right, milk *doesn't* do a body good (and it *causes* osteoporosis).
As gratifying as it is to hear that better cures for cancer are on the way, the real preventative is to stop eating animal products. Eating vegan would also dramatically reduce alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease and obesity.
Incidentally, since the methane animals emit is more than 20 times as powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2, raising livestock is responsible for more global warming than all the human transportation systems put together.
uterine cancer, lung and liver cancer.
I am a very healthy looking and feeling 70 year old, just diagnosed with uterine cancer, lung and liver cancer. It began in the uterus. I had NO signs of anything, anywhere until several months ago when my waistline area began to have a bit of a protrusion. A CT scan and liver biopsy confirmed the diagnosis.
Can someone please tell me how we can put a man on the moon and NOT have a test for uterine cancer???? They tell me that is where it all began and then spread to the liver and lungs.
I have just begun treatment with a Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist, as Western medicine offers me no cure at this time.
Early detection
You know who lives longest in this society? Hypochondriacs. Why? Because they go to the doctor the second something isn't right. My message is, don't let your doctor tell you that you aren't sick! Listen to your body, ALL THE TIME! If something isn't the way it's always been, GO! A lot of tests that can save a life never get used because no one asks about them.
ASK! Ask yor doctor if your symptoms "could" be something. What could it be? If there's any answer, ask for that test.
As far as Big Pharmo holding something back? I don't think so. I would think it's more likely insurance companies killing people.
rotten ass cancer
Keep on truckin' researchers!Someday we will lick this rotten ass cancer.
The Good News
As a family member who survived a near pancreatic cancer episode, after my father died from it, the genome project holds real promise for why cells are attracted to self-destruction. This doesn't mean blaming somebody else which is all too often a cause celebre in today's society. It requires a sobering realization that nature needs to learn too that it is better off not growing out of control aka getting too fat on "food" that makes you grow outlandishly and in a way that will kill you. Sounds like why we all get in trouble in the first place.
glad to hearbut
i highly doubt that smoking will have dissappeared by then
big tobacco, makes too much money to just go poof in the next 32 yrs.
people (myself included) do enjoy smoking, and moderation is more likely, i burn a pack every two weeks tops...
you smoke 3 packs a day, youre bound to die, you inhale ANY kinna smoke lke that youre gonna die
and as long as there is stress, people will want a way to cut it
cancer
The article reveals the most important property of cancer that makes it so difficult to treat. It is not a single disease or many diseases, it is an individual disease as unique and distinct as the patient. The patients own cells have gone terrorist on him/her, forsaking the common good for a short term growth advantage. No single drug can be expected to be routinely effective under such preconditions. Current targeting strategies that focus on individual genes instead of general cell properties like faster growth have the same problem as early cancer drugs in that what they target may also be expressed by normal tissue and required for homeostasis. A perfect example of this foible are angiogenesis inhibitors which have not lived up to the promise shown in animal models. I believe that cancer cannot be universally successfully treated until cancer cells can be differentiated from normal cells on a cell by cell basis. Each cell must be interrogated to determine if it is cancerous, then given the destruct signal if the answer is yes. This will most likely be accomplished by nano chip technology in conjunction with the genetic profiling described in the article. Current targeting methods are the human equivalent of trying to get rid of basketball players by removing everyone over six feet tall. Sure you may have fewer basketball teams but you also going to get rid of plenty of volley ball players, swimmers and tennis players, and maybe even a few politicians as well..
As the spouse of a cancer patient...
I second "Peter"'s comment. My wife presented with symptoms of cancer for over a year before she could get a doctor to actually do a physical examination of the site in question -- and found the tumor immediately. Doctors seem FAR too incurious of symptoms, and far too willing to write off complaints as hypochondria or simply nagging minor ailments. If you've been a patient with a serious medical condition, you see medical malpractice EVERY DAY. We could save a lot more lives, not with radical or expensive new therapies, but by simply expecting more critical thinking from our doctors.
