A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

Don't bother, if you're in a position to do so, help them find a first-class brain surgeon. Get them into Sloan Kettering, Mayo, Duke or OHSU or whoever. Help them look for clinical trials to get chemo past the blood-brain barrier (I've heard some promising things in this area, though I'm not sure if it's being tested on humans yet). If they have a family that's taking care of them, offer to help them. Even just a grocery trip a week or something would be a massive help (obviously this depends on how close you are to them but you get the picture). Hell, offer to just hang out with your friend for a few hours so the family can get out and decompress for a bit if they need to.

Don't let them fall into the false hope of "I might have 5-10 more years". The person I knew fell into that and did absolutely nothing they wanted to do before they died because they were in denial and kept holding onto the expectation that they'd get better.

If they have money, every cockroach will come out of the woodwork trying to get a piece. Watch out for them if you can.

I know someone who got scammed out of a very substantial amount by a real brain surgeon in America(!!!), who referred them to a guy that sold a bogus device which he claimed would "destroy the tumor" (no FCC sticker on it and the entire thing was controlled by a Raspberry Pi when I disassembled it). Brain surgeon had a bunch of FDA complaints against them too and performed it in one of the poorest cities in the country, across the street from a burnt out apartment building. The local pharmacy had a constant police presence because of armed robberies for the drugs. These details scream sketch to normal people, but normal people aren't going to be dying of brain cancer in the foreseeable future. Desperate people will do crazy things if they think it offers some hope.

I know when someone’s faced with certain death they’ll do almost anything they can to survive if only for a little bit longer, but this thread full of personal antectodes and largely non-reproduced effects from random pubmed articles is the hackernews equivalent of essential oils or smth

I'm really sorry to hear that. Since you're asking for moonshots and weird things to try, here's something they can ask their doctor about:

> Case reports involving glioblastoma patients using water-only fasting regimens in conjunction with other forms of cancer treatment have reported favorable outcomes with respect to tumor growth https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2874558/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5884883/

From https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6836141/

You should ask them if they want you playing doctor.

I have a chronic disease, not fatal, and totally manageable. But the most annoying thing is when someone finds out and suddenly pretends to be the expert.

Of course my doctors and I investigating it for years were completely wrong! I should’ve ate more apricots!

Please just check with them if they want their limited time spent like that.

My best friend died of brain cancer.

Although not from the cancer itself. He died of an opioid overdose. He was prescribed pain killers for cancer-related pain, and got hooked. His doctors stopped prescribing, so he found it elsewhere, and got a bad batch with fentanyl. (He was a VC living in SF, well to do, he had all the treatment money could buy, but cancer ended up not being what killed him)

I know this isn’t what you’re looking for, but be sure to not ignore other parts of his health. Addiction and other disorders are common among people with terminal or not-so-great prognosis.

The most you can do is to be a great friend.

I have heard some people having luck by switching to a ketogenic diet. Here’s a paper I could find on PubMed about this. Sorry to hear about your friend.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9504425/

Edit: I am not a doctor. My wife is a physician and I spoke to her before posting this.

Look at MDAnderson in Houston.

https://www.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/glioblastoma-survivor-...

https://www.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/how-i-knew-i-had-a-bra...

Along with other success stories, they helped my sister with a particularly lethal form breast cancer in one of their clinical trials.

Also - If your friend is approved and needs a place to stay, let me know. Know a couple of people who help house people who are getting treatment here.

You’re an amazing friend and I hope your friend gets the care they need

Google Richard Scolyer: Top doctor remains brain cancer-free after a year. A year after undergoing a world-first treatment for glioblastoma, Australian doctor Richard Scolyer remains cancer-free.

Check out Sonalsense - https://www.sonalasense.com/for-patients. Requires specialized machine not in US as of last year.

Dr Mitchell Berger out of UCSF is the GOAT.

Here’s a summary of all of the current treatments and near future treatments for GBM/glioma: https://docs.google.com/file/d/1kTa3eamaL91Smjh9r_0CYv5OYFX4....

This is as complete a list as you’ll find, written in plain English, with citations for every part of it. Slightly out of date but there hasn’t been much that’s new and different since last year. Vorasidenib was approved recently in USA and it’s the most effective IDH inhibitor - worth reading more about.

