[sejje]

> Nguyen moved to UT Austin to start his own lab in January 2024 but passed away suddenly in November before he could finish the final experiments. The paper, of which he is the first author, is dedicated to him.

That's sad. I hope someone picks up the torch. The research sounds very promising.

[sigmoid10]

The thing is, this is not really new. People have been pushing this metabolic theory of cancer for a long time now and even used it to propose things like cold therapy or ketogenic diets as a treatment option, despite the fact that we have very little evidence that any of this stuff really works. It is still refreshing to see people target cancer from a theory-first standpoint instead of the usual empirical tactics, but the theoretical foundation of cancer science simply isn't that good. Clinicians also aren't slow to adapt or scared to experiment with these new approaches, because everyone would jump immediately on those fancy low-invasive supplement treatments when the alternative is certain death. But you can't game the final survivability statistics, now matter how reasonable your theory sounds or how well founded it is.

[adrian_b]

I do not remember "evidence that any of this stuff really works" about curing an existing cancer, but there was rather strong evidence in large-scale studies with various lab animals, in which a mutagen agent created tumors when they were fed normally, but no tumors appeared when they were malnourished, either by eating a reduced amount of protein, or by eating the normal amount of protein, but with a bad amino-acid profile.

Both forms of malnutrition would diminish the capacity of synthesizing proteins, which would affect mainly a fast-growing organ, like the tumors. Presumably this slowed down the growth of the tumors, allowing time for the immune system to react and suppress them in their incipient form.

Unfortunately, malnutrition as a prophylactic measure does not really work, as it enhances the risk of other diseases, even if it might lower the risk of cancer.

The method described in the parent article might have better chances, but it seems likely to work only with a cancer that has been discovered very early.

[sigmoid10]

Yes, this is exactly what theory-first approaches look like. And no, there is no data that any of this really works in humans. If it was about curing cancer in mice that were genetically engineered to have cancer in the first place, of course we'd already be there. But it isn't and we aren't.

[__natty__]

And he was only 35. Rest in peace.

[rajnathani]

Really interesting research. Rest in peace. An aside: The cause of death was a stroke: https://nutrition.utexas.edu/about-us/memoriam