STARVE CANCER TO DEATH

An anniversary, probably early 80s

In our little house on Cowgill

Of me, note hair and ability to button jacket across belly

She was beautiful, of course

So, let us consider ways to kill a cancer:

                Cut it out (surgery)

                Burn it up (radiation)

                Poison it (chemotherapy, including the targeted  sort)

Sic the immune system on it (immunotherapy)

Of course, these weapons can be combined.  For instance, in OVCA the “standard of treatment” seems to be debulking surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy (two obscure adjectives there, which I am sure you know.) .  It doesn't work very well.

Well, according to this article

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/magazine/warburg-effect-an-old-idea-revived-starve-cancer-to-death.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0

there is another way, long forgotten but now resuscitated and considered  innovative and exciting:

                STARVE IT TO DEATH!

It appears that cancer cells are sugar-hogs.  They use so much glucose that they can be identified on a PET scan by glucose concentration alone.  Furthermore, they “burn” it inefficiently, using a process called fermentation (deriving energy from glucose anaerobically).  This process should be familiar to many marathon runners.  It results in the accumulation of lactic acid at about mile 22, accompanied by a build-up of the question “why did I ever start this race in the first place?” in the brain.*

Much of this article concerns the life of Otto Weinberg, a German Jew who thrived in Berlin during the Nazi era,  Weinberg discovered the fact that tumor cells are glucose hogs; this is known today as the Weinberg effect.  He devoted much of his life to developing a “universal” cancer cure (about 80% of all cancers exhibit glucose gluttony).   It appears that he escaped the gas chamber because Hitler and some of his cronies had a morbid dread of cancer – and Otto Weinberg was considered the pre-eminent cancer scientist of his day.

He also had a magnificent ego.  For instance, when informed that he had won the  Nobel Prize he retorted “about time”.  He is also said to have died under a wall inscription that read  “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die”  Apparently he steadfastly rejected the foolish notion that cancer had anything to do with genes.

Sadly, much of the last part of this (perhaps overlong) article is difficult to follow.  Apparently efforts are underway to create cancer therapies utilizing the Weinberg effect, but how they hope to work is unclear to me.  Insulin plays an important role, it seems – too much insulin: bad.  But I will leave it there.  Read the article and see for yourself..

*For more on the mysteries of cellular metabolism, consult explanations of the Krebs cycle.  And if you do figure it out, please explain it to me.