The document is focussed on glioma but there’s a lot of GBM research. Unfortunately the short answer is that there is no cure and there is treatment that might be a cure under development. There are treatments that slow the course, and the patient’s doctors know all of them and they will recommend what’s best. This is an area of medicine that is hard for amateurs to learn about, and a neurooncologist has decades more training than their patients. The reality is this is a horrible disease that currently has no cure - and the treatments that work are all complex medicines prescribed by specialists.

The occurrence of GBM is about 3 out of every 100,000 people. If you happen to know 4, is there some commonality? Do you all work together in the same industry? Do they all live in the same town?

Sorry friend, there no hacks from brain cancer. Mortality rate at Stage 4 is 100%. You're better off spending as much time as you can with them.

Personally knowing four people with GBM and not being an oncologist is exceptional and worrying. That feels like it should be raised to… someone. It is very possible something bad is happening and a commonality needs to be tracked down urgently.

My dad lasted ten weeks after diagnosis. If I get it I'll put my ducks in a row and exit intentionally, rather than raging against the dying of the light. Fighting it is great if your friend is up for it, and it's a way for you to show your love. But listen carefully and don't force it.

Damn. Sorry to hear that.

I have had two friends get it, and neither made it. Another died of it, but it metastasized from their lung (Yeah, I have known a hell of a lot of people with cancer. Most have survived).

If you have known 4 people with the same cancer, they call that a "cluster," in the vernacular, and it might not be a bad idea to see if you can figure out where it comes from.

Here on Long Island, we have numerous breast cancer clusters. I am pretty cynical that people know the cause, but don't want to deal with it.

I had a serious non-cancerous tumor, back in '96, but managed to learn to walk and chew gum again, after a couple of months.

The key is whether or not it's operable. Mine was, none of my other friends were operable.

My mother has “frozen” breast cancer for 15 years using oral bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis).

To give you the short version of the story about how it works for HER: taking bloodroot causes the cancer to shrink too small to take a biopsy, but not go into remission, and when she stops taking it per the doctors advice, it gets very large and they start talking about surgery.

Nobody really understands how it works and a lot of people claim it doesn’t work, but I think it’s probably similar to a low dose natural chemo.

I have seen it work unusually well with skin cancers (melanoma) as well using paste application (this is called black salve), so despite what the FDA claims, I think there’s something there, and there’s a few papers that agree.

Don’t put black salve on your head, it leaves a hole where the cancer comes out.

That spinning hat is pretty cool. When cells breath they create a byproduct (Reactive Oxygen Species) - all cells do this, they need to keep their ROS levels in check else the cell will die, but because cancer cells have messed up mitochondria, they don't do this correctly and typically end up with way more ROS. That hat agitates the cells so they produce more ROS, but because the cancer cells are almost at capacity, it overloads them and they die from ROS strangulation.

"For 4-hour treatment:

Reduced DIPG cells by >80% Reduced GBM cells by >60%"

Have you looked into ivermectin and fenbendazole?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3158014/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7505114/

I just now checked out my theory of switching to a keto diet - this appears to be terrible advice.

There appears to be some initial idea of using keto to control cancer [1]. My working theory is that cancer is a high-replication cell, and the ketogenic diet is anti-growth, increasing the probability of it outgrowing the resources available. It appears possible to starve them of glucose [2].

In reality, it appears the keto diet may encourage metastatis, by promoting BACH1 [3]. You may end up with weaker cancer spread around the body. It's extremely unclear if this is a better situation or not.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6375425/

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08999...

[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11152127/

Disclaimer: am not a doctor + know nothing about this branch of medicine, but this fairly new drug cured one of my family member's (stage 2?) lung cancer that metastisized to brain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osimertinib aka Tagrisso

My understanding is that it's a 3rd generation evolution of immune-system-boosting drugs that "teach your immune system to attack cancer".

I don't know how fundamentally different brain cancer that starts in the brain is vs lung cancer that moves to the brain, but maybe similar approaches are possible?

A few years ago, I came across the idea of autophagy. The idea is water fasting for at least 24 hours to trigger the self-destruction of cells.

Combined with keto diet, as some suggested, might be a starting point.

So sorry to hear about your friend. My mom had a breast cancer that spread to brain. At that time, the only medicines that worked were Tykerb and Xeloda, as these were the only ones that could travel to the brain. They had promising results for a few months, and the tumour shrank a lot and then started growing again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy

Had a very close friend who passed away years ago from it. We tried various things, from apricot pits to a hat with electrodes attached to his head. Nothing worked.

