Death has been on everyone’s mind at one time or another… It’s unavoidable…
Some are fascinated by death; mainly the possibility of better afterlife. Some, or the great majority of people, are frightened by it. It seems the unknown of after-death is one of the main factors causing many to tremble…
However, it turns out that Craig Venter, the pioneer of the human genome project and the supposed creator of artificial life, turned his attention and efforts toward decoding death… here
It seems obvious Venter believes that death is be caused by genetics; some genetic mutations that could be fixed and we could live forever, otherwise he wouldn’t be digging in the genome looking to fix the death code…
As a Darwinist and atheist, Venter’s beliefs are probably similar to those of Dawkins/Coynes/Grours/Felsentseins crowed, and the like. The standard model is that life created itself spontaneously (spontaneous matter wanted is the theme of my next OP) and then through billions of years of trial and error of random, unguided processes all 10 billion of species on Earth developed…
However, not many people, including Venter, talk about why, after their great success in creating life, natural, random processes developed death…
Does death have an evolutionary advantage over life that involves the possibility of reproduction and the passing on genes??? This idea seems funky to me just like the whole evolutionary nonsense…
The religious have their own way of explaining death…The great majority believe that Adam and Eve’s sin led to death…Whether their sin led to some kind of a genetic change in the genome that causes death, is unclear…
Personally, I don’t believe death is a genetic thing… though I have to admit that one bible passage makes me puzzled:
Gen 3:22
“Then the God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand rand take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever”.
What do you think?
Can death be decoded?
Will Craig Venter, or other scientists, ever be able to find the code of life?
Is death an evolutionary invention? If yes, why?
I do different things…Some people accused me of being a spy…but that’s probably because I speak few languages, including the language of truth… lol
keiths,
Your own people have rejected you because of your deception and manipulation…You’d better give me one reason why I should take you in…
J-Mac:
At least one too few, since grammatical English is not among them.
You’re babbling, and I don’t want you to “take me in”.
Team won. He got a wicket, didn’t get to bat.
Lovely ground on the edge of the village. I mainly go to quaff beer in the sunshine which, this year, is defying the UK norm and seems endless. Which of course immediately brings us never-happy Brits out in complaints about heat, drought, flies and moorland fires …
Are you suggesting that heart disease should be restricted to partially or wholly carnivorous species?
Awesome. Going to our kids’ games (along with reading them books when they were littler) have been my favorite parts of parenting. Daughter number two hopes to play field hockey at a D-3 school in a weak conference next year. So hoping she makes the team and gets some playing time!!
I blame evolution for that.
Death is the price you pay for sex.
It looks like we have a “new kid on the block”- llanitedave.
I’m almost certain llanitedave is not being used by someone who embarrassed himself lately at TZS…
Would my telling OMguano what I do for living change his prospective on anything? Why is this even an issue?
You don’t think one can remain in ketosis and be vegan?
If you believe that, you have no clue just like the other moron that posted the study on diabetics in ketosis…
If only elephants would eat vegans…
I’ve been around a lot longer than you have. I rarely post, though, partly because I’m not fond of the particular format here, partly because I have a lot of other things going on in my life, partly because folks like Joe Felsenstein, Kantian Naturalist, and a couple of others say it far better than I ever could, and partly because tripe like yours is rarely worth responding to.
Grammatical English? According to? You?
It’s easy when you barley can get by in one language…Can you try to post on 4 different blogs in 4 languages? Damn! You can manage one… barely…with nonsense attach to it…
Then I’d advice to stay were you had been hibernating… Your affiliation with Joe Felsenstein doen’t/didn’t move me…I couldn’t careless about public deceivers…
They should eat your kind…
J-Mac:
I suspect it’s because OMagain — like me — is curious about how someone of your particular, um, skill set manages to remain gainfully employed, if that is in fact the case. Does your supervisor sweep the area for scissors and other sharp objects before your shift?
Give me one reason why I should care what you just wrote or why I should respond to it? You attack me because you can’t defend your faith…
Have you ever thought about it? No… obviously…
For those who asked:
Ketone supplementation decreases tumor cell viability and prolongs survival of mice with metastatic cancer
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4235292/
“Although in the current review included studies were different in tumor size measurement methods, cancer types, sample size, carbohydrate amount of KD and intervention time; but most of them demonstrated that KD significantly show increase in survival time mean and a clear trend of slower tumor growth in pancreatic, prostate, gastric, brain, lung cancer.[6,9,10,14,15,16,17,18,19]”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5450454/
J-Mac:
No, I laugh at you because you can’t defend yours.
