
How Gut Bacteria Are Shaking Up Cancer Research - bookmtn
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-14/how-gut-bacteria-are-shaking-up-cancer-research
======
lr4444lr
One of the ironies is that a very common side effect of standard issue
chemotherapy is a marked and often permanent weakening of the immune system by
altering a person's microbiome. Advances in oncology perhaps within our own
lifetime will make today's treatments seem as embarrassing as medieval blood-
letting.

~~~
ansible
_One of the ironies is that a very common side effect of standard issue
chemotherapy is a marked and often permanent weakening of the immune system by
altering a person 's microbiome. Advances in oncology perhaps within our own
lifetime will make today's treatments seem as embarrassing as medieval blood-
letting._

It's embarrassing now, never mind later. We just don't often have better
alternatives than to pump already sick people full of poison in the hope that
the poison kills the cancer faster than the rest of the person. It is
horrible, and has (in my opinion) only improved slightly in the last few
decades.

~~~
robbies
> pump already sick people full of poison

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for explanation/references/proof of
what you mean when you say 'poison'. I don't know your particular experiences
with chemotherapy, but I hear this soundbite parroted too often without any
effort to actually research what chemotherapy is actually trying to
accomplish. I'm not saying people shouldn't investigate their recommended
treatment plans, but this often unwarranted suspicion of modern cancer
treatment techniques is mystifying to me.

~~~
iskander
Chemotherapy, for most cancers, achieves tumor shrinkage and a temporary
extension of life, at the cost of severe life quality degradation. It's a
tradeoff that most cancer patients think is worth it. I think that this
therapeutic benefit puts us in a grey zone with regard to the definition of
poison. The substances would undoubtably be considered poison in other
contexts (e.g. mustard gas) but the doses are carefully calibrated to just-
barely not kill a patient. Maybe "poison" is a function of usage intent?

~~~
Gatsky
"Chemotherapy, for most cancers, achieves tumor shrinkage and a temporary
extension of life, at the cost of severe life quality degradataion."

This is just not true.

I provide you with this list of cases where chemotherapy can cure people
(established in phase III double blind randomised controlled trials):

Early stage breast cancer

Early stage colon cancer

Acute myeloid leukaemia

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

Diffuse large B-cell Lymphoma

Paediatric neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, nephroblastoma etc etc

Testicular seminoma and non-seminoma

Testicular germ cell tumours

Note that breast and colon cancer are among the top 3 most common cancers.

~~~
iskander
Let me revise that: for solid tumors, chemotherapy _can_ cure people, but
typically doesn't.

At one extreme, early stage (solid) cancers are primarily cured by surgery. At
the other extreme (metastasis), chemotherapy is a terminal rollercoaster.

In between those extremes (e.g. some limited local progression), adjuvant
chemotherapy seems to be useful for breast cancer, but has only a very small
effect for colon cancer
([http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673607...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673607618662))
and none for lung cancer
([http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/19/1453.short](http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/19/1453.short)).

~~~
Gatsky
When you say adjuvant chemotherapy 'seems' to be useful in breast cancer, what
exactly do you mean? How does a meta-analysis of 20,000 patients in randomized
controlled trials showing a persistent reduction in risk of recurrence and
death equate to 'seeming'?

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25917869](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25917869)

------
knodi
Unrelated gut flora personal story:

Few years ago I was in bad health. Got sick 4 times a year had a lot of pain
going to the bathroom and was in a general state of depression. Started taking
probiotics in 2 weeks I felt happier and my over all health improved. Did some
research and found that it is estimated that 90 percent of the body's
serotonin is made in the digestive tract. Who knew, get your body right added
some probiotics in your diet.

~~~
frikk
Another piece of anecdotal evidence. My wife has had allergy attacks
constantly for years and years. Every morning she would wake up and have to
blow her nose for a half hour. We started making fermented food (saurkraut,
pickles, fermented garlic carrots) and at the same time buying/drinking keefir
daily. This was just to be healthy and as a new hobby. However, within a week
or two, her allergies subsided substantially. To the point where she would go
for weeks at a time without having the morning nose blowing session. When she
dials back the intake of fermented foods, allergies come back.

We haven't spent much time tracking it closely, but the relationship is
obvious enough to be a no brainer for us.