He died about a year before John McCain died of the same. I regretted that we didn't try to do more, but, seeing that it took McCain in the same length of time did make me feel a little bit better (not that I was happy for McCain's death, but that his connections and world-class treatment made no meaningful difference in how long it prolonged his life versus that of my friend).

Lots of aspirin - https://raypeat.com/articles/aging/aspirin-brain-cancer.shtm...

I'm not sure why all the hate. This is entirely up to your friend. If they want to spend their remaining time trying moonshots, then by all means do it, and blog the results online and share with others. Make it into something fun. It literally does only increase their chances of survival even if by some extremely small amount.

Otherwise, if they prefer to spend their time in other ways, support them in that.

"False hope" is kind of an oxymoron. Hope is never easy to have. Fortunately it's not required. You can accept death and still find enjoyment/distraction in self-experimentation.

There are immune system supporting mechanisms for particular immune system dysfunctions that tend to co-occur with cancer. A particularly interesting one is Low Dose Naltrexone which is super cheap and has practically no downsides.

If there is a case of even mild dysautonomia various meds like modafinil and amitriptyline can help along this axis.

I suggest looking into hyperthermia therapy (which is used in combination with immune system priming drugs, and sometimes traditional chemical/radiation treatments)

Unfortunately the classic easy external way it’s done isn’t the best fit for brain application, as it’s literally heating the body up in a sauna to a point where heat reactive proteins are generated. This forces the cancer to either open up various cellular transport mechanisms (announcing itself to the immune system) or denature (and die). This is repeated multiple times, and can actually be so effective and the doctor overseeeing the treatment needs to be careful not to kill off too much cancer at once if there is a large amount, due to the resulting necrosis.

However related to this for deep body use is using radiation devices or probes to heat tumorous areas deeper in the body, or outright use laser probes to not-quite-burn places. This can allow access to otherwise inoperable tumors. See Laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT)

https://www.barnesjewish.org/Medical-Services/Neurology-Neur...

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17114-hyper...

Hyperthermia therapies are lesser known for some tragic reason, but they are FDA approved.

Find a clinical trial you can get them into.

I am in the same boat. Glioblastoma diagosis 21 months ago. I am IDH wild type with MGMT methylation status. I am starting to get a possible recurrence.

Yes, I HAVE used the spinning oscillating magnetic field. I don't know that I am doing it right but I have the following setup and have been doing this for a month. I simply connected a large round 500lb neodynium magnet to a drill. I set the drill to oscillate for 2 seconds rapidly and then slow down to near stopping for 1 second. This results in it continually spinning up and down. Since I don't know the ideal frequency I am trying to hit ALL frequencies.

This is just a burner account but i am a very real person. If I lose my credentials, I may have to create yet another account. I apologize if that happens.

I know it's not appropriate but god bless you. Let's keep sharing. I appreciate you starting this up.

My father-in-law's stage 4 brain tumor was discovered when he was 50. He's in good health now. They operated on him and removed the tumors and did chemotherapy. They continuously monitored for regrowth but it didn't happen. He did yoga religiously for most of his adult life. Even his hair has grown back.

"This gel stops brain tumors in mice. Could it offer hope for humans?"[0]

[0]: https://hub.jhu.edu/2023/04/24/mouse-brain-tumors-glioblasto...

Keto diets seem to have at least a positive anecdotal effect. Putting aside the cancer part, a strict adherence to the caloric restriction diet has general health benefits. Whether the positive health benefits impact the cancer itself is unknown. It may simply be that being healthier helps patients deal with the impacts of chemo and radiotherapy.

Also possible is that caloric restriction helps to put the body into a biology mode that helps to combat cancerous tissue.

There's no solid science behind any of this, but generally being healthier helps with any medical treatments.

