8 ms·
Cancer Moonshot initiative restarted by NIH
- systemvoltage 5y agoI was expecting it to be more ambitious, i.e. Moonshot, than reducing cancer deaths by 50% within the next 25 years.
- nextos 5y agoI think cancer is mostly an immune problem, which has become obvious with the relative success of immunotherapies. It worries my a bit that this moonshot effort is still listing the generation of cancer atlases as a priority. I hope these atlases will be used for the selection of epitopes towards developing cancer immunotherapies. Previous atlas efforts made no sense, and it was very frustrating to see other great initiatives to obtain much less funding, like CAR-T cells. Research politics I guess...
- fasteddie31003 5y agoI'm all for curing cancer. I think the most effective use of resources would be to fight obesity. Obesity leads to so many other problems including cancer. My personal way of not getting obese is to just fast for a couple of days whenever I get over 185 lbs. I probably need to fast every 2 months or so. I encourage other people to use the same strategy but I somehow come off as a jerk whenever I suggest fasting.
- melissalobos 5y ago> whenever I get over 185 lbs. I feel like this should have a height or bmi attached to be more general. Overall people get very weird or think you have an eating disorder if you fast for any length of time. Luckily that is changing, but is still an issue for my partner who is in a much more traditional field and often skips meals.
- machinelearning 5y agoFasting is definitely a good tool to utilize and it has its own benefits other than weight loss e.g. acting as a hormetic stressor. But by far the most useful tool I’ve come across to precisely control body composition is the skill of counting and estimating calories and macros. Once you know your TDEE, it is super easy to control body weight with precision this way. This should be taught in schools imo. It is surprising how wildly off the layman is when it comes to estimating calories.
- BurningFrog 5y ago> I think the most effective use of resources would be to fight obesity Is there any empirically successful way for governments to use resources to fight obesity? All I can think of is "The Maduro Diet" in Venezuela, where the average venezuelan has lost over 10kg due to food shortages... https://borgenproject.org/facts-about-hunger-in-venezuela/ https://borgenproject.org/facts-about-hunger-in-venezuela/
- throw1234651234 5y agoI am baffled at how easy it is to fast for three days. I do drink electrolytes ("snake juice") and water, but don't eat. What I find concerning is how it affects my muscle mass. I haven't gotten weaker so far. A caveat is that I need to take 2-3 hour walks on fasting days to actually see any fat loss.
- nradov 5y agoYou shouldn't be baffled. Your ancestors routinely fasted for a few days at a time because they simply had no food (especially in the winter).
- wolverine876 5y agoCancer is a leading cause of death (and other problems). Maybe we could invest in both? Even if we had to raise the capital gains tax rate a little? A friendly reminder: The US is the richest country in the history of the world.
- doublepg23 5y agoI've considered integrating fasting with my weight loss program, but if I don't eat for 5-6+ hours I'll occasionally get light headed with vision artifacts. This doesn't always happen and while I'll recover I'm usually starving after. My mother says this is related to "blood sugar" but I'm unsure if there's any deeper meaning to it.
- Gatsky 5y agoThis is just my opinion, but cancer is my day job. Treating, let alone curing, advanced cancer is very difficult. Just look at the numbers - a human has about 6 trillion nucleated cells. A cancer 1cm3 in size has a hundred million cells in it or thereabouts. Therefore in advanced cancer you are looking at billions of cancer cells in the person. This is a very large amount of disease biomass. And the task is to make it all go away. Yes, there are some patients who have favourable disease biology who are otherwise healthy, not too old, relatively wealthy and have access to incredibly sophisticated and expensive cancer care who can be cured from advanced cancer. But this number is very small compared to the deaths, especially for the common cancers (Breast, Prostate, Colon). And there is no general strategy to extend these occasional wins/miracles to everybody. We can't wait to cure cancer one Nobel prize at a time. Furthermore, we are seeing large waves of ageing populations colliding with poorly resourced healthcare systems around the world, and these systems just can't deliver what one would call optimal cancer care which requires specialist surgeons, oncologists, nurses, radiologists, PET scanners, MRIs, sophisticated radiation equipment, supportive care and very, very expensive drugs. Unlike almost any other disease, cancers start from a single cell. The endgame has to be prevention. We should be preventing as much cancer as possible. And for most common cancers, we don't even understand why it happens with sufficient detail to think about how to prevent it. Detecting cancers earlier with tests like the one from Grail is a good thing to aim for, but trust me, being told you have cancer, and the inevitable surgery plus whatever else still sucks a lot even if the chances of cure are very good.
- throw1234651234 5y agoIs inflammation linked to cancer? Were there ever studies done on how eating sugar/stress (inflammation factors) contribute to cancer?
