Page 92#20. Magic bullets don’t work!
Before I go on, let me take time out for a cautionary note:
You may have heard of DCA or dichloroacetate and its supposed benefits for
cancer patients. The science isn’t 100% but in rats at least DCA caused tumours
to shrink. The hope is it will do the same thing in humans. The trouble is no
clinical trials have been carried out. Some desperate cancer sufferers are taking
it anyway, saying if they might die what difference does it make if they take a
potentially toxic compound.
Unfortunately, it isn’t so simple. If it really does work it could be a valuable
therapy. But if patients take it without expert supervision and someone dies, the
substance might become discredited before it even has a chance. It might even
be banned.
You see this compound is a simple readily-available substance. There is no patent
on it so drug companies, in their usual way, would love to see DCA buried. It
threatens their profits. They don’t care about saving lives. They pretend to but
it’s all about profit. That comes before patient care.
DCA is a small molecule that blocks an enzyme in mitochondria — the energy-
production centres in cells — causing more glucose to be metabolized in the
mitochondria rather than by a different pathway. Remember that cancer cells
dealt with glucose in a peculiar manner.
When DCA was given to rats that were growing human lung tumours, the
tumours stopped growing within a week, and three months later were half the
size of those in untreated animals. Other experimental drugs have had similar
effects. But DCA stands out because it seems to leave healthy cells untouched,
can be taken by mouth and easily penetrates tissues.
Because DCA has been around for years, its structure can’t be patented and
pharmaceutical companies are not interested in developing the drug. That has
left patients to try it for themselves.
Evangelos Michelakis at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada and other
DCA research scientists are worried by the development. Although DCA seems
safe overall, they point to a clinical trial that was stopped early because those
taking the drug developed damage to their peripheral nerves (P. Kaufmann et al.
Neurology 66, 324–330; 2006). Without a control group, they point out, it will be
impossible to tell whether any improvement in the patients’ condition is caused