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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?

#231

Post by lumost »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #223
y33t wrote: post #183

Don't bother, if you're in a position to do so, help them find a first-class brain surgeon. Get them into Sloan Kettering, Mayo, Duke or OHSU or whoever. Help them look for clinical trials to get chemo past the blood-brain barrier (I've heard some promising things in this area, though I'm not sure if it's being tested on humans yet). If they have a family that's taking care of them, offer to help them. Even just a gr…

Agreed. Maybe look into end of life LSD therapy ( https://www.webmd.com/palliative-care/features/facing-death-... ) and work on the bucket list. That should be priority #1. #2 can be to try a lot of "out there stuff", but don't forget to live.

End of life bucket lists are a strange thing, I recall a close family member who entered hospice. They kept attempting to use their credit card to pay for all expenses, dinners, etc.

Of course, everyone around wanted to contribute - this person was not well off, the credit card was not used for much.

It took some weeks later after they passed for me to realize that they knew it was a credit card bill they would never need to pay. In all likelihood others contributions simply blocked them from feeling that they were contributing.

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

#232

Post by rekabis »

Most cancers are dependent on glucose as a fuel source, as they typically use 200× more than most other cells in the body.

If you can, convince your friend to go on a zero-carb, zero-sugar diet that even cuts out artificial sweeteners (as they can also screw with metabolism). Get them to try to hammer their A1C down to 3.0 or less for 3+ months, so they go into extended periods of ketosis. A continuous glucose monitor can help identify spikes, which can also be moderated with 2tbsp of vinegar before each meal.

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

#233

Post by d--b »

kerkeslager wrote: post #133

Sorry to hear about your friend. Here's a joke: Q: What do you call alternative medicine that works? A: Medicine. Seriously though, "bio hacks" are no different. If these things worked, it's very likely they'd just be normal practiced oncology. Oncology isn't a subfield of medicine where researchers are overly cautious about risks. The patient is practically guaranteed to die, so even if your research has a chance of…

I'm not looking for alternative medicine, I'm looking for things that haven't been approved for general use yet.

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

#234

Post by sjducb »

Go on a psychedelic retreat. Psilocybin or Ayahuasca. Spend at least a week with a registered Shamanic Practitioner.

It’s a fast track to the acceptance stage and it’ll help your friend enjoy the last part of their human experience.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/...

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

#237

Post by hoppp »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #223
y33t wrote: post #183

Don't bother, if you're in a position to do so, help them find a first-class brain surgeon. Get them into Sloan Kettering, Mayo, Duke or OHSU or whoever. Help them look for clinical trials to get chemo past the blood-brain barrier (I've heard some promising things in this area, though I'm not sure if it's being tested on humans yet). If they have a family that's taking care of them, offer to help them. Even just a gr…

Agreed. Maybe look into end of life LSD therapy ( https://www.webmd.com/palliative-care/features/facing-death-... ) and work on the bucket list. That should be priority #1. #2 can be to try a lot of "out there stuff", but don't forget to live.

Lsd works in the sense that it makes you not care about dying that much, the ego death helps.

Combine that with ketamine for a nice anti depressant effect and you got a really good party going.

Why not do mdma also to kill the ptsd, maybe a visit a psytance festival instead of the hospital?

Jokes aside, its sad to prepare for death. I think drugs are not the answer, but they can help too. Depends on the people. Maybe hallucinogens trigger mental illness too. I dont recommend anyone to take drugs.

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

#238

Post by scotty79 »

threeseed wrote: post #158
scotty79 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be bit annoying because people people think "can't hurt to try" but there's thousand unfounded things to try, little time, no way to pick and some of them could hurt. There's no harm in listening to ideas, being expected to implement them is another thing.

a) Nobody here is talking about unfounded things nor demanding anyone do anything. b) There are not thousands of things to try. In fact in most cases there will be no options since you will need to be in a clinical trial, asking a Doctor to try something unproven and unethical or need substantial resources.

a) Well founded things are roughly the things your doctor recommends. The rest is unfounded. Some unfounded things might really be worth trying if you have time and strength. Most aren't. Yet people who know you that mean well but have very limited capacity to evaluate what is worthwhile and what is not will firmly believe that the idea they are bringing you is the one that will cure your illness and the only hurdle is convincing you to apply it. That's what gets tiring.

b) In most cases there are just a few things or no things that actually might work. But there's thousands of ideas floating around of what people say might help. Ranging from "you must eat a spoonful of this spice daily" to "there's this small lab on the other site of the planet that make this expensive substance that will cure you but what they do isn't technically legal and might kill you".

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

#239

Post by Earw0rm »

_yb2s wrote: post #199
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

↑This. Stop. No. Don't go down the false hope path. It's cruel AF and puts off acceptance, wasting time that they can put to better use post acceptance. Maybe let your friend explore what they want to do and you just give support. Celebrate what they celebrate and cry with them when they cry. Find(or better make) them some comfy/cute hats. If you want to research the things about the hospital, the procedures they are…

Personally, if I were dying and someone kept saying fake nonsense like "you are getting the best care" I'd probably cut off contact with them, or at least wish they would stop. I'd know I'm getting mediocre care like everyone else, that's also part of accepting the reality of the situation. I'd know my doctor probably graduated at the bottom of his/her class or else he/she wouldn't be an authorized provider on an HMO…

The best care is not necessarily the best bleeding-edge treatment.

Most medical jobs are only possible at all (without burning out and destroying the person doing them) through them mostly acting in accordance with best practice and training.

The ultra-rich don't have markedly better survival from nasties like GBM than the rest of us, unfortunately, so if better exists, it's not something money can buy.

And where some degree of survival can indeed be bought, the medical industry does at least have a solid record of scaling it out to the professional classes, even if the poor go without.

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

#240

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

rappatic wrote: post #112
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #96

Damn. 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?

Long Island is one of the oldest industrial areas in the nation.

Many those planes and tanks that you saw in the WWII movies were built here.

The companies around here dumped their waste straight into the aquifer. For decades.

Where our drinking water comes from.

But it’s also some of the most valuable real estate in the nation.

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