Other Research Work

• One of the research findings, which appears to fit Amritha’s case well, states that slimming exercises and dieting affects cancer patients badly. They should not starve. Amritha had increase in the abdominal pain and it became too frequent, only when she started to go to the Gym regularly and when she strained herself very much. All the three times when she complained of pain, before cancer was detected, she had just finished a very strenuous exercise. Is it possible that if she had not taken to strenuous exercises, she would not have been killed by cancer? This research work is credited to a report by German Doctors, published in Aerzliche Praxis (Medical Practice), a German Journal.
  It has been discovered by researchers from Onya Pharmaceuticals, Richmond, California and their associates that a strain of ‘adenovirus’, which causes common cold, when modified, can fight cancer. Normally the biology of tumour cells is such that the cell’s genetic apparatus is damaged. All cells possess a suicide programme, because of which they naturally die and regenerate. This programme is triggered by a protein called p-53. In cancerous cells, this genetic apparatus is damaged and p-53 becomes inactivated. Cells infected with adenovirus would ordinarily trigger their suicide programme, but adenovirus possesses a gene that inactivates p-53.
  
  
• A strain of adenovirus exists that has lost the p-53 jamming gene. Dr.Frank McCormick discovered that this mutant adenovirus can thrive in tumour cells that have inactivated their p-53 genes, but they cannot thrive in normal cells. This has been proven to be an effective treatment for certain types of cancer in mice. The first result on cancer patients has also been encouraging. While chemotherapy shrinks cancerous tumours from outside inwards, adenovirus explodes the cancerous cells from inside out. Trials are continuing on their effectiveness singly and in combination with chemotherapy.
  A very simple and cost effective method of bone marrow transplant for leukemia and lymphoma patients is reported to have been developed by Dr.Raina of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, called the Stem-Cell transplant, using the patients’ own bone marrow instead of the marrow of a donor. It is simple and less toxic.
  Taxol, a medicine derived from the bark of a plant, the Pacific Yew tree, available in the Pacific Ocean islands, has been successfully used to treat ovarian and breast cancers. But it is too costly and difficult to get. The trees grow very slow and the process of extraction itself kills the tree. Work is going on in identifying ‘taxoids’, Taxol-like substances, which could help in increasing the availability and more widespread research on its effectiveness for cancer treatment.
  
  
• It has been discovered that helicobacter pylori, a strain of bacteria resident in most Indians in the stomach, which causes ulcer also can lead to cancer. It is a very slow developing bacterium and lives in the mucous membrane lining of the stomach. It is one of the few external agents identified to cause cancer. It is suspected to be responsible for several forms of stomach cancers like the adenocarcinoma and lymphomas. H.Pylori is declared as a Class-I carcinogen – the most dangerous rank given to cancer causing agents. Recent evidence suggests that anti-microbial treatment to cure H.Pylori infection may bring about regression in a few tumours.
  
  
• One of the major hurdles in treatment using chemotherapy is drug resistance developed by the cancer cells. As the chemotherapy treatment progresses, the cells become resistant to the drugs used and progressively the response of the body to the drugs used becomes less and less. This has been traced to an ancient pump protein in the body, called P-glycoprotein, which pumps toxins out of the cell body. The underlying cause of progressive drug resistance is the spontaneous genetic mutations, which occur in all living cells, and which give rise to hereditary traits passed on to succeeding generations.
  It has been found that a variety of compounds inhibit the functioning of P-glycoprotein, rendering multi-drug resistant tumour cells responsive to drugs to which they are likely to be or have been rendered resistant. They are called ‘chemo-sensitisers’.
  
  
• Another approach seems to be to exploit the fact that the cancer cells contain P-glycoprotein. Work is going on to target toxic drugs against P-glycoprotein itself, killing the cancer cells in the process, like the vision of Paul Ehrlich of a ‘magic bullet’.
  
  
• Research is still progressing, with enormous volumes of research work being published by the day, creating new hopes and belying some others. But certain cure is still a far cry.Even containing cancer in patients who have got it, is only a hope. But yet, there are cases of cure and containment, which are classified in the group of miracles, many of these treatments being undocumented. They come mainly from the alternative systems of therapy. It is the aim of this project to prove and validate them, or disprove them.