You can ask him to try yogic and ayurvedic methods. AN excerpt from The Wellness Sense book (author: OM Swami) [0]:

>I've had patients successfully cure ulcers, cancers, migraines, obesity, hypertension, allergies, depression and many other ailments by following the principles I share with you in this book. I am not suggesting that Ayurveda is a panacea. No system of medicine is. But, when you combine the principles of Ayurveda with the yogic thought, you make a giant leap in your understanding of the human body and its wellbeing. In this book, I introduce you to a holistic system of health and wellness. My goal is not to give you herbal remedies, because once again I don't wish to treat the symptoms. Besides, I'm not a medical professional but a meditation specialist and a tantric practitioner. There are plenty of Ayurvedic doctors out there you can consult for medicine. Having said that, chances are, once you adopt the principles and practices I am sharing here, you will not need to see a doctor again. For a healthy and a long life, the ancient yogic thought offers you one of the most insightful, complete and scientific perspectives. I promise by the time you finish reading this book, you will look upon your body and your health in a new way. You will learn how to take care of it better, you will know how to lead a healthier life in our present world

0: https://www.amazon.com/Wellness-Sense-Practical-Emotional-Ay...

Sorry to hear about your friend; awful for both of you.

Anything you can build or brew at home? About as good as chanting spells at the moon on alternate Tuesdays. And definitely do NOT go get infected with some virus, which will only create greater complications and misery.

The only real chance I'd see out there is to get into a trial of some of the new immunotherapy treatments [0]. These create custom profiles and turn the body's immune systems against the cancer and have had some stunning successes — talk about biohacking — these researchers are out there!

Of course these are still in development. There is a lot of research going on around Boston [1-5], Mayo Clinic [6], and other research hotbeds.

Locating teams researching therapies applicable to your friend's cancer type, and hacking your way into one of those trials would likely be one of your best hacks ever; I'd focus on that. Gather the info, find out what it takes to get into the trials, get your friend qualified...

Best of luck - I hope you can organize a great recovery for your friend!

[0] https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/immunoth...

[1] https://www.bidmc.org/research/research-centers/cancer-resea...

[2] https://www.massgeneral.org/cancer-center/clinical-trials-an...

[3] https://www.bumc.bu.edu/immunology/research/cancer-immunolog...

[4] https://www.bmc.org/content/immunotherapy

[5] https://www.ludwigcancerresearch.org/location/boston-harvard...

[6] https://www.mayo.edu/research/centers-programs/cancer-resear...

I read this article once: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/bacteria-on-th...

" The tumor had spread to his brain stem and was shortly expected to kill him. Muizelaar cut out as much of the tumor as possible. But before he replaced the “bone flap”—the section of skull that is removed to allow access to the brain—he soaked it for an hour in a solution teeming with Enterobacter aerogenes, a common fecal bacterium. Then he reattached it to Egan’s skull, using tiny metal plates and screws. Muizelaar hoped that inside Egan’s brain an infection was brewing."

The scientists did get penalised for it but as a hail mary it might be worth investigating. My best wishes for your friend.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.11080

I'm not a doctor. All people who I personally know who had cancer and went through standard procedures are dead.

Do your own research, I came across this avenue but I personally know nobody who tried this https://www.burzynskiclinic.com/

Lost my wife to brain cancer (gb4). After sifting through the noise, here’s what works based on stat sig research as far as I know:

1. Radiation

2. Surgery, awake craniotomy to reduce loss of function

3. Temodar chemotherapy

4. Optune helmets

5. Monoclonal antibodies

6. Maybe high dose vitamin C (suspicious results)

If I knew then what I know now I would have focused on reducing stress in our lives as it felt like it accelerated the growth, perhaps due to a weakened immune system. Quality of life and joyful moments together is the best you can hope for. It brings you into awareness of the magic of life and each other. Focus on that — which is 100% in your control.

Here is a link to the optune helmet: https://www.optunegio.com/

You may not like hearing this, but the best thing you can do for him is be a supportive friend and try to make him happy when you get the time to. You are not an expert on brain cancer. You will not become an expert on brain cancer before he dies. You know who is an expert on brain cancer? His oncologist. I know grief is hard and you're motivated by your love for the people in your life, but there isn't some cheap hack that will fix this. Trust the experts to do their job and for the love of god don't take cancer advice from strangers on the internet. In the meantime, love your family, love your friends, love your life, and try to make others happy.

If you search on "glioblastoma" you will find a LOT of hits.

I don't know anybody that has had it, but let's see if I can find the new treatment that I remember...

Edit:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1610497

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08224-z

This one is interesting... glioblastoma is full of killer immune cells (40% of all cells, mostly macrophages) that are "docile."

https://scitechdaily.com/groundbreaking-method-starves-highl...

I am not a doctor at all, but I found these via Google scholar.

