Potential Cancer Cure?

[TehBorken]

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University may have found a way to [a href="http://pressesc.com/01167884024_cancer_cure_patented"]kill cancer cells without radiation[/a] or toxic chemicals. The group is taking the step of patenting the idea, as this new approach using sugars may hold real potential for the fight against cancer.

This is not the first approach to use sugars, the article states, but is (by the researchers' estimation) the most successful.

From the article:

'Sampathkumar and his colleagues built upon 20-year-old findings that a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate can slow the spread of cancer cells. In the 1980s, researchers discovered that butyrate, which is formed naturally at high levels in the digestive system by symbiotic bacteria that feed on fibre, can restore healthy cell functioning ...

The researchers focused on a sugar called N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, or ManNAc, for short, and created a hybrid molecule by linking ManNAc with butyrate. The hybrid easily penetrates a cell's surface, then is split apart by enzymes inside the cell.

Once inside the cell, ManNAc is processed into another sugar known as sialic acid that plays key roles in cancer biology, while butyrate orchestrates the expression of genes responsible for halting the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells.'  

[Russ]

This is always good news, even if unsuccessful, its another step in the right direction. I have had a few friends and family pass away from this and believe me it sucks to be around as they progress or regress.

  The worst for me was when I was younger, one of closest friends died of cancer at 21. Four months from diagnosis to...

[Lise]

That's pretty sad to hear Russ.

  I'm all for treatment of cancer. Anything, ANYTHING at all that can help cure the disease without radiation or chemo gets my vote.

[P.C.]

Ditto Lise.....including chemo and radiation, if it works.  

  I sometimes wonder why it is taking so long to come up with cures.  When you think of the diseases over the years that they have come up with cures for, even back when they didn't have a fraction of the technological tools and assistance that they have now.

[weird al]

P.C. wrote:
 Ditto Lise.....including chemo and radiation, if it works.  



I sometimes wonder why it is taking so long to come up with cures.  When you think of the diseases over the years that they have come up with cures for, even back when they didn't have a fraction of the technological tools and assistance that they have now.

  I think part of the problem in finding a cure for cancer is that cancer itself can be a product of a variety of causes, such as chronic inflammatory conditions, exposure to chemicals and who knows what else. There's been a lot of speculation about radiation, without as yet any conclusive proof, as far as I know.

  There's a book out, called
[img alt="synthetic chemicals" hspace=10 src="http://www.newstarget.com/gallery/articles/TheHundred-YearLie_150.jpg" width=150 align=left][!-- google_ad_section_start --] [/DIV]
   which tracks the proliferation of various ailments that seem to increase in remarkable lock-step with the ongoing production of new chemical compunds, most if not all of which, never break down, but remain stored in our bodies and our environment.

  I copped this book out of the library recently and  found it freakishly compelling or compellingly freakish, or something like that.  I don't know anything about Fitzgerald's credentials, but here's an excerpt of an interview. I don't know anything about the interviewer either. Maybe they're just trying to freak us out so they can sell us a bunch of supplements.

   Fitzgerald: I wanted to spotlight some trends and patterns that I had noticed in my circle of friends and among members of my family. I had noticed [A href="http://www.newstarget.com/health_problems.html"][FONT color=#3866bc]health problems[/FONT][/A], illnesses and diseases occurring at younger and younger ages among people I knew, and I was concerned about that. I wanted to find answers as to why these sorts of problems -- neurological diseases, Parkinson's, MLS, MS, the whole range of illnesses, and especially [A href="http://www.newstarget.com/cancer.html"][FONT color=#3866bc]cancer[/FONT][/A] -- were occurring in people that I knew at ages that, two or three decades ago, would have only been occurring in elderly people. So I began informally talking with people and trying to find out about their eating habits and about the sorts of chemicals that they were exposed to, because intuitively, I felt there might be some linkage between the health problems, their diet and synthetic chemicals.

 

 [A href="http://www.newstarget.com/019434.html"]http://www.newstarget.com/019434.html[/A]

 - this is the site I was looking for, which comes with a cool illustration:

 [A href="http://www.hundredyearlie.com/"]http://www.hundredyearlie.com/[/A]

   

[weird al]

...and here's the timeline:

[A href="http://www.hundredyearlie.com/ssi.html"]http://www.hundredyearlie.com/ssi.html[/A]