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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Sounds fairly definitive unless somebody can come up with peculiar properties of wood ash.
But while we're on the subject, why is it that the Ancients don't seem to know much about cancer? Is it particularly difficult to recognise? Or did they call it something else? When WAS cancer first diagnosed as a discrete illness (assuming it is a discrete illness)?
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Keimpe
In: Leeuwarden, Frisia
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | why is it that the Ancients don't seem to know much about cancer? Is it particularly difficult to recognise? Or did they call it something else? When WAS cancer first diagnosed as a discrete illness (assuming it is a discrete illness)? |
It seems the ancients DID know about cancer. In fact, the first documented case is from Egypt and cancer was given its name by Hippocrates.
This all from the second link I got when Googling: cancer ancients
http://cancer.about.com/od/historyofcancer/a/cancerhistory.htm
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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I have been vindicated.
Some time ago, I hypothesized that the body regularly "cures" itself of cancer.
I further speculated that the technological capacity in the West, enabling early detection of cancer, combined with western agressive treatments, has produced a situation where more people die of Cancer in the western world than die of cancer anywhere else on the planet.
If we did nothing, or if we detected cancer when it was almost too late to treat, we would do much better in the fight against it.
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lyndserae
In: A Spacesuit
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I couldn't find anything about the screening rates for you, but I have this thought: do cancer patients often die before they reach the age where Alzheimer's is rampant?
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| lyndserae wrote: | | I couldn't find anything about the screening rates for you, but I have this thought: do cancer patients often die before they reach the age where Alzheimer's is rampant? |
That might explain how Cancer "protects against Alzheimer's" but not the reverse.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Actually, according to the site, people die of Alzheimer's faster. That seems odd to me.
If the study did not factor out rate of death, the results are obviously meaningless.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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Alzheimer's doesn't directly protect against cancer (or vice versa).
Cancer involves cells regenerating out of control, whereas Alzheimer's involves cells being unable to regenerate sufficiently.
A person with a pre-disposition to one condition is unlikely to have a pre-disposition to the other.
I am unaware of any member of my family ever having had Alzheimer's... and I'm struggling to think of any who have died of any illness other than cancer.
(My parents, between them, had nineteen siblings... so my family represents quite a large sample population.)
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Chad wrote: | | Cancer involves cells regenerating out of control, whereas Alzheimer's involves cells being unable to regenerate sufficiently. |
Is this broadly recognized concerning Alzheimer's?
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Ishmael wrote: | | Is this broadly recognized concerning Alzheimer's? |
Not yet... but it will be.
It was just a hunch when I wrote that, but I think I'm on to something.
More later.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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Until recently it was believed that neurons were too complicated to divide and reproduce in the way that other cells do... Once you had reached your adult complement... that was it... downhill there after.
But a child's neurons are surely just as complicated as an adult's... and they are able to produce new ones until their brain reaches adult size... Why would the process then suddenly become too complicated?
Then I read this in an article on research into rodents prone to Alzheimer's:
| The hippocampus (learning and processing new memories), however, makes new neurons at a steady, vigorous pace... The hippocampus of rats and mice cranks out 1,000 to 3,000 new neurons per day -- a substantial fraction of each animal's lifetime output. Younger animals make more new neurons than older ones do. |
So rather than Alzheimer's being a degenerative brain disease... maybe it's due to the hippocampus (and possibly other parts of the brain) being unable to produce new neurons at a rate sufficient to replace those that are naturally dying off.
And maybe brain tumours are produced when the same process becomes hyper-active.
If we learn to regulate the process... perhaps we can cure cancer and Alzheimer's at the same time.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Chad wrote: | | It was just a hunch when I wrote that, but I think I'm on to something. |
Impressive! Wow. I agree... this is a truly good idea of yours. Original, simple, explanatory.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Chad wrote: | | If we learn to regulate the process... perhaps we can cure cancer and Alzheimer's at the same time. |
Chad.
First Class Genius.
Amazing inductive reasoning.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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And no one else in the world has thought of this before?
Brilliant.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Ishmael wrote: | | And no one else in the world has thought of this before? |
Don't know... s'pose somebody must have.
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