Now that is a different story. The Warburg Hypothesis
Warburg hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Warburg articulated his hypothesis in a paper entitled
The Prime Cause and Prevention of Cancer which he presented in lecture at the meeting of the Nobel-Laureates on June 30, 1966 at
Lindau,
Lake Constance, Germany. In this speech, Warburg presented additional evidence supporting his theory that the elevated
anaerobiosis seen in cancer cells was a consequence of damaged or insufficient respiration. Put in his own words, "the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar."[SUP]
[7]
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In recent years, Warburg's hypothesis has re-gained attention due to several discoveries linking impaired
mitochondrial function as well as impaired respiration to the growth, division and expansion of tumor cells. In a study by
Michael Ristow and co-workers,
colon cancer lines were modified to overexpress
frataxin. The results of their work suggest that an increase in oxidative metabolism induced by mitochondrial frataxin may inhibit cancer growth in mammals.[SUP]
[8][/SUP]
Subsequent work has shown that the Warburg effect, indeed, might lead to a promising approach in the treatment of solid tumors. The chemical
dichloroacetic acid (DCA), which promotes respiration and the activity of mitochondria, has been shown to kill cancer cells
in vitro and in some animal models.[SUP]
[9][/SUP] The body often kills damaged cells by
apoptosis, a mechanism of self-destruction that involves mitochondria, but this mechanism fails in cancer cells where the mitochondria are shut down. The reactivation of mitochondria in cancer cells restarts their apoptosis program.[SUP]
[10][/SUP] Besides promising human research at the Department of Medicine,
University of Alberta led by Dr Evangelos Michelakis, other glycotic inhibitors besides DCA that hold promise include 3-BrOP being researched at The
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) at
Emory University School of Medicine, and lactate dehydrogenase A [SUP]
[11][/SUP] at
Johns Hopkins University."