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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?

#141

Post by OPisntauthority »

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…

Not everyone wants to be reminded of their situation or turn major aspects of their life into a struggle.

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

#142

Post by hsuduebc2 »

lambdaphagy wrote: post #117
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

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…

I love that someone asks for advice. Even for individual experience because he is miserable and some people are basically like "Nah just die. It would be uNeThIcaL."

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

#143

Post by adamredwoods »

Sequence the cancer. Get involved in clinical trials early.

There's no "biohacking" cancer without pharmatech. It mutates. You would need a two or three sided attack. There was a concept on causing the cancer to have an "extinction event" and I agree with that, due to how cancer mutates.

We're also missing tools to see how effective treatments are, on a day-to-day basis. This may be out of technological reach.

Also, keep in mind, the blood-brain barrier is difficult to deal with.

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

#144

Post by stickfigure »

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

It's horrifying that we don't just give them what they want. Who are we to judge?

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

#145

Post by _DeadFred_ »

lambdaphagy wrote: post #117
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

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…

Every single person I know who died from cancer young went down this route, from trying weird cures to going and seeing John of God in Brazil. Zero cured or delayed the cancer. All delayed acceptance and GREATLY regretted wasting that time and wishing they had had more time in the acceptance phase not the 'this can't be real' 'I can't die' 'There has to be something' denial.

This can and does hurt them, and is cruel. If they want to inflict in upon themselves, that is one thing. But to do it because OP has had enough losing friends is selfish. You will never stop losing friends to death, in fact, it will only accelerate from here on out. It will never get easy. In fact, it compounds as more and more joy/light/goodness leaves the world and those you turned to for support are gone. It's part of the deal they made when our parents volunteered us for this existence.

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

#147

Post by adamredwoods »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #20

Have you looked into ivermectin and fenbendazole? https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3158014/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7505114/

Fuck ivermectin and fuck you for even suggesting it. It doesn't work on cancer, end of discussion. It works by paralyzing worms on ion channel that humans DON'T have.

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

#148

Post by georgeburdell »

d--b wrote: post #45
IAmGraydon wrote: post #32

The occurrence of GBM is about 3 out of every 100,000 people. If you happen to know 4, is there some commonality? Do you all work together in the same industry? Do they all live in the same town?

No it's so weird, no connection at all between any of them.

Military? Glioblastoma is correlated to military service in the First Gulf War

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

#149

Post by GIFtheory »

alecst wrote: post #10

I'm really sorry to hear that. Since you're asking for moonshots and weird things to try, here's something they can ask their doctor about: > Case reports involving glioblastoma patients using water-only fasting regimens in conjunction with other forms of cancer treatment have reported favorable outcomes with respect to tumor growth https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2874558/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articl…

Exercise can supposedly help outcomes for some types of cancer—-I wonder whether the mechanism is similar to that of fasting. The supposed mechanism AIUI is that exercise makes less glucose available to the tumor. Podcast with more info here: https://overcast.fm/+6j6rLbfGM

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

#150

Post by stickfigure »

adamredwoods wrote: post #140
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.

All cancer treatments are probabilistic. There are no cures, just interventions that increase survival rates. There are no honest sentences that begin with "every cancer".
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