
Bladder cancer 'attacked and killed by common cold virus' - cpncrunch
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48868261
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cameronbrown
So there's a chance that the cold is a feature and not a 'bug'? That those
that weren't vulnerable to it died off from other diseases like cancer so
evolution went the other way?

~~~
pas
Not likely. Cancer only gets serious after most of reproduction and child
rearing and nurturing has been done. Whereas cold is pretty serious for
infants for example.

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arkades
Colds are not the flu. Children tolerate colds just fine.

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lloydde
Colds _are_ dangerous to new borns just as the parent comment says.

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Flott
Pretty much anything is dangerous for a new born. I have to admit that I'd be
much more scared from the flu on a new born than a cold.

~~~
lloydde
Sure, my comment is generally obvious, except I felt it needed to be said as
arkades's comment seemed dismissive of the risks to infants with his response
of "Colds are not the flu. Children tolerate colds just fine."

Flu are truly scary causing deaths throughout childhood with increased
survival around two years and then again around five years. My youngest turns
five this month. Before she was two she was hospitalized with croup and she
has had a rougher ride with illness than my other kids along the way too.

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googlemike
Threads like this made me with HN had a 'verification' system for certain (opt
in by poster) posts a la /r/AskHistorians/. If you are not familiar, therein
any comment not made by a verified user or not following extremely strict
citation guidelines gets deleted.

~~~
lm28469
As long as everyone keep it civilised and learn from each-other I don't really
see the point.

When someone posts obvious misinformation he's downvoted to oblivion fairly
quickly, and when someone makes an honest mistake he's corrected by people who
know better and hopefully update his views adequately.

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ajna91
What if somebody honestly posts compelling, non-obvious misinformation? How
confident are you that would be corrected?

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ChuckMcM
On this site? Pretty confident.

~~~
quickthrower2
Depends on the topic. The volume of comments on 737 Max threads makes me
wonder if the community moderation can keep up

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mrfusion
Dumb question alert. Could the common cold be fighting off early stages of
throat or mouth cancers whenever we get sick?

~~~
gbrown
That would be some super interesting co-evolution. My guess is "no", but only
for armchair reasons - way outside my area of expertise.

My understanding is that mouth and throat cancers are realy uncommon before
middle age, so the moderate but ubiquitous fitness loss from the cold is
probably worse, evolutionarily speaking, than the substantial but infrequent
fitness loss from dying of cancer later in life.

It seems plausible, however, that the mutations which make cells cancerous
might also impair their response to viral infection.

/armchair

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beenBoutIT
So if this ends up being found true it's entirely possible that some other
viruses that don't kill you, make you sterile or cripple you might actually
make you stronger. I'd be interested to see more of this type of research on
other less-deadly conditions like chicken pox, measles, flu, etc.

~~~
fasterdom
This is well known.

Why do you think the strongest of the strong bacteria are found in hospitals?
Because they do a lot of cleaning and disinfecting. The weak are purged, the
few who remain don't have to compete with the weak on other axes, thus they
can concentrate on developing resistance.

In your home, where you don't clean as strongly and as frequently, there is a
wide variety of bacteria who compete against each other, and can't spend too
much on developing resistance.

~~~
robocat
> Why do you think the strongest of the strong bacteria are found in
> hospitals?

I presume you mean strong against antibiotics and sterilisation. The evolved
bacteria are likely weaker along other dimensions (that are less important for
survival in a hospital setting). Some evolution is compromises, improving X
has cost Y.

Aside: the mega-plate video is an unbelievably good demonstration of bacterial
evolution:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8)
especially note the tree at the end showing how many different mutations
evolved.

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nilram
10+ years ago I saw a medical news report that said that people who hadn't had
a cold for N years (where N is perhaps between 5-7, but is otherwise
forgotten) were more likely to be diagnosed with cancer. I wish I'd saved that
article; I've think about it whenever I have a cold, but don't have the pubmed
skilz to dig it up.

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cadence-
Did they modify the virus in any way? Or was it just a total luck that this
particular naturally-occurring virus targets bladder cancer cells?

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nabla9
Using virus or weakened virus to tread bladder cancer is already existing
treatment. Using common cold virus is new and interesting.

~~~
arkades
It is? Which?

The only thing I’m familiar with is using BCG vaccine vs. Superficial bladder
cancer. And that is an immuno therapy. A PTEN mutation allows mycobacterium to
enter cancer cells preferentially, and then invites an immune response that
the cancer cells themselves had evaded. PTEN is a common mutation and bladder
cancer, but is not seen in healthy bladder urothelium.

Edit: I should have read the article before commenting. The virus in the
article also does not attack the bladder cancer, it has exactly the same
mechanism as BCG. Although hopefully it is reliant on a different targeting
mechanism than the PTEN mutation.

~~~
classichasclass
This is probably still an improvement, though. I haven't seen it happen often,
but I've certainly seen cases of BCG instillation backtrack into the central
circulation (my first case of this actually seeded his bone marrow with it),
and then you've got a case of TB. If there's less morbidity if that happens
here, and I presume there is, that's still better.

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sammycdubs
This is literally the plot line from I Am Legend

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2_listerine_pls
It's been known for decades that some infections can kill cancer.

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bitwize
Wow, so there may be an upside to the fact that I get colds so damned easily?
Cool!

~~~
wavefunction
You may simply show the signs of common cold infection more than others which
would probably indicate a robust or over-active immune system.

People who say they "never get sick" are often "sick" but don't know it.

~~~
magduf
>People who say they "never get sick" are often "sick" but don't know it.

Or maybe they don't have children.

~~~
mixmastamyk
First year of preschool was the worst, after that immune system workout, it
got a lot easier.

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strken
Bladder cancer is sometimes treated by immunotherapy with an attenuated form
of tuberculosis (BCG), so I wonder how revolutionary this is. Maybe the side
effects aren't as bad? Maybe it's safer?

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majkinetor
This kind of thing is totally expected. I am surprised by so many negative
comments and that shows that many HN folks are still on mainstream dogma and
suffer the tunnel vision provided by the authority with its own agenda.

This is basically form of immunotherapy - most important thing for cancer is
to evade immune system. Anything that triggers it in vacinity can have
cleaning effect. In Japan you can get colly vaccine for example (intentional
bacterial infection). In history, there are number of example of remissions
after serious infective disease (in this case not so serious).

Its so obvious that it hurts me that people fail to see it. What is not
obvious is what agent will do this.

It also makes one wonder weather certain vaccines actually promote cancer
given that those vaccinated quickly clear future disease so infective agent
doesn't have time any more to trigger the appropriate immune response (I am
not in antivac camp, this is only logical)

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Mountain_Skies
Does the cold virus target cancer on its own or is this a treatment where
outside help is needed to get the virus in the same place as the cancer.
Obligatory xkcd:
[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1217:_Cells](https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1217:_Cells)

~~~
mhb
???

 _In this study, 15 patients with the disease were given the cancer-killing
coxsackievirus (CVA21) through a catheter one week before surgery to remove
their tumours._

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aszantu
and now everyone is vaccinating against the cold? Or was it the flu? xD

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djmips
I doubt there is zero side effect as claimed, it just might be more subtle and
long term. But yes, obviously it's better than cancer.