1. Ruta graveolens extract[0][1]

2. Terpenes[2]

3. Metformin helps temozolomide[3][4][5]

4. Tumor treating induced fields (magnetic fields like you originally said) [note: published after your paper, and your paper wasn't cited by it][6]

5. Ibrutinib[7]

---

[0]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo... [1]: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/25/21/11789

[2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B97803...

[3]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5762574/ [4]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10340608/ [5]: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12672-023-006... (not effective)

[6]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11524832/

[7]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aah6816

Telix https://telixpharma.com that is working on theraputics and diagnostics for gioblastomas (amongst other cancers).

The Australian of the Year (a quasi government annual position) was last year given to Professor Scoyler, who is a leading melanomia researcher. He was diagnosed with gioblastomas 2-3 years ago and was able to make himself a research subject for immunologic and other approaches to dealing with brain cancer.

My friend was diagnosed with gioblastoma 2 years ago, she is very much dependent on steroids and has exhausted the chemo/radio possibilities.

It sucks, but hopefully getting better. Search out all of the possible trials and other potential cures.

I’m sorry you’re having to deal with your friend’s suffering. Unfortunately there’s no hack that will help with GBM in any meaningful way. The best thing you can hope for is that the pathologist made a mistake and it’s Astrocytoma rather than GBM.

I recently listened to this Diary of a CEO podcast episode [1] discussing the potential link between blood glucose from carbohydrate-heavy diets and cancer. It is an alternate metabolic theory of cancer, and the podcast guest claimed that fasting followed by a keto diet was showing early success as an intervention for cancer patients (as an addition, not a replacement, to existing standard of care). I have not seen the data nor do I know the sample size, but the discussion convinced me to rethink my carb intake.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaVC3PAWqLk

Just read this paper today.

Ketogenic Diet in the Treatment of Gliomas and Glioblastomas

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9504425/

so sorry for your friend. I've wondered about the studies you linked as well as these from some previous links from HN you may or may not have already seen:

mRNA Cancer Vaccine Reprograms Immune System to Tackle Glioblastoma in 48 Hours(https://www.insideprecisionmedicine.com/topics/oncology/mrna...) 406 points|birriel|8 months ago|230 comments Researchers develop treatment that can kill glioblastoma cells in brain pathway(https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-08-therapy-treatment-gli...) 142 points|wglb|5 months ago|19 comments Blood–brain barrier opening with ultrasound device in patients with glioblastoma(https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2...) 62 points|bookofjoe|2 years ago|31 comments Precision Oncology: Epigenetic Patterns Predict Glioblastoma Outcomes(https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2016/12/06/precision-oncology-...) 45 points|sciadvance|8 years ago|10 comments Doctor cancer free after novel glioblastoma self-treatment(https://nypost.com/2024/05/15/lifestyle/australian-doctor-ri...) 40 points|crhulls|8 months ago|2 comments Man lives 10 mo without recurrence after groundbreaking glioblastoma treatment(https://twitter.com/ProfRScolyerMIA/status/17700383563004236...) 31 points|jrpt|10 months ago|4 comments Study kills glioblastoma by manipulating brain's astrocytes(https://scitechdaily.com/groundbreaking-method-starves-highl...) 16 points|graderjs|2 years ago|0 comments Ask HN: Help with Glioblastoma

Sorry to hear about your friend.

Here's a joke:

Q: What do you call alternative medicine that works? A: Medicine.

Seriously though, "bio hacks" are no different. If these things worked, it's very likely they'd just be normal practiced oncology. Oncology isn't a subfield of medicine where researchers are overly cautious about risks. The patient is practically guaranteed to die, so even if your research has a chance of killing the patient, that's an improvement.

It is far more likely that whatever shallow reading of the medical data you bring to the table is going to counterproductive than productive. I strongly suggest not meddling.

Anecdotally, people cite high abv alcohol consumption for having a preserving effect on living body. I imagine it being like a variety of chemotherapy. By that I mean specifically not drinking a mixed drinks, but drinking nothing but straight vodka and water for a whole day or multiple, while maybe eating some pickles. It shifts body metabolism from sugars and fats to mostly alcohol and protein. It's not as tough as it sounds, given that, again anecdotally, many Slavic and Finnish people do so casually.

