#21

At the time it was said that he used alternative treatments instead of immediately going for the conventional chemo stuff that might have worked. By the time he switched it was too late.

Sometimes chemo has nasty side effects and only gives you a few years of suffering, so who knows anyway.

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#22

Your brother was on seven months of immunotherapy. Minute 1:04

#23

Immunotherapy works wonders (almost 100% cure rate) if your genes match. We did the test, and the genes did not match. I asked what was the probability of a match. The answer was 5-10%. You have to pay about $5,000 for the test to see if it matches, but if you are in that lucky 5-10%ā€¦

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#24

Stage 4 pancreatic cancer is about as bad as it gets, not just in terms of mortality but also with respect to pain. I think the best thing you can do for your father-in-law is being a strong advocate for making sure he gets all the pain medications he needs. As you may know, the ongoing opioid epidemic and legal scrutiny surrounding the supply chain has lead to prescriptions for certain medications being far harder to obtain, even in situations in which they are absolutely warranted.

Not a recommendation butā€¦ the Hail Mary I would consider if I had the disease: Pachymic Acid. The compound comes from TCM, has favorable in vitro evidence, but no clinical studies I am aware of.

Pachymic Acid Inhibits Growth and Induces Apoptosis of Pancreatic Cancer In Vitro and In Vivo by Targeting ER Stress - PMC ā€œPA may be potentially exploited for the use in treatment of chemotherapy resistant pancreatic cancer.ā€
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bpb/46/1/46_b22-00440/_html/-char/en ā€œThis study also provided compelling evidence that PA might be a potential therapeutic agent for liver cancer treatment.ā€
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/tox.23555 Mouse experiment indicating efficacy of PA, pay-walled

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#25

@lin Wow. That looks very promising. Where can you get that? Are there dosing procedures for humans? Is it part of the standard of care yet?

#26

Pachymic acid can be found in Guizhi Fuling, a TCM medication for endometriosis.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2020.588549/full#:~:text=Guizhi%20Fuling%20prescription%20(GFP)%2C%20an%20important%20and%20widely%20used,of%20the%20fungus%20(Schw.))

Surely one can find TCM practitioners in HK.

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#27

Yes, HK is at the heart of Traditional Chinese Medicine. This is probably the easiest place to find it.

However what is the dosing?

#28

I think the general belief in the professional medical community in the Silicon Valley is that, against his doctorā€™s advice, he followed ā€œalternative medicineā€ for something like 9 months after the cancer was detected, then when that didnā€™t work it was too late for modern science to do anything. The cancer had spread to many other parts of his body.

He had virtually unlimited resources, and he lived about a mile from Stanford University Medical Center, and had access to some of the worldā€™s best doctors, and he ignored them all. An amazing lapse of judgement, by most peopleā€™s thinking around hereā€¦

And to make it even worse, because he delayed in treatment using unproven ā€œalternative medicineā€ he also needed a liver transplant, and the general belief here is that because of his money, he jumped the line to get a liver transplant (and indeed should not even have gotten a transplant liver because he was already too sick) and so he took a healthy liver from a younger healthier person who would likely have lived much longer than he would given the state of his disease.

In startup land, and in marketing, its probably helpful to create your own ā€œreality distortion fieldā€, but in medicine and biology, not so much.

Some articles on these issues:

Full article SciAm: https://archive.ph/4YewL

The moral issue of wealthy guy jumping the line and taking a transplant liver way from someone (a healthier, younger person) who should have gotten it, if Steve went by normal channels:

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#29

Pachymic acid is an extract from Poria Cocos, a mushroom/fungus that has long been used in TCM. ā€œPolysaccharidum of Poria cocos oral solutionā€ is approved for use in treating various cancers by the Chinese Food and Drug Administration (Molecular basis for Poria cocos mushroom polysaccharide used as an antitumour drug in China - PMC). Poria cocos can also be found in Asian supermarkets as a traditional food not unlike natto.

If you are in Hong Kong, I believe you could find a local TCM hospital with experience using the compound as part of cancer treatment, that could speak to dosage.

Another source to consider are the authors of the linked publications. Based on the wording of the papers, I presume that they have at least thought about (if not already preparing/involved in) clinical trials of the compound, since publishing their research.
For the most relevant paper (Pachymic Acid Inhibits Growth and Induces Apoptosis of Pancreatic Cancer In Vitro and In Vivo by Targeting ER Stress - PMC), the only email included was for the last author, dsliva@dstest-lab.com. I could not find an email for the first author, but googling her name and institution, <Shujie Cheng, Cancer Research Laboratory, Methodist Research Institute, Indiana University Health, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America> showed a Facebook profile that appeared relevant.

