Cancer and the bacterial connection
today, some scientists think Coley had it right: Germs can teach our bodies how to fight back against tumors. Dr. John Timmerman, a cancer immunotherapy expert at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center, says this revolution has produced “the most exciting sets of compounds in cancer immunolog
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The studies also imply that our cleaner, infection-free lifestyles may be contributing to the rise in certain cancers over the last 50 years, scientists say, because they make the immune system weaker or less mature. Germs cause disease but may also fortify the body, a notion summed up in a 2006 report by a team of Canadian researchers as “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger.”
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Other groups have been experimenting with injections of other types of heat-killed bacteria, including Myobacterium vaccae, a tuberculosis relative. In two studies in January’s European Journal of Cancer, researchers report that these bacteria may help fight certain lung and renal cancers.
The rich interplay of complex systems are often very difficult to grasp simply. I discusses this concept in the post on the excellent book, Parasite Rex.
Related: Killing Germs May Be Hazardous to Your Health - Energy Efficiency of Digestion - Not Evidence of a Declining Trend in Cancer Deaths - Raised Without Antibiotics
February 19th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Thanks for this post. There is a good article on Coley’s research here:
http://cancerguide.org/coley.html
Amazingly, his research on mixed bacterial vaccines dates back to 1888.
February 20th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
That reminds me of how vaccines work. Vaccines are slightly different but a similar concept. Let your body fight something easy, so that it knows how to protect itself against something difficult.