Um, yes. For example, here are some corrections for you:
And:
And:
And:
And:
And:
And:
keiths,
YARE TEBEST YU AWAYS HAV.
THTS HY U HAV A LIF WID SOU MNY FRINDS ONLEN
NOTHING BTTER THN YUR LIF.
EF I WR U, ID TRY TO BE IMORTEL…
Nobuudy beats the ketch…he ys te bist …
Wound him up like a Jmac in the box.
Could ketogenic diet be helpful in cancer treatment? It looks like it can…
I remember this G.I. doc who has passed away few years back… He told me that if he ever got cancer, he would do 2 things: do fasting for 10-14 days and go on ketogenic diet. While he died of natural causes at 80 plus, his tip to treat stomach flues with diet coke have worked really well for me and my family for ever 15 years… 😉
Yeah for treatment of cancer- induced mice! Unfortunately, mice are not little people.
Another animal-model study. Too bad it hasn’t panned out for human cancers.
The increased glucose usage of cancer cells has been recognized for a long time. The ‘Warburg Effect’ refers to the increased dependence of glycolytic pathways (results in increased glucose uptake) in cancer a result of, primarily, cancerous tumors propensity outgrow blood supply (not due to mitochondrial enzyme dysfunction as previously reported by resident expert jmac).
Here is a nice take on the subject matter by David Gorski:
Ketogenic diet does not “beat chemo for almost all cancers”
Who to believe? Jmac? or Gorski?
pretty damned funny and so true.
More tofu for the rest of us.Yum.
Better to go out with a bang than a whimper.
Are you telling us that the Darwinian prediction of the great similarity of mice and homo sapience is wrong? Are you saying what I think you are saying that trillions of dollars spent on mice experimentation on drug therapies and treatments have been wrong or futile?
PeterP is another kid on the block that questions Darwinian prediction with mice being genetically closest to humans…
I wonder why though….
Nope, not saying that at all. Are you of the belief that mice are little men?
Nope again.
A year and a half ago I was diagnosed with throat cancer. I had read some of that same material about ketogenic diets, and decided to try it for myself. I made it into ketogenesis for a few weeks, and then told my doctor about it. His advice was “Forget that crap. Just eat. You’ll be emaciated soon anyway.”
He was right. The combination of chemo and radiation melted the tumor away far more quickly than any diet could have done, and in fact, works better when the cancer cells are actively dividing rather than in a low-activity mode from glucose depletion. The whole idea behind the chemo and radiation is to selectively target rapidly dividing cells, as cancer cells are when they’re receiving food. Soon, my throat shut down from radiation damage, I lost the ability to swallow solids or liquids, and spent the next eight months on various feeding tubes and intravenous solutions, so a ketogenic diet would not have done me any good. I needed to start out with some body fat reserves just to get me through that period.
It might have a positive effect on some limited number of cancers, but it’s far from a general treatment solution.
Good point!
Hope you are doing better, chemo is tough.
llanitedave,
Hi llanitedave,
I just noticed your comment…I’m sorry…
I’m glad you are doing better and recovering…
A very close relative of mine went through chemo and chose a vegetarian diet as an additional treatment and prevention…It has been few years now, and everything seems fine…
I’m glad you have educated yourself about the ketogenic diet and the metabolic pathway it is supposed work through… The main approach to this treatment is the glucose starvation of the cancer cells, which can’t survives on ketons…
Unfortunately, in some cases, cancer cells find an alternative way of obtaining or producing glucose…
For those who would like to learn more about the positive effects of ketogenic diet, I recommend watching The Magic Pill documentary… currently on Netflix
https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80238655
I hope you stay cancer free no matter what you choose to do as treatment or prevention…
All the best to you!
J-mac
Tough go, but I hope that things are looking up for you. A close relative of mine was diagnosed with Stage 3c Lung Cancer in March, but his appears to be due entirely to genetic mutation.
The doctor has him go on a carb-free diet before each scan so that the tumors are hungry and pick up the marker isotopes (which are attached to sugars) very strongly.
That is for a very specific effect, but I think his doctor agrees with yours that it is not a realistic treatment in general. Better to stick with the professionals than snake-oil salesmen.