This may be of interest:

Cancer in the Cold - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32440688 - Aug 2022 (99 comments)

Obvious caveat: You REALLY want to research this in-depth to see if there's any basis to it, but I recently came across the fact that Hymecromone(4-methylumbelliferone) is an inhibitor of Hyaluronic Acid synthesis, which is a part of extracellular matrix, and necessary for cell proliferation, that is currently being investigated for a large range of different cancers, with positive effects in most(mostly animal models and in vitro studies).

I first discovered it when searching for bladder cancer therapies[1][2]

A cursory search seems to say that HA does in fact play a role in GBM[3], and that 4MU appears to reduce GBM cell proliferation[4] though it looks at a different mechanism.

In fact, there seems to be a review of its potential for treating brain cancers specifically[5]

As far as I can tell, it's a commonly prescribed drug for bile acid related issues that rarely has any side effects or risks. It appears to be safe, and to improve outcomes across many types of cancers

[1] https://www.auajournals.org/doi/full/10.1016/j.juro.2014.02....

[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11081427/

[3] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-7602-9_...

[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235230422...

[5] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yasser-Mustafa-3/public...

Try fasting. Go 24 hours without food and little (water) or no drink. Do this once a month when you don't have cancer, and maybe more when you do. The theory behind it: Some cancers such as Chordoma are reliant on mTOR, which fasting inhibits or modulates. (This is also why Rapamycin is being researched for cancer treatment, though its mTOR effect is mild.) Theory part 2: tumors tend to have a lot of glycogen, which is unavailable when fasting. The body still needs it so it will pull some from tumors if necessary.

Most cancers are dependent on glucose as a fuel source, as they typically use 200× more than most other cells in the body.

If you can, convince your friend to go on a zero-carb, zero-sugar diet that even cuts out artificial sweeteners (as they can also screw with metabolism). Get them to try to hammer their A1C down to 3.0 or less for 3+ months, so they go into extended periods of ketosis. A continuous glucose monitor can help identify spikes, which can also be moderated with 2tbsp of vinegar before each meal.

Hack your calendar and be there for him! All the best!

Look for prof. Seyfried videos on youtube about GBM and his protocol.

Mass General has had some success in clinical trials using an immunotherapy based approach.

https://www.massgeneral.org/news/press-release/clinical-tria....

I lost my brother to a glioblastoma. I think it’s a 70 pct mortality at 18 months. Best thing my brother did, against doctors orders, was to have some nice vacations w his kids. Those were such fond memories for the kids. I am sorry for your friend.

Sequence the cancer. Get involved in clinical trials early.

There's no "biohacking" cancer without pharmatech. It mutates. You would need a two or three sided attack. There was a concept on causing the cancer to have an "extinction event" and I agree with that, due to how cancer mutates.

We're also missing tools to see how effective treatments are, on a day-to-day basis. This may be out of technological reach.

Also, keep in mind, the blood-brain barrier is difficult to deal with.

I do not know if this will work but search for Beata Halassy

University of Zagreb researcher Beata Halassy treated her breast cancer with an unproven virus-based therapy using viruses she cultivated in her own lab.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/11/14/cancer-vir...

Highly recommend looking into the work of Thomas Seyfried, the metabolic theory of cancer, press-pulse approach, glutamine targeting

Press-Pulse approach described: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7kOs6bS1Hg&t=7185s (~ keto+exercise+hyperbaric oxygen therapy+standard approaches which become more effective)

https://nutritionandmetabolism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10...

https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/science-tech-and-health/bio...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-019-0455-x

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8200410/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PJfOFTaYow

I can recommend Lenox Hill on Netflix if you or them have not already seen it, pretty interesting watching doctors operate on and care for GBM patients - https://www.netflix.com/title/80201728

I have to imagine those doctors are still there doing this, it's been their life's work.

Ivermectin has been used by many doctors in the past year or so for many different kinds of cancers. Here's an overview of why IVM is a good re-purposed cancer treatment. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7505114/

20mg melatonin daily (perfectly safe for years, doesn't affect sleep patterns at this dose)

Depakote for seizures (instead of something else)

All I know that when those were stopped recurrence started. It was after 5 healthy years on those and nothing else. It was primary anaplastic grade 3 glioma.

Obviously get surgery, radiation and Temozolomide for initial treatment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Scolyer

is an Australian MD with glioblastoma whose treatment is immunotherapy; he is blogging (on X for example) as it's ongoing, and has been doing very well.

In that situation I would stop eating for a while but I would also not count on it working since I can’t really stand hope. Acceptance is the key for me. You can find a video called fasting for survival from a cardiologist called pradip jamnadas and see if it makes sense for you or your friend.

