Linda and Carolyn as little kids in Kalamazoo
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We eat all
sorts of stuff – although, for myself with my newly detected diabetes, I eat
(and drink) damned little of what I really want to eat (and, especially, drink). Our cells take most of the stuff we put on
our bodies and convert it into molecules they need to survive; this is called
cellular metabolism. Cancer cells to
some extent have special metabolic needs.
Thus, one would think, it might be possible to starve the little
bastards to death. Well, maybe so, as
explained in the link below.
Apparently
cancer cells have a powerful need for the amino acid methionine. We (living critters) essentially operate on
20 amino acids, which are the organic molecules that are strung together to
make proteins. Nine of these we humans
can’t manufacture for ourselves, hence must acquire from food. One of these is methionine, which is
particularly abundant in food I like – meat and eggs. So, now it has been shown that a bunch of
poor cancer-ridden mice improved dramatically on a low methionine diet. So, who knows? Of course, as you would suspect, more work
has to be done.
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