“Roles of caloric restriction, ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting during initiation, progression and metastasis of cancer in animal models: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
RESULTS:
Fifty-nine studies were involved in our system review. The involved studies explored roles of dietary restriction during initiation, progression and metastasis of cancer. About 90.9% of the relevant studies showed that caloric restriction plays an anti-cancer role, with the pooled OR (95%CI) of 0.20 (0.12, 0.34) relative to controls. Ketogenic diet was also positively associated with cancer, which was indicated by eight of the nine studies. However, 37.5% of the related studies obtained a negative conclusion that intermittent fasting was not significantly preventive against cancer.
CONCLUSIONS:
Caloric restriction and ketogenic diet are effective against cancer in animal experiments while the role of intermittent fasting is doubtful and still needs exploration. More clinical experiments are needed and more suitable patterns for humans should be investigated.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25502434
It looks like cancer specialists explore the possibly of “snake oils” as effective treatments of some types of cancer…
Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2015 Jun;63:55-9. doi: 10.1016/j.biocel.2015.01.022. Epub 2015 Feb 7.
Mitochondria: The ketogenic diet–A metabolism-based therapy.
Vidali S1, Aminzadeh S1, Lambert B2, Rutherford T2, Sperl W3, Kofler B4, Feichtinger RG1.
Abstract
Mitochondria are the energy-producing organelles of the cell, generating ATP via oxidative phosphorylation mainly by using pyruvate derived from glycolytic processing of glucose. Ketone bodies generated by fatty acid oxidation can serve as alternative metabolites for aerobic energy production. The ketogenic diet, which is high in fat and low in carbohydrates, mimics the metabolic state of starvation, forcing the body to utilize fat as its primary source of energy. The ketogenic diet is used therapeutically for pharmacoresistant epilepsy and for “rare diseases” of glucose metabolism (glucose transporter type 1 and pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency). As metabolic reprogramming from oxidative phosphorylation toward increased glycolysis is a hallmark of cancer cells; there is increasing evidence that the ketogenic diet may also be beneficial as an adjuvant cancer therapy by potentiating the antitumor effect of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25666556
It looks to me like those are not cancer specialists, but a bunch of gastrointestinal surgeons from a Chinese hospital. And it’s not a peer-reviewed study, as far as I can tell.
I’m going to be a realist with regards to my sexual prowess and assume that I’ll be going out with a whimper either way;-)
Sure, they ‘explore’ them. That is what researchers do in any field. But anyone who thinks that ketosis beats chemo “for almost all cancers” is buying snake-oil.
It is the difference between ‘researching’ a link and ‘proving’ a link. I saw a TV commercial during World Cup breaks over the weekend with former MLB star Frank Thomas for a ‘free testosterone’ supplement called Nugenix. The commercial states, without any hesitation, that the key ingredient of Nugenix has been “clinically researched to boost free testosterone”. That is a world away from being clinically proven to do anything other than turn your piss bright yellow.
William J Murray, a commenter here, believes (IIRC) his wife was cured by a faith healer when all conventional treatments failed. Perhaps you and he should chat.
Well on the bright side, at least he wasn’t disenchanted like Dembski on his first visit to a faith healer. And at least she wasn’t using ground up rhino-horn like the Chinese PM’s wife.
Please remind me who said that??? I didn’t…so that makes you what?
Thanks. I actually sailed through the chemo with almost no side effects, but the radiation treatments knocked me down for the count. I couldn’t eat or drink at all for about six months, and my feeding tube finally got removed in December. All scans are fine now.
I’ve read elsewhere that a ketogenic diet might be effective for some forms of brain cancer, but for the most part it seems to be oversold.
The problem, as best I can figure out, is that while starving cancer cells of glucose does indeed slow tumor growth, it doesn’t kill the cells. If the cancer cells can’t get nutrients, they don’t die, they simply stop engaging in mitosis. You can’t go completely without glucose in practice, just about every food will have at least some minimal amount of it. So the cancer cells can hang on, surviving at very low activity levels without dividing.
Chemo and radiation treatments work by hitting rapidly dividing cells while they’re in the process of dividing, at a time when the DNA is most vulnerable to disruption. That’s what causes most of the side effects, some tissues, like the precursors of red blood cells, the cells of the immune system,those that produce the mucosal linings of the digestive tract, are continually dividing to replenish those that are used up, and cancer treatments hit them hard. But if the cancer cells aren’t dividing, the treatments will be less effective at killing them. They’ll come roaring back once their fuel source returns.
The research should continue, of course, but it’s not a good idea to assume it’s a good idea. As Gene Kranz said as the Apollo 13 crisis was unfolding, “Let’s solve the problem and let’s not make it any worse by… guessin’.”
That sounds like good news. Hope things continue on that trend.
I’m going to step away from this conversation…I hope you understand it…