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Breast milk compound may help cure cancer

The life-nurturing health benefits of breast milk are often attested. But the new discovery of the effects of a compound found in breast milk, nicknamed Hamlet, could mean a more effective and targeted way to kill cancerous tumour cells.

Swedish researchers from the University of Lund have found promising results from researching the effects of the Hamlet substance on bladder cancer patients.

In the early trials with bladder cancer patients, those injected with the compound began to shed dead tumour cells through their urine within days.The breast milk compound targets cancer cells alone, offering an alternative to chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments that damage both healthy and cancerous cells in the body.

Immunology Professor Catharina Svanborg discovered the substance by accident while researching antibiotics. “To our amazement, when we added this compound of milk, the tumour cells died. It was a totally serendipitous discovery,” she told The Daily Mail.

Professor Svanborg explained that she was looking for novel antimicrobial agents, of which new breast milk is a rich source. In one of the team’s experiments human cells and bacteria we required, leading to the practical choice to use human tumour cells.

Professor Svanborg added that breast milk contains the alpha-lactalbumin protein that becomes a cancer-fighting agent inside the stomach, leaving the healthy cells unharmed. The compound avoids the cancerous cells outer defences and then targets the mitochondria and the cell nucleus.

By depriving the cell of energy from the source, the apoptosis process works to reprogram the cell so that it weakens and dies.

“There’s something magical about Hamlet’s ability to target tumour cells and kill them,” Professor Svanborg said.

The scientists suggest the breast milk compound could also help bowel and cervical cancer patients. A trial of the Hamlet substance against a placebo is currently being planned to test the promising benefits of this life-giving compound.

link: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/breast-milk-cancer-sweden-university-of-lund-a7735351.html
 

Kayhan

Member
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all this money spent on cancer research and breast milk is the answer. lol

Am i the only one thats kinda worried about the placebo drug test? like, they are going to be taking someone who needs a cure and could really use it and not give them the cure to test if the cure works... that's kinda fucked up.

I know its how we validate that the cure works, but if i had cancer and someone had the cure but gave me a placebo... id be pissed. or dead, you know...
 
To be clear, a woman can't just let down breast milk from a baby crying; they have to be in the stages of lactation themselves.

The basic science is this: you have two systems for relaying messages to do things in your body. In lactation, your nervous system is responsible for understanding somatic information, or sensory processing, like a baby crying. Your endocrine system is responsible for hormonal release, which in lactation relaxes muscles in the breast (he said breast!!!1!) to let down milk. These two are usually separate of each other in almost every other thing.

However, lactation is a neuroendocrine reflex, meaning that these two are tied thanks to our hypothalmus (which controls both in the body). So, when a baby cries and produces a somatic response in the nervous system, the endocrine system releases a hormone that causes lactation.

My physiology isn't the greatest but that's the best I can simplify it.
 

Breakage

Member
To be clear, a woman can't just let down breast milk from a baby crying; they have to be in the stages of lactation themselves.

The basic science is this: you have two systems for relaying messages to do things in your body. In lactation, your nervous system is responsible for understanding somatic information, or sensory processing, like a baby crying. Your endocrine system is responsible for hormonal release, which in lactation relaxes muscles in the breast (he said breast!!!1!) to let down milk. These two are usually separate of each other in almost every other thing.

However, lactation is a neuroendocrine reflex, meaning that these two are tied thanks to our hypothalmus (which controls both in the body). So, when a baby cries and produces a somatic response in the nervous system, the endocrine system releases a hormone that causes lactation.

My physiology isn't the greatest but that's the best I can simplify it.

So this can only happen to a woman who has recently had a baby?
 
So this can only happen to a woman who has recently had a baby?
Or is in the process of lactation (I don't know the time frame of this, thus my apprehension to nail down a time frame). But yeah, you can't just make a woman cry and expect the same to happen. This is why in the olden times there were wet nurses, ladies specifically out there to help out with feeding babies should any complications with their mothers pop up.
 

Breakage

Member
Or is in the process of lactation (I don't know the time frame of this, thus my apprehension to nail down a time frame). But yeah, you can't just make a woman cry and expect the same to happen. This is why in the olden times there were wet nurses, ladies specifically out there to help out with feeding babies should any complications with their mothers pop up.
I see. Thanks for the explanation. It makes things a lot clearer.
 
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