Fasting:

https://www.mskcc.org/news/fasting-primes-immune-systems-nat...

Look into immunotherapy trials at hospitals like UCSF. They might have pre-existing conditions which would make them in-eligible however. In any case, try to spend as much time with them as possible; you won't regret anything when they pass.

Not a bio hack per se but check out “Tripping over the Truth: The Metabolic Theory of Cancer”[0]

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23496164

This is interesting stuff. Though but my field.

https://youtu.be/KjdAtauO2cA?si=QGOQW8Ed165CZHL6

> getting infected with the zika virus (probably the best thing to do IMO

Virology based methods don't last very long because the immune system adapts quickly. If you want to go down that route, make sure you have experts on hand.

become an professor and try some immunotherapy like prof. Long and prof. Scolyer?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-69006713

Dr.John Campbell on YouTube has video on ivem and fen ben cancer cure experiences. Very interesting. Take a look.One entitled fen ben for cancer? About a month ago.

Dr.John Campbell on YouTube has video on ivem and fen ben cancer cure experiences. Very interesting. Take a look.One entitled Fen ben for cancer ?About a month ago

Look for trials - CART has had promising results for glioblastoma.

This may be of interest: https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103610270

I am currently getting treated for Folicular Lymphoma, so I've been looking into complementary treatments for myself.

I saw a video on youtube -- wait, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikSlMlMFS7M -- from a medical journal former editor / writer guy who cured his throat cancer or maybe it was skin cancer, but he talked about both, with topical treatments using food grade hydrogen peroxide (h2o2). (I forgot the strength he used -- maybe 35%. But do not swallow this stuff -- very harmful to ingest, only apply it topically at specific points.) Anyway he was talking about brain tumors and how for some kinds there are no good treatment options and he conjectured that injecting these kind of brain tumors with the 35%(?) h2o2 could wipe them out. This is because most cancer cells are highly susceptible to h2o2 (way more than normal cells) A brain surgeon could do this using imaging guidance, etc.

Maybe you can find a surgeon who is already doing this type of treatment in a trial perhaps.

Three other options:

1. High dose vitamin C via IV. At very high doses, Vitamin C can wipe out cancer cells via multiple mechanisms. One of these is because VitC generates ozone in the cancer cells which destroys them in a similar method as if they had been dosed with h2o2.

2a. Get into ketosis via diet -- can selectively cause cancer cell death -- something to do with mitochondria metabolism changes in cancer cells. But, getting into ketosis is super difficult.

2b. Get into ketosis by supplementing with MCT (medium chain triglycerides) from coconut oil. The C8 component of this type of oil seems to have the strongest ketosis results. C8 MCT is processed by your liver and converted into ketones. Much easier than a keto diet.

3. Follow the Gerson therapy -- https://gerson.org/the-gerson-therapy/ -- lots of fresh pressed mostly veggie juices as the main component of the diet along with other things. This can also mimic a fast (another way to selectively kill cancer cells).

I'm doing 1, 2b, and starting to do 3 for myself. None of these are expensive and they are all very safe to do and you can do 2 and 3 at home.

I live near Chicago and I'm getting standard treatment at Illinois Cancer Specialists in Niles and the IVC treatments from Raden Wellness in Highwood. I'm working with an MD Oncologist and a Naturopathic Oncologist. So far so good!

Best of luck to your friend!!!

Fasting, and carnivore diet.

Anthony Chaffee, Shawn Baker, and Sean Omara are strong signals and examples of what modern diets lead to: inflammation, sickness, slow death.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33508300/

Go on a psychedelic retreat. Psilocybin or Ayahuasca. Spend at least a week with a registered Shamanic Practitioner.

It’s a fast track to the acceptance stage and it’ll help your friend enjoy the last part of their human experience.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/...

here is a thread about a paper on this topic on the second page.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651572

Ketogenic Diet in the Treatment of Gliomas and Glioblastomas

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9504425/

- Don't avoid proper medical treatment.

- Cannabis has been known to help, both with Cancer as well as feeling unwell during chemo and increasing appetite.

Best of luck

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651572

fasting and low carb probably wouldn't hurt

1. Tumor Treating Fields (electricity, not magnets): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37953242/

2. CEGAT Vaccine: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51315-8

3. Supplementation: keto diet, curcumin, sauna, and some Chinese traditional medicines all have good academic data that improves overall and progression free survival

Source: I am a rare disease dad and did a lot of research and put together a private research team as well.

