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Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

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Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#131

Post by nick__m »

cj wrote: post #91

My best friend died of brain cancer. Although not from the cancer itself. He died of an opioid overdose. He was prescribed pain killers for cancer-related pain, and got hooked. His doctors stopped prescribing, so he found it elsewhere, and got a bad batch with fentanyl. (He was a VC living in SF, well to do, he had all the treatment money could buy, but cancer ended up not being what killed him) I know this isn’t wha…

Stopping opioid because a cancer patient is addicted is incredibly cruel! sorry for your lost.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#133

Post by kerkeslager »

Sorry to hear about your friend.

Here's a joke:

Q: What do you call alternative medicine that works? A: Medicine.

Seriously though, "bio hacks" are no different. If these things worked, it's very likely they'd just be normal practiced oncology. Oncology isn't a subfield of medicine where researchers are overly cautious about risks. The patient is practically guaranteed to die, so even if your research has a chance of killing the patient, that's an improvement.

It is far more likely that whatever shallow reading of the medical data you bring to the table is going to counterproductive than productive. I strongly suggest not meddling.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#134

Post by kerkeslager »

nikisweeting wrote: post #125
ausbah wrote: post #87

I know when someone’s faced with certain death they’ll do almost anything they can to survive if only for a little bit longer, but this thread full of personal antectodes and largely non-reproduced effects from random pubmed articles is the hackernews equivalent of essential oils or smth

OP is explicitly asking for hacks and "out there" solutions, I think this is a reasonable place to post anecdata, papers, personal theories, etc. as long as people state their confidence level and link to sources when possible

I disagree. OP is just asking for medical misinformation, and it would be irresponsible to provide it.

Self-assessed confidence levels are basically useless because the most confident people are generally the most ignorant. It's causal: ignorance causes people to be confident. The more you know, the more you realize how little you know.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#135

Post by femto »

klipt wrote: post #122
jo6gwb wrote: post #86

Google Richard Scolyer: Top doctor remains brain cancer-free after a year. A year after undergoing a world-first treatment for glioblastoma, Australian doctor Richard Scolyer remains cancer-free. Check out Sonalsense - https://www.sonalasense.com/for-patients . Requires specialized machine not in US as of last year. Dr Mitchell Berger out of UCSF is the GOAT.

Scolyer is in the relatively fortunate position of being a world class cancer researcher before getting cancer, so he had the resources of an entire oncology lab to give himself a speculative treatment.

Best hope in this regard is to keep an eye out for a resulting clinical trial, unless you have access to a friendly cancer research lab that wants to replicate the experiment.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#136

Post by paulpauper »

cj wrote: post #91

My best friend died of brain cancer. Although not from the cancer itself. He died of an opioid overdose. He was prescribed pain killers for cancer-related pain, and got hooked. His doctors stopped prescribing, so he found it elsewhere, and got a bad batch with fentanyl. (He was a VC living in SF, well to do, he had all the treatment money could buy, but cancer ended up not being what killed him) I know this isn’t wha…

Addiction and other disorders are common among people with terminal or not-so-great prognosis.

Or maybe his death was an outlier .pain meds are well tolerated by most people.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#137

Post by _DeadFred_ »

ausbah wrote: post #87

I know when someone’s faced with certain death they’ll do almost anything they can to survive if only for a little bit longer, but this thread full of personal antectodes and largely non-reproduced effects from random pubmed articles is the hackernews equivalent of essential oils or smth

↑This. Stop. No. Don't go down the false hope path. It's cruel AF and puts off acceptance, wasting time that they can put to better use post acceptance.

Maybe let your friend explore what they want to do and you just give support. Celebrate what they celebrate and cry with them when they cry. Find(or better make) them some comfy/cute hats. If you want to research the things about the hospital, the procedures they are getting, the oncologists they are seeing, and drop re-affirming 'you are getting the best care'. They want to feel like they are getting good treatment. Not like 'if only they got something else they would have a better chance'. But reality is, they are getting the care they are going to getting. Hype the heck out of it, reassure them. Even if the care sucks, find something to hype. Ease the 'if only' burden/regret/fear on them, don't contribute to it with 'if only you could go see Joel Olsteen's prosparity preaching in person and he blessed you' or go see John of God in Brazil or something. If nothing else hype that the WHO ranked France in best overall healthcare. Leave out the 'in 2000'. 'Thank god we are in France, who the WHO ranked best in overall healthcare'. Find things for them to take comfort in.

https://www.who.int/news/item/07-02-2000-world-health-organi...

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#138

Post by RIMR »

ionwake wrote: post #113
ibash wrote: post #110

You should ask them if they want you playing doctor. I have a chronic disease, not fatal, and totally manageable. But the most annoying thing is when someone finds out and suddenly pretends to be the expert. Of course my doctors and I investigating it for years were completely wrong! I should’ve ate more apricots! Please just check with them if they want their limited time spent like that.

dont get why that upsets you. I have had a chronic disease my whole life and one of the people who offered help completely saved my life. If anyone else told me to eat apricots Id be grateful for their time and attention. I would probably eat the apricots and tell them it was fantastic, even if it had no effect. Sorry I just have rarely seen my friends or family offer any advice. - Back to OP, Ive always remembered P…

The problem is that when you are trying to accept your fate and come to peace with it, and everyone else around you is trying to give you false hope. It's hard to break free from the constant futile wishful thinking if everyone around you is doing it for you.

Sometimes you should just let people work with their doctors and come to peace with their situation.

If I was dying of cancer, and someone told me to eat apricots, I might shove the apricots down their meddling throat.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#139

Post by kens »

ibash wrote: post #110

You should ask them if they want you playing doctor. I have a chronic disease, not fatal, and totally manageable. But the most annoying thing is when someone finds out and suddenly pretends to be the expert. Of course my doctors and I investigating it for years were completely wrong! I should’ve ate more apricots! Please just check with them if they want their limited time spent like that.

> I should’ve ate more apricots!

Did you mention apricots deliberately? Apricot pits were a huge, huge alternative medicine in the 1970s under the name Laetrile. Proponents said that Laetrile would cure cancer and was being covered up. The FDA banned it, saying that it accomplished nothing other than potential cyanide poisoning. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of patients a year went to Laetrile clinics in Mexico and spent tons of money on it. Laetrile was smuggled into the US from Mexico, second only to marijuana. Enthusiasm dwindled after studies failed to find a benefit. (Just some hopefully interesting history about apricots.)

A news article from the time: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977/11/27/939...

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#140

Post by adamredwoods »

zblevins wrote: post #2

I have heard some people having luck by switching to a ketogenic diet. Here’s a paper I could find on PubMed about this. Sorry to hear about your friend. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9504425/ Edit: I am not a doctor. My wife is a physician and I spoke to her before posting this.

If diet could stop cancer, we'd be done by now. I guarantee every cancer will mutate to overcome any change in diet you can throw at it.
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