Potential cure for CANCER!!!!!

[dan330]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/major-...lve-long-standing-mystery-223029508.html?nf=1

read this and thought it was very interesting.. and wanted to share

 

[Xyro]

You really have to be careful with science reporting, especially when it comes to ones relating to curing diseases. The press is eager to intentionally distort, hype up or just plain misunderstand the story in order to get an attention grabbing headline. Treat them with as much skepticism as you do the weekly news articles about how battery capacities are going to be 10x larger by next year

The story is really that we now understand one safeguard that cells have against uncontrolled-replication (of many already known, and probably even more not known). They figured this out by taking various cancer cell types (grown in petri dishes), in which they knew this safeguard was broken, and manually turned it on again to see if growth stopped. If you have cancer in which that particular safeguard is broken (no two tumours are identical), then this could potentially 'pause' the worsening of the cancer, if they could make it a viable medical treatment someday, maybe.

Comparing the article to the real paper, I can tell you the explanation given by yahoo (who is quoting bgr.com, quoting the telegraph), is just plain wrong:

- PLEKHA7 regulates microRNA, not the other way round.

- The microprocessor (which was not discovered in this paper) is a group of proteins that regulate microRNAs, not the microRNAs themselves.

- I also don't see where the claim that PLEKHA7 is affecting 'cell bonds' comes from. The protein is found at the bond sites yes, but the paper doesn't seem to claim the protein affects bonding as such.

 

[dan330]

I completely agree... they tend to over exaggerate..
that is why I used "potential" in the title.

it does look like a good step in the right direction.
maybe there will be something concrete soon.. within 10 yrs.
fingers crossed

 

[Xyro]

it does look like a good step in the right direction.
maybe there will be something concrete soon.. within 10 yrs.
fingers crossed

Yeah, don't let me diminish the actual science behind the article, by any means.

I just think it's irresponsible that these kinds of articles build up the wrong expectations. There is never going to be one big breakthrough when it comes to cancer. In part, that's the reality of science - progress is slow and incremental, and most problems can't be solved with a lone 'eureka' moment. But mostly, cancer is a variable category of diseases and can have no singular cure. Progress is more obviously visible in the form of survival rates, which are slowly increasing for most types of cancer, even now.

 

[bjacks12]

These headlines pop up once or twice a year.

I'll believe it when people stop dying of cancer.

 

[huh]

Fun Fact!
Vegetarians have about a 40 percent less chance of getting cancer compared to non vegetarians.....just sayin...

 

[bjacks12]

Fun Fact!
Vegetarians

Fun and Vegetarian are mutually exclusive concepts.

 

[huh]

Fun and Vegetarian are mutually exclusive concepts.

You haven't met me yet

 

[dan330]

I think that was a challenge!

 

[dynomot]

My mother died of of oesophageal sarcoma in 2008, horrible disease.

I agree that the media often over hypes discoveries in all science, particularly in medical research and cancer especially. I don't think it is intentional, more a misunderstanding of the facts and research. However this does not make it any less wrong.

I feel that the panacea of "A cure for (all) cancer" will never be found and probably never will be. I belive the best we can hope for is making it manageable so a sufferer may live a normal lifespan with a normal quality of life provided they take drugs for the rest of their life. Much like drug therapy can keep AIDS sufferers fit and healthy for a longer and longer time.

I hope I'm wrong and a universal cancer cure is found, but from my limited knowledge I find that hope extremely unlikely to become a reality.

 

[carson495]

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing!