Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

331–340 of 380 posts

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

#331
post #252

I just now checked out my theory of switching to a keto diet - this appears to be terrible advice. There appears to be some initial idea of using keto to control cancer [1]. My working theory is that cancer is a high-replication cell, and the ketogenic diet is anti-growth, increasing the probability of it outgrowing the resources available. It appears possible to starve them of glucose [2]. In reality, it appears the…

Have you read Thomas Seyfried's researches. he says it is possible to strangle cancer cells with keto diet + blocking glutamine. He calls that 'press-pulse strategy'

https://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Metabolic-Disease-Management-P...

This is Seyfried’s book describing the pulse strategy.

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

#332
Fasting puts your cells into a "clean out the junk" mode that is quite powerful for deleting stuff, including cancer. That is, rather that being passive, fasting is quite active and uniquely potent. I had a lump in my throat near my vocal chords that I was told was a standard response to acid reflux and was inoperable. It was there for 15 years and hurt whenever I would sing. I did a 20 day fast last summer and just happened to have it examined and photographed before and after. Before the fast it was there and after it was completely gone.

Valter Longo is one of the world's experts on fasting. You might want to read this article of his on fasting and cancer: https://www.cell.com/trends/endocrinology-metabolism/abstrac...

____

Starvation, Stress Resistance, and Cancer Roberta Buono, Valter D. Longo

Dysregulated metabolism is one of the emerging hallmarks of cancer cells. Differential stress resistance (DSR) and differential stress sensitization (DSS) responses are the mechanisms caused by fasting and fasting-mimicking diet (FMDs) to promote protection of normal cells and induce cancer cell death. Fasting-dependent reduction in glucose and IGF-1 mediates part of the DSR and DSS effects. Fasting and FMDs have the potential for applications in both cancer prevention and treatment.

____

Either Longo or another fasting researcher pointed out that you can make a level of chemotherapy where none of the rats that are not fasting live and where all of the rats that are fasting live. So fasting is a powerful alteration of cells that makes them tolerate chemotherapy much better.

You might want to contact Alan Goldhamer of TrueNorth Health Center. They have almost four decades of experience getting fantastic results by fasting people (about 20K so far), such as curing cancers, Lupus, Diabetes, etc. See https://youtu.be/42QAyVkAS_0?t=71 or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuebTcdLIKY

The below is from a friend of mine who an M.D. told me has read so much about biomedicine that "it's as if he went to graduate school":

____

In complete contrast to chemotherapy, fasting helps pain, anxiety and depression - http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/04/10/fasting-for-ment....

For general information on fasting, I recommend reading or watching Dr. Jason Fung. He is a nephrologist from Canada. His book The Obesity Code (I have read it) is selling well, but you can get the same information by watching YouTube videos, which I preferred to his book. My favorite were his early lectures that are less flashy “The Aetiology of Obesity Part 1 of 6: A New Hope” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpllomiDMX0 However, if a six hour graduate lecture series is more than you want to sign on for, any of the more recent videos at www.dietdoctor.com will provide the basics.

In addition to Dr. Fung, a number of doctors are publishing articles and videos about fasting and cancer:

* Dr. Fung quoting Noble winner for autophagy - https://www.dietdoctor.com/fasting-cellular-cleansing-cancer... & https://www.dietdoctor.com/attacking-cancers-weakness-not-st...

* Dr. Seyfried - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEE-oU8_NSU - he wrote a book (https://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Metabolic-Disease-Management-P...) that I have not purchased this book, but it is highly regarded and referenced by others.

* Dr. Winters - https://www.dietdoctor.com/member/presentations/winters – This is a discussion of the metabolic approach to cancer

* Dr. Poff - https://www.dietdoctor.com/can-you-treat-cancer-with-low-car... - Keto diet and cancer

Some of this is very biochemistry based and is just tons of detail saying “fasting and/or a ketogenic diet will fight cancer.” Spending the time to understand the biochemistry of the disease and visualizing what you want your body to do will help your body heal. While this sounds very touchy, feely and like voodoo medicine to a traditionally trained biochemist, the research is strong on the ability of the mental imagery to have a therapeutic benefit. (Again, I cite Dr. Rosenthal, neuroscientist, as a higher authority).

____

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I cited a paper which showed “promising pre-clinical results” in the section you cited.

You have “trust me bro!” to dispute that.

Please stop spreading misinformation.

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

True. But for the highest-grade nasties, where median life expectancy is unfortunately short and progression near-universal, you don't need much signal to get above the noise. Anyone surviving more than a handful of years with something like that is an outlier such as to merit a full work-back, and at that point it's no longer bro science.

Conversely, those are also the least likely to be solved by random trial and error.

Those people largely just die, no matter what you do — that’s what makes it a “highest-grade nasty”.

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

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your tone policing in this thread is offensive. Apparently you know many people that have died from cancer young, and this qualifies you to know how a terminally ill person should process that emotion. You have zero qualification. How dare you imply that you know best for someone going through this. Hopefully no one reading this is ever in that situation. But I'll defer to the individual who's facing the death count…

Your tone policing in offensive. Psychological and quality of life in end of life situations are valid and necessary considerations to include when talking about life threatening conditions. I said nothing about how a terminally ill person should process anything. I stated what I have found to provide the best outcome when a person close to you has a terminal disease. If OP said 'my friend asked me to research...' I…

Too long didn't read

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

#336
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not like they have much to lose

Hallucinogenic drugs can cause very disturbing thoughts and visions. One may be left feeling afraid and insecure after taking them, losing any progress one has made toward acceptance of death.

That’s probably why the suggestion was to look into psychedelic therapy, which utilizes a trained and experienced therapist in a controlled environment, rather than to hand their friend a strip of blotter.

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

#337
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>dont get why that upsets you. Because this often sounds like people think you haven't tried (almost) everything yet and of course they might have a solution. I think your and parent commenter's situation and reaction are polar though. One was in the situation where they receive an unwelcome advice all too often, the other one would like more attention but never got one. Notice than you are prepared to do something y…

How else could they get to know that if the whole topic is taboo?

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

#338
Anecdotally, people cite high abv alcohol consumption for having a preserving effect on living body. I imagine it being like a variety of chemotherapy. By that I mean specifically not drinking a mixed drinks, but drinking nothing but straight vodka and water for a whole day or multiple, while maybe eating some pickles. It shifts body metabolism from sugars and fats to mostly alcohol and protein. It's not as tough as it sounds, given that, again anecdotally, many Slavic and Finnish people do so casually.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I cited a paper which showed “promising pre-clinical results” in the section you cited. You have “trust me bro!” to dispute that. Please stop spreading misinformation.

You cannot stop cancer cells with diet alone. If you think otherwise, make your own clinical trial and publish results. I'm not spreading misinformation, instead, I'm challenging those who claim their diet can cure cancer. Copy-pasting internet links doesn't cure cancer either.

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

#340
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. OP is just asking for medical misinformation, and it would be irresponsible to provide it. Self-assessed confidence levels are basically useless because the most confident people are generally the most ignorant. It's causal: ignorance causes people to be confident. The more you know, the more you realize how little you know.

OP is asking for lesser-known possible treatments/trials/diets/whatever for a friend who is probably weeks to months from death. And your contribution is to stop people from helping them because of something about what now?

Because it’s actively harmful.
Post reply on HN