79 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 49 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing Summarizing
Sci Tech    H4'ed 5/13/12

Cancer Stem Cells Hold Key To Discovering A Cure

By       (Page 1 of 2 pages)   No comments

Sayer Ji
Message Sayer Ji

From the perspective of conventional cancer treatment a diagnosis of multi-drug resistant cancer is equivalent to a death sentence. By the time such a diagnosis occurs, the patient's body has been irreversibly damaged by chemotherapy and radiation, and an even more aggressive cancer has emerged to take the place of the original one.

Tragically, these treatments do not simply fail, but make the cancers more malignant. This fact is effectively concealed by the name multidrug resistant cancer which makes it seem as if the cancer was so exceptionally resistant and malignant that the normally effective drugs used to treat it just couldn't do the job.  

But wouldn't it be more accurate to call this multi-drug failed cancer, putting the responsibility back on the medical establishment, as it should be, in recognition of the impotence, or worse, cancer-promotingnature of its treatment choices?

In other words, instead of blaming the treatment failure on the patient's body -- or a set of virulent gene mutations within their cancer -- it is time we look more closely at why conventional chemotherapy and radiation-based treatments breed multidrug resistance within the cancer of patients, who ultimately succumb to the effects of the treatment and not the cancer they were originally diagnosed with.

How Conventional Cancer Treatment Creates Greater Malignancy

Multidrug resistant cancer is the byproduct of cancer doctors (oncologists) throwing the chemical and radiological kitchen sink at the patient and not only failing to improve their condition, but significantly worsening it. How so? In order to understand how conventional treatment drives the cancer into greater malignancy, we must first understand what cancer is....

Tumors are actually highly organized assemblages of cells, which are surprisingly well-coordinated for cells that are supposed to be the result of strictly random mutation. They are capable of building their own blood supply (angiogenesis), are able to defend themselves by silencing cancer-suppression genes, secreting corrosive enzymes to move freely throughout the body, alter their metabolism to live in low oxygen and acidic environments, and know how to remove their own surface-receptor proteins to escape detection by white blood cells. In a previous article titled "Is Cancer An Ancient Survival Program Unmasked?" we delved deeper into this emerging view of cancer as an evolutionary throw-back and not a byproduct of strictly random mutation.

Because tumors are not simply the result of one or more mutated cells "going rogue" and producing exact clones of itself (multi-mutational and clonal hypotheses), but are a diverse group of cells having radically different phenotypal characteristics, chemotherapy and radiation will affect each cell type differently.

Tumors are composed of a wide range of cells, many of which are entirely benign.

The most deadly cell type within a tumor or blood cancer, known as cancer stem cells (CSCs), has the ability to give rise to all the cell types found within that cancer.

They are capable of dividing by mitosis to form either two stem cells (increasing the size of the stem population), or one daughter cell that goes on to differentiate into a variety of cell types, and one daughter cell that retains stem-cell properties.

This means CSCs are tumorigenic (tumor-forming) and should be the primary target of cancer treatment because they are capable of both initiating and sustaining cancer.  They are also increasingly recognized to be the cause of relapse and metastasis following conventional treatment.

CSCs are exceptionally resistant to conventional treatment for the following reasons...
  1. CSCs account for less than 1 in 10,000 cells within a particular cancer, making them difficult to destroy without destroying the vast majority of other cells comprising the tumor. [1]
  1. CSCs are slow to replicate, making them less likely to be destroyed by chemotherapy and radiation treatments that target cells which are more rapidly dividing.
  1. Conventional chemotherapies target differentiated and differentiating cells, which form the bulk of the tumor, but these are unable to generate new cells like the CSCs which are undifferentiated.

The existence of CSCs explains why conventional cancer treatment has completely missed the boat when it comes to targeting the root cause of tumors. One reason for this is because existing cancer treatments have mostly been developed in animal models where the goal is to shrink a tumor. Because mice are most often used and their life spans do not exceed two years, tumor relapse is very difficult, if not impossible to study.

The first round of chemotherapy never kills the entire tumor, but only a percentage. This phenomenon is called the "fractional kill." The goal is to use repeated treatment cycles (usually six) to regress the tumor population down to zero, without killing the patient.  

What normally occurs is that the treatment selectively kills the less harmful populations of cells (daughter cells), increasing the ratio of CSCs to benign and/or less malignant cells. This is not unlike what happens when antibiotics are used to treat certain infections. The drug may wipe out 99.9% of the target bacteria, but .1% have or develop resistance to the agent, enabling the .1% to come back even stronger with time.

The antibiotic, also kills the other beneficial bacteria that help the body fight infection naturally, in the same way that chemotherapy kills the patient's immune system (white blood cells and bone marrow), ultimately supporting the underlying conditions making disease recurrence more likely.

Next Page  1  |  2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Must Read 1   Well Said 1  
Rate It | View Ratings

Sayer Ji Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Sayer Ji is the creator of GreenMedInfo.com, the world's largest open source and entirely evidence-based natural medical resource. He is a health researcher and writer whose work has been published in the Journal of Gluten Sensitivity and The (more...)
 
Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Breaking News: Monsanto To Face Biopiracy Charges In India

Is Monsanto's Weedkiller Compromising The Fertility Of The Soil?

Consumer Alert: BPA-Free Goods Still Contain Toxic Bisphenol

How Did This Weedkiller End Up In Our Water, Air, Rain and Food?

New Finding: Consuming Trans Fats Linked To Aggression

Cancer Stem Cells Hold Key To Discovering A Cure

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend