29 April 2021 - Antibodies against Cancer

Question: What's your opinion on the feasibility of adapting the mRNA technology that was used to develop the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to treat various cancers?

Answer: Here is an article - https://www.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/can-mrna-vaccines-like-those-used-for-covid-19-be-used-in-cancer-care.h00-159457689.html.

The idea is that a cancer vaccine can generate antibodies to attack the tumor. When I was a medical student at the University of Michigan in 1980, we saw a patient with melanoma who was cured, at least at that time, with that approach. But the problem was getting it to work on a consistent basis - his case appeared to be a rare success. Today, we are more technically savvy, and we may have better results.

These points are important:

1. There will be no silver bullet. No one treatment option will likely cure a large percentage of patients with even a specific type of cancer. We will need combinations of treatments to attack different parts of the tumor. This is how we cured childhood leukemia, testicular cancer and Hodgkin lymphoma.

2. For adult tumors, unless the tumor is small, we will also need to monitor and treat the supporting networks that nurture the tumor and will create additional tumors over time [this is my proposal - it is not generally accepted].

3. We should also focus on changing our behavior, which could prevent 30-50% of all cancer related deaths, see http://www.natpernick.com/AmericanCodeAgainstCancer.html

27 April 2021: Let's Cure Cancer Together

Let's Cure Cancer Together.

It’s time to implement a strategic plan to cure cancer.

The era of modern cancer treatment began in 1948 when Dr. Sidney Farber, a Boston pathologist, published a landmark study reporting that chemotherapy could induce temporary remissions in childhood leukemia (Farber 1948, free full text-PDF download). Remarkably, this study was met not with hope and acclaim, but with skepticism and outrage (Miller 2006).

Rest of essay:

Let's cure cancer together (link), Blog, PDF.

 

11 April 2021 - How Cancer Kills - updated

 I have updated "How Cancer Kills" based on comments by Dr. Phillip A. Phillip, Wayne State University:

HTML: http://natpernick.com/CuringCancerPart9.html

BLOG: https://natpernickshealthblog.wordpress.com/2021/03/22/curing-cancer-blog-part-9-how-cancer-kills/

PDF: http://natpernick.com/CuringCancerPart9.pdf

My theory is that cancer deaths are preventable, at least for the short term, for many patients who die quickly of cancer. Their deaths are due to cancer's marked disruption of physiologic systems necessary for life. Sophisticated medical treatment can counter this disruption and the patients can live much longer. This is analogous to diabetic ketoacidosis, which often kills patients with new onset diabetes unless they receive sophisticated treatment to reverse the marked disruption of physiologic systems associated with this disease.

23 March 2021 - How Cancer Kills

 

This blog discusses curing cancer based on the principles of complexity theory. Follow this

blog at https://natpernickshealthblog.wordpress.com and join our Curing Cancer

Network to receive weekly status updates by clicking here (note: this project is independent

of PathologyOutlines.com).

 

Our strategic plan is to reduce US cancer deaths from 600,000 in 2021 to 100,000 by

2030. To do so, we must better understand how cancer actually kills people. We conclude

that cancer often kills by promoting marked physiologic instability which disrupts life’s

essential networks and by creating a sense of futility which causes individuals and the

medical system to give up the fight. Other direct mechanisms include hemorrhage, infection, side effects of therapy, central nervous system changes and second tumors. 

 

Rest of article:  link, Blog, PDF

17 March 2021 - Curing Cancer - How You Can Help

 

Curing Cancer - How You Can Help

 

Our strategic plan is to reduce US cancer deaths from the current 600,000 per year to

100,000 per year by 2030. It has been 50 years since the war on cancer was announced by

President Nixon – it’s time we start to implement an overall strategy, imperfect as it may be,

and improve it over time. Of course, some national organization should be leading this effort,

but they are not. So let’s do the best we can on our own and save as many lives as we can.

 

How can you help?

 

1. Follow our Curing Cancer Blog at https://natpernickshealthblog.wordpress.com/ .

 

2. Sign up for our Curing Cancer Network weekly newsletter by clicking at

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/onz6IND .

