|
|
|
Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
 Posted - 03/23/2007 : 23:37:47 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
The drug has been used in human trials and is approved for use in humans. That eliminates the usual hurdle of showing it is safe in animals before human clinical trials which typically precedes testing on sick humans.
It does not mean it is a perfectly safe drug. So far it can cause serious side effects in patients with mitochondrial encephalomyelopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes or MELAS. I believe this is a newly identified etiology of a weak muscle syndrome but I didn't look any further into it. MELAS could be something else. Regardless, it's a rare disorder. The drug has been used in pulmonary hypertension, another rare disorder.
The point being, it hasn't been given to enough people to know what risks will emerge.
Unfortunately people are self medicating with this with potentially harmful resulsts
quote:
Peripheral neuropathy is a serious side-effect of DCA that causes damage to the nerves in the hands and feet.
quote:
People taking the drug at home may not be aware of DCA's side-effects, ignore the symptoms, and end up with permanent nerve damage, Logan said.
quote:
Michelakis told an Edmonton newspaper that he is distressed that people with cancer are self-medicating with a drug that could be harmful to them.
|
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
 |
|
|
McQ
Skeptic Friend
USA
258 Posts |
Posted - 03/24/2007 : 10:20:27 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Ghost_Skeptic
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
The drug has been used in human trials and is approved for use in humans. That eliminates the usual hurdle of showing it is safe in animals before human clinical trials which typically precedes testing on sick humans.
It does not mean it is a perfectly safe drug. So far it can cause serious side effects in patients with mitochondrial encephalomyelopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes or MELAS. I believe this is a newly identified etiology of a weak muscle syndrome but I didn't look any further into it. MELAS could be something else. Regardless, it's a rare disorder. The drug has been used in pulmonary hypertension, another rare disorder.
The point being, it hasn't been given to enough people to know what risks will emerge.
Unfortunately people are self medicating with this with potentially harmful resulsts
quote:
Peripheral neuropathy is a serious side-effect of DCA that causes damage to the nerves in the hands and feet.
quote:
People taking the drug at home may not be aware of DCA's side-effects, ignore the symptoms, and end up with permanent nerve damage, Logan said.
quote:
Michelakis told an Edmonton newspaper that he is distressed that people with cancer are self-medicating with a drug that could be harmful to them.
And a valid warning it is. Peripheral Neuropathy (PN), while often a toxic effect of various cancer drugs (among others), is carefully monitored in the oncology setting and drugs are titrated to more appropriate doses, or are stopped if PN becomes a serious side effect. People taking an available drug on their own are probably not as likely to be aware of, or know how to deal with, that toxic effect.
Quite frightening to think that folks can do this to themselves. |
Elvis didn't do no drugs!
--Penn Gillette |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Cheap, safe cancer drug......?