- Gatsky 5y agoInflammation means many different things. There are specific cases of inflammation increasing the risk of cancer, for example inflammatory bowel disease like Ulcerative Colitis and colon cancer. At the moment, inflammation in otherwise healthy people is not well defined or characterised, so it is quite impossible to study it. On the other hand, some albeit very potent anti-inflammatory medication increases the risk of cancer (for example JAK2 inhibitors). Some conditions assocaited with chronic inflammation seem to be associated with less cancer (Familial Mediterranean Fever for example). As such I think inflammation is not the most useful concept. It is more a surrogate marker of some other undesirable behaviour related to lifestyle or diet for example, rather than a direct causative factor. Stress is similarly complicated and not well defined or easy to measure. There are different types of stress of course. It seems like moderate to severe stress isn't necessarily harmful, based on studies of I think it was Dutch women in WWII who were definitely stressed but not in Auschwitz or open combat. There is some poorly controlled data from concentration camps that extreme stress coupled with malnutrition and everything else that went on does result in more cancers, but this doesn't really help us today. Sugar is another complicated one. Any nutritional factor has different effects in different people. There is evidence that what sort of sugar you have, and even how you eat it matters (drinking sugars, especially fructose seems esepcially bad). Here it may be more relevant to consider the result of sugar intake, such as insulin resistance and high insulin levels.
- yostrovs 5y agoOne would think that we stopped studying cancers and will now start again.
- 0F 5y agoThere is a lecture on YouTube by a doctor who claims that all cancer cells ferment rather than respirate and that because of this, they are able to be starved with a combination of zero carb diet and a special protein that disrupts the fermentation of another protein that cancer cells can also use. He presents cases where he uses this method to treat a brain cancer patient. I’m on the train and not in a position to find his name or the video. Does anyone have anything to say about this?
- ufo 5y agoThat thing with the fermentation is called the Warburg Effect, and it's the reason why PET scans work. There are some cancer types where this is more prominent. But even then, it's hard to disrupt this without causing a lot of collateral damage, because normal cells also need to ferment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_(oncology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_(oncology)
- 0F 5y agoThis doesn’t add up. Collateral damage isn’t a concern in any other cancer treatments. And if fermentation is so necessary, how do people survive being in ketosis for years?
- voisin 5y agoCheck out “Tripping over the Truth: The Metabolic Theory of Cancer”[0]. Highly recommended. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23496164 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23496164
- bigmadshoe 5y agoI know nothing about cancer treatment but here's a link to an npr article about this. I'd be really interested to hear thoughts from people who know what they're talking about. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/05/468285545/fighting-cancer-by-putting-tumor-cells-on-a-diet https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/05/4682855...
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
- manpagereader 5y ago
- Solstinox 5y agoMaybe the third time's the charm? Richard Nixon tried this back in the 1970s and it failed. Compared to the original well-defined NASA moonshot, cancer is a complex, murky, and individual disease that's unlikely to yield to "moonshot" attempts to solve it.
- lariati 5y agoOf course we can't do anything smart. Beating a specific type of cancer like breast cancer, that just isn't good enough.
- petra 5y agoLook at the stated goals: "to reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years". Seems reasonable, especially given the rate technology advances these days.
- lokar 5y agoMore of a roofshot?
- throwawaymanbot 5y agoIs it bad to feel depressed that this has been going for nearly half a century with No end In Sight. In fact it’s stated goal is the dream end state of any pharma co that could cure it. Endless treatment to stave off death.
- wolverine876 5y ago> In fact it’s stated goal is the dream end state of any pharma co that could cure it. Endless treatment to stave off death. Where does it say endless treatment? Most cancer treatments aren't endless.
- WaitWaitWha 5y agoThe only thing so far that bothers me about this is the "SM" next to the name... All current registrations are marked dead at the USPTO. Question - why does the US Gov have to create and register a 'Service Mark'? ( https://tmsearch.uspto.gov https://tmsearch.uspto.gov )
- Rebelgecko 5y ago℠ is often used when the registration is still pending
- WaitWaitWha 5y agoBut, why register it? My only guess it to be able to go after others who use it without permission, i.e. control narrative.
- djur 5y agoIt's hard to "control narrative" with trademark law, but you can go after people who are, say, illegally collecting donations or offering quack treatments.
- brohoolio 5y agoIt’s great to have an initiative this large to tackle cancer. I’d love it if also included large amount of effort into reducing exposure to chemicals that cause cancer.