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#30

Thanks for sharing, the Scientific American you linked from 2011 actually discusses mTOR inhibition as a mechanism for treating the specific type of pancreatic cancer Steve Jobs had. On that note, a recent Sirolimus trial in advanced pancreatic cancer has recently concluded a few months ago. Study of Sirolimus in Patients With Advanced Pancreatic Cancer - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov

ā€œYet as it turns out, the idea of starving cancer cells turns out to be a key mechanism behind some of the latest medical treatments for pNET. The growth of pNET malignant cells is closely tied to a cellular pathway known as mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin). As Yao explains, one of the functions of the mTOR pathway is to sense if a cell is not receiving its necessary nutrients. When that happens, mTOR can trigger the production of proteins, including several that promote cell proliferation and the growth of blood vessels. In normal cells, the mTOR pathway can be turned on and off, but in some cancers mTOR becomes impossible to switch off, and the cells are left to grow without any regulation. A class of drugs known as mTOR inhibitors blocks that pathway. One way they are thought to work is to ā€œtrick the cancer cell into thinking itā€™s starving,ā€ says Yao.ā€ (Did Alternative Medicine Extend or Abbreviate Steve Jobs's Life? - Scientific American)

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#31

I donā€™t remember, maybe five or six years

#32

Well, weā€™ve put up a good fight. Today the doctor informed us that there are no more chemo treatments available. Itā€™s been about 3 years since his first diagnosis and the doctor gives him 4-6 months to live. At this point weā€™re willing to try anything as thereā€™s nothing else that the established medical profession can do.

The doctor said he will probably die from the tumors in his intestinal walls as they grow bigger, they will block the passageway so that he will no longer be able to excrete or eat. I was thinking we should try Rapamycin starting at 4 mg? 6 mg? 9 mg? weekly? daily? Thoughts?

Any other possibilities to slow down cancer?

Pachymic acid did not work.

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#33

Professor Thomas Seyfried argues that some cancers (posssibly all of them) are driven by metabolic problems. Hence treating the metabolic issues is seen as one route.

Another is citrate
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304419X23001361

Another is melatonin
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8998229/

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#34

At some point I would go on the best psilocybin retreat I could find if that was me, and make arrangements for cryonics, cryopreservation, while trying something else to slow it down or halt it.

See the Marsh Chapel Experiment:

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#35

If it were me I would try to bring glucose/fructose intake to zero (maybe Acarbose helps here) and do a daily 1mg rapamycin. (And also look at Johnā€™s suggestions).
Good luck.

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#36

I canā€™t find all the articles but there has been a bunch of new stuff on Klotho.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0083672916000261 - ** The Role of Alpha-Klotho as a Universal Tumour Suppressor**
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301462218301212 - Antagonistic role of Klotho-derived peptides dynamics in the pancreatic cancer treatment through obstructing WNT-1 and Frizzled binding

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#37

In the book ā€œTripping over the truthā€, which is about cancer over the years, he has a chapter about something called 3BP, which kills all cancer cells and leaves everything else alone. It spent decades unapproved and in legal limbo. I just typed it in and it looks like they can use it now:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6103555/

I donā€™t know why everybody isnā€™t using it, just read the book and in there it looked like an amazing last ditch possibility. If you find out from somebody what the problem with it is, then let us know. Iā€™m curious.

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#38

Donā€™t forget DAV therapy, which at full dosage is effective against most cancers in mice. Should work synergistically with IV Vitamin C (50g over 2 hours), daily if you can afford it, otherwise 1-2 times a week will still boost DAV : : My DAV* Therapy begins! *Doxycycline, Azithromycin and Vitamin C

If you cannot afford IV Vitamin C, instead try Lipo Vitamin C (Livon Labs or Renue by Science are 2 reputable brands, many other liquid emulsion based Liposomal Vitamin C are bogus), 1000mg every 3 hours : It doubles the plasma Vitamin C level vs regular Vitamin C and possibly increases intra-cellular Vitamin C by an even larger factor.

Also BDMC Curcumin (The Prodrome brand at Prodrome.com with 25% discount code PDC25, is the cheapest I have found) is very effective against Colon Cancer and somewhat effective against Pancreatic Cancer, though not sure how effective it is once the cancer is metastatic.

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#39

If I had cancer and nothing to lose, I would try;

to target the mitochondrial aspect of cancer and the following peptides to boost immune function;
glutathione, thymosin alpha 1, thymalin and thymogen alpha.

I would also use self made lipsomal vitamin C, 30g spread over the day and I would avoid all other carbohydrates to get in ketosis.

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#40

The two themes Iā€™ve seen in any of the spontaneous regression stories Iā€™ve seen are either:

  • absolutely zero carb diet
  • some sort of immune activation / rejuvenation

Itā€™s so hard to know what specifics I would try myself, but I just wanted to note that those seem to be the major themes that come out of the unexpected success stories that Iā€™ve seen.

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