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Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

insideprecisionmedicine.com

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Re: Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

#41

Study after study after study says diet and lifestyle are major factors in every deadly disease. But it's not socially acceptable to suggest that as an approach. However, having already committed the unspeakable sin and egregious faux pas, I will suggest that if cancer is a thing you fret about, you can do something to reduce your risk starting today.

>> Study after study after study says diet and lifestyle are major factors in every deadly disease. But it's not socially acceptable to suggest that as an approach.

This is too simple of an statement for such a complex disease, so is therefore, misleading.

If we want more substantial studies, we turn to the UK, because they have a unified health system and have a massive collection of data on the general population. Timothy Key, et. al., Oxford, wrote a great summary of attributable factors (albeit a secondary data analysis). Outside of obvious factors such as smoking, alcohol, and obesity, what you put into your body becomes less and less a probability of being a cancer factor compared to age and genetics.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7190379/

>> Early case-control studies indicated that higher intakes of fruit and vegetables were associated with a lower risk of several types of cancer. But subsequent prospective studies, which are not affected by recall or selection bias, produced much weaker findings. In the 2018 World Cancer Research Fund report neither fruits nor vegetables were considered to be convincingly or probably associated with the risk of any cancer. There was suggestive evidence for protection of some cancers, and risk might increase at very low intakes. Specific components of certain fruits and vegetables might have a protective action.

>> Vegetarians eat no meat or fish and usually eat more fruit and vegetables than comparable non-vegetarians. The risk of all cancer sites combined might be slightly lower in vegetarians and vegans than in non-vegetarians, but findings for individual cancers are inconclusive.

Re: Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

#42
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diets don’t fail, people fail to follow diets. Which is probably fine in the long run, because they’re always there for people who want them. There’s probably never going to be a wonder drug for obesity though. But Anavar or Trenbolone would work better than Semaglutide, and the side effects likely aren’t that much worse (all of those options are still bad ideas).

> Diets don’t fail, people fail to follow diets. That's like saying, "Exhortations to developers not to write bugs don't fail, programmers fail to follow exhortations." Guess what? Even the most skilled and well-intentioned programmers will write bugs, despite their best efforts; and lots of programmers simply won't put out their best efforts. If your goal is simply to find someone to blame, then sure, blame the deve…

> That's like saying, "Exhortations to developers not to write bugs don't fail, programmers fail to follow exhortations."

It’s not even the littlest bit like that. Nobody knows how to write software without bugs. Everybody knows how to lose weight. Just do some exercise and eat less calories than you burn. You don’t even have to do the exercise part, but you should do at least a little bit if you’re trying to be healthy. The only problem is that most people don’t want to commit the effort or make the sacrifices required to do that. If anybody’s trying to find something to blame, it’s the legions of obese people desperately in search of any reason for their obesity other than their own lifestyle choices. It’s a lifestyle problem, and it’s unlikely that there will ever be a pharmaceutical intervention for it that doesn’t have pretty bad side effects. But if bad side effects are acceptable for you, then magic drugs already exist for obesity. Anabolic steroids. They’ll do exactly what you’re looking for.

Re: Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our hearts would eventually give out anyway. We need to fix that too.

At some point, it is good to die, to make room for the next generation, no matter how great you are. Others deserve a shot, too.

Personally, for me I'd say "no". But I decided not to have kids, and I don't think you can have unlimited reproduction and immortality. It would be interesting to give people the choice between eternal life and kids. Like in the Highlander, your "prize" for having kids is mortality.

Re: Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

#44

Study after study after study says diet and lifestyle are major factors in every deadly disease. But it's not socially acceptable to suggest that as an approach. However, having already committed the unspeakable sin and egregious faux pas, I will suggest that if cancer is a thing you fret about, you can do something to reduce your risk starting today.

Diet and exercise are universally failed interventions to stop major diseases (CVD, cancer...). People who have a vested interest in them promote them (e.g. exercise specialists, keto experts, vegan gurus, your favorite TV Dr, harvard nutrition dept whose livelihood depends on the effectiveness of "optimal diet" etc), but the results in intervention trials have been extremely disappointing. 1) The best diet studies w…

> But diets still universally fail. E.g. bariatric surgery probably works, maybe drugs will be shown to work (Tirzepatide/Semaglutide I'm looking at you). A publication on how 90% of obese dieters fail after 1-2 yrs on the same diet:

This is not evidence that diets universally fail.