~~~
atom-morgan
I've heard stories like yours, witnessed a few myself, and have noticed
changes within myself as well. Yet no matter how many times I tell people they
look at me like I'm an idiot.

~~~
frikk
I sincerely hope there will be more research into this in the coming years.
The problem I think is that we need to do more personalized research and
experiments, but somehow figure out the baseline to compare individual results
against. Someone who has a system with X properties will respond differently
from someone with Y properties, and we don't know enough about those
properties to understand the different response types.

------
robbies
Incidentally, one of those gut bacteria, helicobacter pylori is the leading
cause of gastric cancer in the world (and maybe even a deterrent of some
forms).

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2952980/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2952980/)

------
theunixbeard
Alternative to expensive probiotic supplements: fermented foods. It is easy
to:

1.) Brew your own kombucha

2.) Turn milk into kefir

3.) Make your own sauerkraut.

I do all 3 of the above, feel free to email me w/ questions!

~~~
mahyarm
Why would you make your own vs. buying it from a shop?

~~~
theunixbeard
For me it's a fun hobby. With that said, as a software developer making
$XXX,XXX per year, your time is worth more than the money you save by DIY. So
it's up to you.

The final caveat is that w/ milk kefir in particular, the stuff you buy in the
store is different that making it yourself. Commercially made milk kefir is
inoculated w/ ~7 specific bacteria strains whereas homemade kefir is made with
kefir "grains" \--- a symbiotic culture of 40+ different strains. Interesting
scientists have not been able to directly synthesize kefir grains in a lab due
to how complex the symbiotic ecosystem is. All Kefir grains around the world
today are from other grains stretching back thousands of years to when the
first grains were discovered (people suspect in the digestive track of a
ruminant).

------
macawfish
Just wait till the same damn companies who have been piping out antibiotics
start patenting bacteria.

~~~
atom-morgan
I don't see why people blame companies for this. Don't hate the player, hate
the game. If you give the government the power to provide people with
monopolies of ideas companies will fight for that power. If they don't,
someone else will.

~~~
macawfish
My comment was bitter, but it wasn't so much about blame or hate as it was
about deep frustration.

While I acknowledge that this is a systemic issue, it's an individual ethical
issue too. There are individuals lobbying for the power to _own entire
species_. That powerful people seriously think this way, let alone act on
these beliefs, leaves me bewildered and upset.

Beyond that, the player and the game are inseparable. The player you talk
about, playing "the" game... they are playing _a_ game. There is not one game.
In the game I aspire to play, his rules are cheating. Now, I can't blame him
_on a human level_ for doing what his life has led him to do, for believing
what his experiences have led him to believe. But I have extremely serious
doubts about the consequences of this sort of belief system. In my worldview,
this is a kind of fascism extended into the microbiological scale. That might
seem far away, be we are entirely composed of microscopic ecosystems such as
the ones that this "player" wants to insert his or her manipulative, magical
control mechanisms into.

------
Mz
_" To therapeutically influence the microbiome long-term in humans is a big
hurdle," said Sander van Deventer, managing partner at venture-capital firm
Forbion Capital Partners. "The microbiome is very stubborn. Everything we’ve
done so far has only had a temporary effect."_

I am guessing they are looking at one shot drug therapies. This is totally
doable if you make dietary and lifestyle changes and are persistent. Yes,
actually moving the numbers (so to speak) is tough going, but it can be done.

------
bmj
Obligatory xkcd comic: [https://xkcd.com/1471/](https://xkcd.com/1471/)