- kumarski 5y agoThe data suggests that this is a pointless waste of money “Despite the Herculean effort and enormous expense, only a few drugs for the treatment of cancer were found through NCI’s centrally directed, targeted program. Over a twenty-year period of screening more than 144,000 plant extracts, representing about 15,000 species, not a single plant-based anticancer drug reached approved status. This failure stands in stark contrast to the discovery in the late 1950s of a major group of plant-derived cancer drugs, the Vinca Alcaloids -a discovery that came about by chance, not through directed research.” — Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. CRISPR-9 was discovered by accident while trying to understand how bacteria fight the flu. (CRISPR-9 is the acronym for gene editing brouhaha). Penicillin was discovered via Alexander Fleming’s random mold observation. Roentgen discovered X-ray tech by accident when he shot electric current through a special gass in a glass tube. Roentgen found out that he’d made a ray that passed through light elements, but interacted with heavy ones; the X-ray. Vaccines were accidental too. (Edward Jenner — cowpox) Directed effort seems to be a not-good bet in biotech. Lesson: Let scientists advanced things in accordance with the invisible hand of scientific discovery and observation as opposed to subsidizing bridges to nowhere. Think more Ioannidis than Kurzweil.*
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago> scientific discovery and observation as opposed to subsidizing bridges to nowhere But there are plenty of examples of research with directed effort leading to cures and treatments. You just choose not include any.
- jlcoff 5y agoSuch as ?
- zacharycohn 5y agoThis is just selection bias. I could produce a list - by memory - 10x longer of drugs and therapies that were produced intentionally.
- 5y ago
- tagoregrtst 5y agoAlexander Solzhenitsyn believed he cured himself of cancer by following the instructions of a shaman. He then wrote of his experience in “Cancer Ward” Years later a Solzhenitsyn fan who worked for the NIH recreated the shaman’s recipe and long and behold it was a cocktail of the most promising cancer fighting chemicals the NIH was investigating at the correct dose! [1] https://undark.org/2016/03/31/did-solzhenitsyn-cure-his-own-testicular-cancer/ https://undark.org/2016/03/31/did-solzhenitsyn-cure-his-own-...
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoThat was an amazing story. Thanks for the link!
- tagoregrtst 5y agoIf you liked the link, read Solzhenitsyn. Amazing. But start with “A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich”, short and to the point and skip the Gulag. The Gulag is brilliant, but its too long and depressing (Ive never made it past half way through the first book). Also, keep in mind the fundamental difficulty of Russian novels: each character has a half dozen names, nicknames or variations of their name. Keep the wikipedia page open so you can look up the characters!
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoI did read that book but did not finish it. Got stuck in the gulag part. I did not know there was anything after it.
- CRConrad 5y agoI think you may have misunderstood: Denisovich is pretty much all about his life (as the title says, a day thereof) in a Gulag. Perhaps a page or three of more general musings at the very end. And that's all there is to it, The End, nothing more after that -- it is just "the gulag part". What you should skip, as I read the recommendation, is The Gulag Archipelago, a separate multi-volume (at least a trilogy, maybe much more) epic about the Gulag system in general and, I gather (but may be wrong) more explicitly based on Solzhenitsyn's own life therein. FWIW, I agree with this recommendation.
- logicalmonster 5y agoAssuming this is a genuine effort and not some kind of corruption, this potentially sounds great. But as far as bang for the healthcare buck goes, why not advocate a serious national physical fitness campaign? Many people have gained weight and lost their fitness during the last 2 years, and we're doubling down on doing counterproductive things in cities like introducing friction and barriers for people to get to the gym in the name of defending them from Covid which is completely backwards. Losing weight is probably the single best thing the nation could do for not only better Covid outcomes, but also improving a bunch of other health issues from diabetes to heart disease and possibly cancer as well, if I remember right.
- toiletfuneral 5y ago[dead]
- kevbin 5y ago> Assuming this is a genuine effort and not some kind of corruption, this potentially sounds great. It’s a genuine effort to put something positive on the table for the administration as the mid-term elections ramp up. Biden, like his predecessor, is historically unpopular. The administration is desperate to do anything to maintain control of the house and senate. This “plan” is a retread of Biden’s 2012 scheme that went nowhere. As for corruption, probably just run-of-the-mill NIH feudalism. Even Joe Biden isn’t so brazenly corrupt that he’d directly pay his bag men while he’s the sitting President. It’s good to see cancer get more money & attention, regardless of the motive.
- deeviant 5y agoWhat makes you think that money spent on changing peoples behavior, will actually change their behavior? What statistics do we have that would make this a "better bang for healthcare buck?"
- ohyeshedid 5y agoWhat do you think the most important meal of the day is?
- 5y ago