Re: Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

#45

Study after study after study says diet and lifestyle are major factors in every deadly disease. But it's not socially acceptable to suggest that as an approach. However, having already committed the unspeakable sin and egregious faux pas, I will suggest that if cancer is a thing you fret about, you can do something to reduce your risk starting today.

This is an obnoxious response that has no bearing on the content of the article. You may as well state that cancer is caused by not praying to the god of your choice or by not following some specific 12-step program that you have deemed vital. There is no truth to your statement that is it not socially acceptable to suggest diet and lifestyle changes to improve quality of life. Those suggestions are made all the time…

> There is no truth to your statement that is it not socially acceptable to suggest diet and lifestyle changes to improve quality of life.

And yet DoreenMichele is voted down, and you angrily argued that her statement is no more scientifically valid than a religion.

It sure looks like it's not socially acceptable to you, at least.

Re: Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

#46

Study after study after study says diet and lifestyle are major factors in every deadly disease. But it's not socially acceptable to suggest that as an approach. However, having already committed the unspeakable sin and egregious faux pas, I will suggest that if cancer is a thing you fret about, you can do something to reduce your risk starting today.

>> Study after study after study says diet and lifestyle are major factors in every deadly disease. But it's not socially acceptable to suggest that as an approach. This is too simple of an statement for such a complex disease, so is therefore, misleading. If we want more substantial studies, we turn to the UK, because they have a unified health system and have a massive collection of data on the general population.…

> Outside of obvious factors

Rephrased, if you exclude all the obvious ways in which DoreenMichele's statement is true, then you're left with the ways it's not true alongside the ways it's true but not obviously so.

This is an argument anyone will grant, but it's a tautology that doesn't tell us much of use.

Re: Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

#47
post #8

I'm 31 which means I got maybe around 20? years before I become a prime target of potential cancers. I really hope by then most of even today's abilities are at least available in most hospitals, since right now cancer treatment in Estonia is still old-school chemotherapy. Not even sure if our doctors have heard of Car-T. 20 years is probably too little time to make dying from cancer a thing of the past, but maybe ge…

Looking at major developments in the world I feel like we're moving away from societies that enable the best healthcare for as many as possible and rather move to nationalistic, authoritarian states that drag everybody back into a 20th century mindset. Money spent on defence won't be spent on research and sure as hell not on affordable healthcare. The tech might be there when you hit 50 but will you be able to afford it?

Re: Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

#48
post #8

I'm 31 which means I got maybe around 20? years before I become a prime target of potential cancers. I really hope by then most of even today's abilities are at least available in most hospitals, since right now cancer treatment in Estonia is still old-school chemotherapy. Not even sure if our doctors have heard of Car-T. 20 years is probably too little time to make dying from cancer a thing of the past, but maybe ge…

Looking at major developments in the world I feel like we're moving away from societies that enable the best healthcare for as many as possible and rather move to nationalistic, authoritarian states that drag everybody back into a 20th century mindset. Money spent on defence won't be spent on research and sure as hell not on affordable healthcare. The tech might be there when you hit 50 but will you be able to afford…

Yeah, I tend to agree. Next year I'm moving away from Estonia, to Finland, precisely because at least there the government still cares to a point about healthcare whereas here they have entirely given up, defund it on a regular basis, and gatekeep access to specialists via family doctors who don't allow you to go anywhere and instead of any tests give you pills. All sorts of pills. Knee pain? Antidepressants on a Tuesday, ibuprofen on a Wednesday. People don't get help, just suppressing of symptoms (in the best case) and told to go die somewhere (in the worst case).

And that would be fine and all, and I wouldn't even care, if I didn't have to pay half my salary to taxes. If I could choose to not pay healthcare tax, I could use that money to get a very, very nice private healthcare insurance instead. But I'm not allowed to choose here.

Re: Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

#49
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diet and exercise are near-universally accepted as reasonable health advice and is basically ubiquitous.

I'm aware of that. It doesn't matter. You can't have a meaty discussion about this in relation to actually trying in earnest to avoid or delay cancer. For the record, this was posted as a PSA without replying to any of the comments that made me think people could use a reminder because a direct reply gets interpreted as a personal attack.

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