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Why cancer cells waste so much energy

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Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#161

Post by deeviant »

oedmarap wrote: post #107

Worth noting that unlike the cells of the human body, cancer cells are unable to utilize ketones as an energy source[0][1], hence the benefits of a ketogenic diet. A ketogenic diet can also be ideally coupled with intermittent fasting[2] in order to engage/enhance autophagy within the body. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5842847/ [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ [2] https://…

Also worth noting that ketogenic diets seem to increase all-cause mortality significantly.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23372809/

Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#162

Post by hutzlibu »

wittyreference wrote: post #152
hutzlibu wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I hope my answer was actually useful in providing some biological context? " Yes, it was! "These are below detection in any practical clinical way, and we don't want to treat them because they're ridiculously common - your immune system wipes them up. If we tried to detect and treat them all, we'd kill everyone with side effects long before we prevented a fatal cancer." I suppose it would help, if this would be more…

I do wish people were more aware of how common pre-cancer cells are. Generally speaking, there are about eight major functional changes in the cell needed to go from 'cell' to 'cancer cell', and on average, each takes about a decade to occur. When I first learned about this at the age of 20, I already had a bunch of cells that were 2/8 of the way to cancer, essentially. (Not counting mutations I was already born with…

", there are about eight major functional changes in the cell needed to go from 'cell' to 'cancer cell'"

Can you summarize them, if you haven't done so elsewhere?

Anyway thanks. And you should consider writing a book about it ..

Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#163

Post by funnymania »

deeviant wrote: post #161
oedmarap wrote: post #107

Worth noting that unlike the cells of the human body, cancer cells are unable to utilize ketones as an energy source[0][1], hence the benefits of a ketogenic diet. A ketogenic diet can also be ideally coupled with intermittent fasting[2] in order to engage/enhance autophagy within the body. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5842847/ [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ [2] https://…

Also worth noting that ketogenic diets seem to increase all-cause mortality significantly. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23372809/

This doesn't say much about ketogenic diets. Were these diets even high fat?

Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#164

Post by tomp »

wittyreference wrote: post #152
hutzlibu wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I hope my answer was actually useful in providing some biological context? " Yes, it was! "These are below detection in any practical clinical way, and we don't want to treat them because they're ridiculously common - your immune system wipes them up. If we tried to detect and treat them all, we'd kill everyone with side effects long before we prevented a fatal cancer." I suppose it would help, if this would be more…

I do wish people were more aware of how common pre-cancer cells are. Generally speaking, there are about eight major functional changes in the cell needed to go from 'cell' to 'cancer cell', and on average, each takes about a decade to occur. When I first learned about this at the age of 20, I already had a bunch of cells that were 2/8 of the way to cancer, essentially. (Not counting mutations I was already born with…

> on a long enough timeline, every cell is a cancer cell.

Not really true, except in the grandest sense (“humanity is the cancer of Earth”).

Which brings up a really interesting question - how can our reproductive system be so good at removing/restoring the effects of cancer & ageing? Why is sperm quality dropping with age but the effect resets after conception?

Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#165

Post by utbabya »

wittyreference wrote: post #152
hutzlibu wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I hope my answer was actually useful in providing some biological context? " Yes, it was! "These are below detection in any practical clinical way, and we don't want to treat them because they're ridiculously common - your immune system wipes them up. If we tried to detect and treat them all, we'd kill everyone with side effects long before we prevented a fatal cancer." I suppose it would help, if this would be more…

I do wish people were more aware of how common pre-cancer cells are. Generally speaking, there are about eight major functional changes in the cell needed to go from 'cell' to 'cancer cell', and on average, each takes about a decade to occur. When I first learned about this at the age of 20, I already had a bunch of cells that were 2/8 of the way to cancer, essentially. (Not counting mutations I was already born with…

> "on a long enough timeline, every cell is a cancer cell."

So does that mean for the off chance we live long enough for aging reversal to be developed and affordable we'd still die of cancer? :)

Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#166

Post by PIKAL »

LinuxBender wrote: post #51
bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #5

YSK, cancer as a metabolic disease, and tripping over the truth, are excellent books about this, and why we got cancer wrong since watson and crick.

