Fasting, and carnivore diet.
Anthony Chaffee, Shawn Baker, and Sean Omara are strong signals and examples of what modern diets lead to: inflammation, sickness, slow death.
Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
111–120 of 380 posts
Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
#112Damn. Sorry to hear that. I have had two friends get it, and neither made it. Another died of it, but it metastasized from their lung (Yeah, I have known a hell of a lot of people with cancer. Most have survived). If you have known 4 people with the same cancer, they call that a "cluster," in the vernacular, and it might not be a bad idea to see if you can figure out where it comes from. Here on Long Island, we have…
> I am pretty cynical that people know the cause, but don't want to deal with it.
I looked up "long island breast cancer" and saw a long list of risk factors. Out of curiosity, did you have a specific one in mind?
Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
#113You 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 Paul Stamets recommending the stamets-7 mushroom blend with research papers talking about recession. no idea if it works.
Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
#114Personally knowing four people with GBM and not being an oncologist is exceptional and worrying. That feels like it should be raised to… someone. It is very possible something bad is happening and a commonality needs to be tracked down urgently.
I knew two people (one adult, one child) who lived in the same building and got diagnosed with leukemia (~14 per 100,000) shortly after each other, maybe within a few weeks. It's anecdotal, of course, but I've always thought that there could have been a connection.
It could be birthday paradox, but it could potentially be enough to get someone to come check for contaminants.
Looks like benzene, some pesticides, and formaldehyde are the common workplace exposures that can trigger leukemia. But some of those can turn up near housing.
Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
#115You may not like hearing this, but the best thing you can do for him is be a supportive friend and try to make him happy when you get the time to. You are not an expert on brain cancer. You will not become an expert on brain cancer before he dies. You know who is an expert on brain cancer? His oncologist. I know grief is hard and you're motivated by your love for the people in your life, but there isn't some cheap hack that will fix this. Trust the experts to do their job and for the love of god don't take cancer advice from strangers on the internet. In the meantime, love your family, love your friends, love your life, and try to make others happy.
Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
#116I 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
It's false hope, swallowed hook line and sinker.
Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
#117I 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
My impression formed from my time in cancer drug discovery is that bro science is, within practical bounds, a perfectly reasonable option for one arm of a comprehensive plan for treatment.
A lot of things that sound like bro science are actually broadly supported in the literature. But studying this stuff is hard because of all of the usual issues with human subjects, the less than complete reliability of our epistemic institutions, and the infeasibility of running enough trials to address every indication in every subcohort. So if anecdata supports some intervention that that isn't aggressively inconsistent with basic theory, won't make you miserable for what might be the rest of your life, and which you could try with the sober understanding that your One Weird Trick might not work, why not?
If nothing else, a well-documented case study with good adherence tells us of one more thing that didn't work, which is hardly the worst parting gift to the world.
Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
#118You're a good friend trying to search for answers and I hope you find one.
Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
#119I 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
My impression formed from my time in cancer drug discovery is that bro science is, within practical bounds, a perfectly reasonable option for one arm of a comprehensive plan for treatment. A lot of things that sound like bro science are actually broadly supported in the literature. But studying this stuff is hard because of all of the usual issues with human subjects, the less than complete reliability of our epistem…
To give a practical example, grapefruit juice contains some compounds that inhibit CYP3A4, a metabolic enzyme that influences the metabolism and absorption of many drugs, which is why many prescriptions tell you not to drink it while taking a given medication.
This interaction was not discovered until 1989, and not reported until two years after that. So before 1991, a simple dietary intervention that affected like half of all drugs and that could in principle have been noticed by patient who felt bad after drinking a common household beverage, was bro science.
Which is not to say "and therefore just do whatever", but just to point out that there's plausibly a lot of low-hanging fruit still left if you can figure out where to pick it.
Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?
#120Disclaimer: am not a doctor + know nothing about this branch of medicine, but this fairly new drug cured one of my family member's (stage 2?) lung cancer that metastisized to brain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osimertinib aka Tagrisso
My understanding is that it's a 3rd generation evolution of immune-system-boosting drugs that "teach your immune system to attack cancer".
I don't know how fundamentally different brain cancer that starts in the brain is vs lung cancer that moves to the brain, but maybe similar approaches are possible?