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

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201–210 of 380 posts

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

#201
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

> 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

As long as OP and their friend know this is spinning wheels for fun and is pretty much certainly not going to extend their lifespan, sure. There can be satisfcation in knowing you never truly came--nor will ever come--to terms with death.

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

#202
post #170
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 fucking pisses me off. The current treatments ARE essential oils, and EVERY FUCKING ONE is recommending my friend he goes through chemo, radiation therapy and risky surgery, all of which are proved to be extremely debilitating, in the sake of following the standard protocol, with a potential reward of living some weeks more. Meanwhile, it is proven that the Zika virus does kill GBM cells in humans. This is what…

I sympathize with your situation and frustration. And yes, temozolomide and bevacizumab and whatever else they're giving your friend won't buy much time. Everyone knows that.

Part of the problem unfortunately is that glioblastoma, like many highly-aggressive cancers, is not a single disease but many. The cells mutate frequently, and each group of mutant cells (call them a "clone") is in business for itself to survive anything you throw at it. So something like your Vika virus idea, for instance, might have a 1 in a million chance of killing 99% of the cells, but the remaining 1% will be completely resistant and go on about their business. (Meanwhile, the virus is orders of magnitude more likely to cause more harm than good.)

Since you've known so many people who've had GBM, there may be value in investing in research that might help someone in the future. There are two broad moonshot approaches. First, the immune system is the central axis of cancer. Every cancer that grows and spreads is an example of the immune system failing to do its job (usually because the tumor has shut it down). If we can better understand how this happens, we can make pan-cancer drugs. They sort of already exist: one group is called immune checkpoint inhibitors. They basically unmask the tumor, allowing the immune system to identify it and take care of business. But they're only part of the solution, we obviously need more.

Another approach is further out there, and involves development of nanotechnology. Bacteria-sized machines small enough to get into cells could ideally be tailored to do pretty much whatever we want. This is a bit more of a long shot, but this is the sort of thing that would help solve the endless game of whack-a-mole that is cancer medicine today.

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

My own view is not that self-experimentation is an appropriate, let alone likely efficacious, substitute for reconciliation to the idea of one's death. I certainly don't endorse interference in others' treatment, however well-intentioned. If you want to say: "you shouldn't treat your terminal illness like a science fair project unless you possess extreme sang froid and are precommitted to the acceptance of your death…

As a pure numbers game, I’d find it more surprising if “broscience” never found a result:

- a lot of terminal patients are prone to experimenting

- their overall number probably eclipses the total number of trial patients in a given year by at least one order of magnitude and I’d believe two or three

- they don’t have institutional barriers to what they can try, eg, they’ll fund non-patentable treatments

- a lot of their approaches are taking things from published papers and trying to recreate similar effects (eg, calorie control [1])

That they’ve stumbled across at least one treatment that solved at least one case for at least one patient seems likely. Isolating that from incorrect null results is where the epistemological struggle is. And there’s a good chance that it won’t help you with your particular case.

But what’s the harm in trying? — you’re probably going to die anyway.

[1] - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8749320/

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

#204
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?

I think that's a kind sentiment, but the counter arguments would be (1) they could very likely overdose and die, and (2) an addiction changes who you are, so it's not that "they" want it, it's the addiction that wants it. Your friend is the "they" before the addiction, and likely hates themselves after every time they fall off the wagon. To be clear we don't know the exact details, so we're speculating ; I could imagine some universe where it might make sense to let them, but in most cases I think what the real "they" would want is help breaking the addiction so they can spend their time doing the things that actually matter to them and give their life meaning.

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

#206
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.

Responded to one of your sibling comments with more thoughts, but it could very well be what the patient themselves wanted -- help with breaking the addiction so they could instead spend their time doing things they care about.

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

#207
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.

Diet impacts survival rate, in conjunction with treatment. Please stop spreading misinformation.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8749320/

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Diet impacts survival rate, in conjunction with treatment. Please stop spreading misinformation. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8749320/

This paper you linked didn't solve anything. Please read it, and stop spreading misinformation:

>> However, patients may not tolerate such a CR diet for prolonged time. Therefore, as alternative, it has been proposed an intermittent fasting regimen, whose beneficial effects also appear promising though somehow controversial in preclinical settings. This will require further elucidation in controlled clinical trials.

Have you spoken to oncologists and cancer nutritionists? I have.

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

#210
I do not know if this will work but search for Beata Halassy

University of Zagreb researcher Beata Halassy treated her breast cancer with an unproven virus-based therapy using viruses she cultivated in her own lab.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/11/14/cancer-vir...

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