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Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
11–20 of 71 posts
Re: Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
#12"The idea of taking a cancer-blocking pill if you live in a heavily polluted area is not completely fanciful. " - Prof Charles Swanton Really interesting and, obviously major news in the battle against cancer. In terms of research funding; wonder if it will lead to industries linked with cancer, e.g. tobacco, alcohol, motor vehicles ... , quietly starting to fund prophylactic R&D as well?
Has a dystopian ring to it, "we don't need to clear up the nuclear waste, just take your thyroid pills and everything will be fine"
Very similar to "we don't need to make quality of life higher, just take your depression pills and everything will be fine".
Re: Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
#13"The idea of taking a cancer-blocking pill if you live in a heavily polluted area is not completely fanciful. " - Prof Charles Swanton Really interesting and, obviously major news in the battle against cancer. In terms of research funding; wonder if it will lead to industries linked with cancer, e.g. tobacco, alcohol, motor vehicles ... , quietly starting to fund prophylactic R&D as well?
Win-win: No need to invest into changing life-threatening tech and make money selling the protection. Profits can only rise!
Re: Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
#14It would be interesting to know if the probability of developing cancer has a linear relationship with the amount of air pollution. For example would double the amount of PM2.5 pollution double the cancer risk?
Re: Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
#15So... zombie cells cause by pollution?
Re: Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
#16"The idea of taking a cancer-blocking pill if you live in a heavily polluted area is not completely fanciful. " - Prof Charles Swanton Really interesting and, obviously major news in the battle against cancer. In terms of research funding; wonder if it will lead to industries linked with cancer, e.g. tobacco, alcohol, motor vehicles ... , quietly starting to fund prophylactic R&D as well?
Has a dystopian ring to it, "we don't need to clear up the nuclear waste, just take your thyroid pills and everything will be fine"
Air pollution causes not only cancer but a variety of health issues including things like asthma or even behavioral impacts.
Small particulate matter can get into the blood circulation and then stay in your body with all kinds of long term effects.
So even if this reduces the cancer risk, it probably still causes other issues and reducing air pollution is most likely still the ultimate solution.
Re: Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
#17Proponents of fasting will love this, since the idea is that not eating for a while will cause the body to scavenge for this old / damaged cell material.
And is that nonsense or is there evidence that backs it up?
I am sure fasting proponents promise way too many things, but the underlying cell cleanup mechanism [0] is very real and received the Nobel Prize in 2016 [1]
Re: Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
#18So... what are possible side effects of suppressing that signal? As I understand the article, one would have to do so long-term. I mean, is that signal really so useless? I would think it occurs for a reason?
My understanding is that sure, inflammation is a heavy weapon of the immune system that causes quite a bit collateral damage because it's more like a weapon of mass destruction instead of carefully targeted strikes. I would think it exists for a reason though, although frequently repeated use, again as I understand it, is not how it's supposed to work. Still, suppressing it entirely and long-term, what would that do?
Re: Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
#19"The idea of taking a cancer-blocking pill if you live in a heavily polluted area is not completely fanciful. " - Prof Charles Swanton Really interesting and, obviously major news in the battle against cancer. In terms of research funding; wonder if it will lead to industries linked with cancer, e.g. tobacco, alcohol, motor vehicles ... , quietly starting to fund prophylactic R&D as well?
Has a dystopian ring to it, "we don't need to clear up the nuclear waste, just take your thyroid pills and everything will be fine"
"We don't/can't clean up the PFAS/lead, here's some bottled water"
Re: Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
#20So... what are possible side effects of suppressing that signal? As I understand the article, one would have to do so long-term. I mean, is that signal really so useless? I would think it occurs for a reason? My understanding is that sure, inflammation is a heavy weapon of the immune system that causes quite a bit collateral damage because it's more like a weapon of mass destruction instead of carefully targeted stri…
There are a variety of inflammation pathways and signalling proteins. It's possible that IL-8beta has a uniquely high cancer inducing potential, and that when blocked, other signalling proteins can still generate appropriate inflammation for proper function.
But ya, long-term effects are going to have to be studied. Luckily, it looks like IL-8b inhibitors are used to treat other chronic diseases, so we can pull some data out of there (though a lot of them are auto-immune, so the validity of extrapolating to a more healthy population is maybe questionable).
It's also possible that we can develop a more precise approach that moderates the signalling response of IL-8beta without fully suppressing it.