 

3. Read our American Code against Cancer at

http://www.natpernick.com/AmericanCodeAgainstCancer.html, decide what steps you

can take to reduce your cancer risk, and spread the word through your social networks.

 

4. Tell any medical researchers you know about our current grant at

http://natpernick.com/GlioblastomaGrant2021.pdf .

 

5. Contact me at NatPernick@gmail.com with any other suggestions or what you would

like to do to help.

 

 

 

 

 

4 March 2021: The American Code Against Cancer

The American Code Against Cancer focuses on actions that individuals can take to help prevent cancer. Successful cancer prevention also requires supportive governmental policies and actions. Following these recommendations reduces cancer risk from 30-40%, and should produce substantial progress towards our strategic plan goal of reducing annual US cancer deaths from 600,000 to 100,000.

1. Do not smoke or use any form of tobacco.
2. Make your home smoke free.
3. Try to achieve a healthy body weight with a BMI of 25 or less.
4. Be physically active.
5. Have a healthy diet based on vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Limit sugar, fat, processed meat and red meat.
6. If you drink alcohol, limit your intake. Not drinking alcohol reduces your cancer risk.
7. Avoid too much sun, especially for children. Use sun protection. Do not use sunbeds.
8. Protect yourself against cancer causing substances in the workplace by following health and safety instructions.
9. Check that your residence does not have high radon levels.

10. For adults:
* Get a physical exam every 1-2 years to detect possible problems, discuss risk prevention and get needed tests, screenings and vaccinations.
* Get a one time screening for Hepatitis C if you were born between 1945 and 1965.
* Get an annual lung screening if you are a current or former heavy smoker age 55-80.
11. For adult women:
* Breastfeed your baby, if you can, to reduce your cancer risk.
* Limit use of hormone replacement therapy.
* Get screened for colon cancer, breast cancer and cervical cancer.
12. For adult men:
* Get screened for colon cancer.
13. For children:
* Get vaccinated for Hepatitis B and HPV to reduce cancer risk.

I have drafted this American Code Against Cancer based on the European Code AgainstCancer with modifications from the Centers for Disease Control-Lung Cancer Screening and the American Cancer Society-Liver cancer.

1/2

Send comments to NatPernick@gmail.com.

26Feb2021: How Pancreatic Cancer Arises, Based on Complexity Theory

 

How pancreatic cancer arises, based on complexity theory

26 February 2021

This is the third paper in a series discussing the top 20 causes of US cancer death and how they arise based on complexity theory (see How Lung Cancer Arises-Pernick 2021 (PDF), How Colon Cancer Arises- Pernick 2020 (PDF)). We first discuss the population attributable fraction of pancreatic cancer risk factors and their mechanism of action, then integrate these mechanisms into our theory about how cancer arises in general and in the pancreas, and finally suggest curative treatment approaches for pancreatic cancer.

Highlights:

• Countering pancreatic cancer requires optimizing all factors affecting it, even if not directly part of the malignant process.
• Five “super promoter” mechanisms cause pancreatic cancer: random chronic stress (bad luck or cellular accidents); chronic inflammation; DNA alterations; immune system dysfunction (individual and “societal”) and hormones (insulin-IGF system).
• The 5 major causes / risk factors of pancreatic cancer are random chronic stress (causes 25-35% of cases); non O blood group (17% of cases); excess weight, particularly at younger ages (15%); cigarette smoking (15%) and type 2 diabetes (9%).
• Cancer arises in part because risk factors activate embryologic and inflammatory pathways in a manner that cannot be turned off.
• In the pancreas, tumor cell spread may occur even before a primary malignancy arises, explaining why advanced disease is often found at diagnosis.
• Treatment approaches should focus on network dysfunction not mutations; combinations of combinations of treatment to block multiple webs of network abnormalities; treating and monitoring key systemic network changes outside the primary tumor; enrolling all patients in clinical trials and creating stronger public health programs to prevent these cancers or detect them earlier.

Click here for the HTML version, here for the PDF download.