Here is a video on "Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: Implications for Novel Therapies" [1] by Prof. Thomas Seyfried that may be related. I think their research is very promising. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06e-PwhmSq8 [video]

I find the metabolic cancer hypothesis to be extremely compelling. Did you happen to find this link on HN originally?

Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#167

Post by LinuxBender »

PIKAL wrote: post #166
LinuxBender wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a video on "Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: Implications for Novel Therapies" [1] by Prof. Thomas Seyfried that may be related. I think their research is very promising. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06e-PwhmSq8 [video]

I find the metabolic cancer hypothesis to be extremely compelling. Did you happen to find this link on HN originally?

No, I am subscribed to the Youtube channel Low Carb Down Under. They have hosted some great speakers. I've linked the video here on HN a couple of times as related discussions have come up.

Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#168

Post by nerdbaggy »

wittyreference wrote: post #104
excannuck wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you were a cancer researcher in a previous life, may I ask you a question I thought of commenting on another's comment? If cancer cells have high metabolic requirements, couldn't you attack them by: 1. lowering the caloric intake of the patient 2. Making the glucose the patient intakes mildly radioactive, say with a beta or an alpha emitter [1]. As the patient is strictly kept on a low caloric diet, the radioac…

Great questions. 1. We do attempt to attack cancers by reducing their available energy. That's why, at one point, a major field of research in cancer therapeutics was interfering with angiogenesis, because cancers will secrete messengers that help grow them dedicated (if crappy, low-quality) blood vessels. The issue with "starving" them more starkly is that they're very good at getting a share (e.g., forcing the body…

This is fanatics thanks! The inflammation from tumor removal causing cancer cells to awaken is very interesting. I had a partial nephrectomy, so hypothetically my chances of reoccurrence is slightly higher since I had my tumor removed? But of course we couldn’t leave it in either. Is the staging have anything to do with how likely they are to wake up?

Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#169

Post by deeviant »

funnymania wrote: post #163
deeviant wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth noting that ketogenic diets seem to increase all-cause mortality significantly. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23372809/

This doesn't say much about ketogenic diets. Were these diets even high fat?

The literal name of the study is "Low-carbohydrate diets and all-cause mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies".

It specifically found " Low-carbohydrate diets were associated with a significantly higher risk of all-cause mortality and they were not significantly associated with a risk of CVD mortality and incidence."

Perhaps you are on the "oh but the study does specifically say, "low carb, high fat" diet, so it obviously only looked at people eating low carb, low fat diets!" train? There seems to be some fantasy with the Keto crowd that these studies somehow only look at some mysterious section of the population in which eats a very low carb diet but also low fat? People don't eat a low carb diet by accident, when they do they often follow the horrible advice given by the many misguided keto diet proponents: eat low carb, high fat, medium protein.

You can find a near endless amount of longitudinal meta analysis and more focused studies that nearly universally find diets that are lowest in carbs (regardless of protein/fat ratio) produce the highest all-cause mortality.

https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2019/...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3555979/

https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/40/34/2870/547549...

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2...

And so on...

Re: Why cancer cells waste so much energy

#170

Post by mNovak »

wittyreference wrote: post #39
inglor_cz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a relatively new theory saying that malignant, metastatic cancer cells behave like single cell organisms, and that cancer basically represents an unwanted return to our genetic roots; multicellular organisms used to be single cell organisms a billion years ago and the original genes might carry on within our DNA until today. But they should be switched off. Once they are switched on, the cells will stop coop…

> There is a relatively new theory saying that malignant, metastatic cancer cells behave like single cell organisms, and that cancer basically represents an unwanted return to our genetic roots It's not close to even 'relatively' being new. I was giving cancer talks that made mention of it back when I worked in cancer bio, just about 16 years ago now. I didn't come up with it, and it wasn't new then. I used it in tal…

Thanks for the detailed info. I had read once that some large animals (e.g. blue whales) have surprisingly little cancer.. any idea why this is the case? Or is it just the rarity of us testing large animals for cancer?
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