Re: Re: BETA-SITOSTEROL

[Guest guest]

dtc wrote:

> Do you have a good doctor (or other source) who advises on supplements?

I don't.  I once asked a very good doctor about it and he said he

thought there just wasn't enough high quality data available to

draw any clear conclusions about what was helpful and what

wasn't.

I think he's right about the high quality problem.  We get

reports form this or that researcher, but not enough follow on to

know whether anything is really useful or just could be useful.

> I actually think you can stop most PCa, with the right combination.

>

> But very difficult to figure out what that combination is.

>

> Doug

We really don't know enough.

From what I know about the biology of cancer, I believe that it

is an extraordinarily difficult disease to treat.  Surgery and

radiation get around the problem by trying to just kill all the

cancer cells.  But using purely chemical means is difficult.

One problem is that chemicals that are toxic to cancer cells are

often toxic to healthy cells too.  It's difficult to find

chemicals that only kill cancer cells, and/or to get the

chemicals to the cancer cells without having them affect all of

the other cells.

Another problem is that, even in a single patient, there are

often different populations of tumor cells with different genetic

characteristics.  In most men, some cells are sensitive to

hormone therapy but some are not.  Some cells are sensitive to

chemotherapy but some are not.  It's a very " heterogenous "

population of cells.

I think all of the other treatments face the same problem.  Some

cells may be sensitive to them but if some aren't, those will

continue to multiply until, eventually, they become the dominant

cell type and the treatment stops working.

So I think we'll make slow, steady progress, pushing out the

length of time that treatments work, but it may be a while before

we discover any big breakthrough drugs.

Maybe, as you say, we'll find a dozen drugs that each contribute

and, by taking them all at once, we can actually cure patients.

The only thing I'm sure of is that our children and grandchildren

will have more and better options than we have.

    Alan