Check this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5FqS0Y82reI&pp=ygUPdGhvbWFzIHN...

Search for other Thomas Seyfried videos on YouTube - he defends a metabolic approach to cancer treatment.

He writes the forward to “Keto for Cancer” - https://a.co/d/8NxMOXJ

How does one even obtain zika virus to try that? Although yet, the "case report" talks about only 1 patient

Did your friend get genetic sequencing done on his tumor. There are some recent promising results for braf mutated gbm

Did all your friends with brain cancer know each other? If so, that seems like more than a coincidence.

Fasting for prolonged periods has been found to help on both cancer discovery and during chemo.

Not sure if applicable and how to get in. Afaik price is around 100k for a personalised vaccine but you have to give them vaccine candidates based based on DNA data. Maybe some local biotech uni could help with that.

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/data-insights/inno...

https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/ivermectin-testim... -- see "New and improved Joe Tippens protocol".

Has worked for hundreds of people, and what has he got to lose? It's all natural medicines.

I had a family member diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, and we were able to shock the doctors with their progress and recovery.

Our goal was to contribute as much as we could to the treatment effort, and so we focused on diet and rest.

Namely we removed all sugar and glutamine (animal products), and took care of all household tasks: cleaning, cooking, getting to appointments, etc.

Each cycle when we would get the blood test results we would add items to the diet to address any numbers that were falling.

For example, increasing iron, folate and b-complex rich foods like lentils to support platelet production.

There is a lot to be said about where chemo and radiation treatments are these days, and I am thankful for the medical interventions.

The drug treatment designed by the doctors, and our efforts at home, led to the tumor shrinking at such a rate that my family member is considered a statistical anomaly, and their blood protein markers are at below normal levels; down from 27x the normal level when we started treatment.

This book is a great resource: https://www.howtostarvecancer.com/the-book/

In addition to diet advice it also covers a lot of new or experimental treatments for nearly all cancers.

I truly believe diet can make a huge impact on addressing cancer.

Good luck.

There's a professor who argues that cancer cells are fermentation and ketogenic diet is one of the pathways. There are drugs to stop this kind of respiration as well.

People on Twitter regularly posts links to relevant PubMed articles.

Immunotherapy is the only practical way to go. In particular research DCVax-L (e.g. https://www.thebraintumourcharity.org/brain-tumour-diagnosis...), but also other immunotherapies.

There may be nearby clinical trials for such therapies as well: https://clinicaltrials.gov/

Maybe a zero sugar diet, or starving to try to starve the tumor? Maybe a dewormer pill? I dunno, Im sorry for you friend really.

Pawpaw may be worth looking into.

Fasting puts your cells into a "clean out the junk" mode that is quite powerful for deleting stuff, including cancer. That is, rather that being passive, fasting is quite active and uniquely potent. I had a lump in my throat near my vocal chords that I was told was a standard response to acid reflux and was inoperable. It was there for 15 years and hurt whenever I would sing. I did a 20 day fast last summer and just happened to have it examined and photographed before and after. Before the fast it was there and after it was completely gone.

Valter Longo is one of the world's experts on fasting. You might want to read this article of his on fasting and cancer: https://www.cell.com/trends/endocrinology-metabolism/abstrac...

____

Starvation, Stress Resistance, and Cancer Roberta Buono, Valter D. Longo

Dysregulated metabolism is one of the emerging hallmarks of cancer cells. Differential stress resistance (DSR) and differential stress sensitization (DSS) responses are the mechanisms caused by fasting and fasting-mimicking diet (FMDs) to promote protection of normal cells and induce cancer cell death. Fasting-dependent reduction in glucose and IGF-1 mediates part of the DSR and DSS effects. Fasting and FMDs have the potential for applications in both cancer prevention and treatment.

____

Either Longo or another fasting researcher pointed out that you can make a level of chemotherapy where none of the rats that are not fasting live and where all of the rats that are fasting live. So fasting is a powerful alteration of cells that makes them tolerate chemotherapy much better.

You might want to contact Alan Goldhamer of TrueNorth Health Center. They have almost four decades of experience getting fantastic results by fasting people (about 20K so far), such as curing cancers, Lupus, Diabetes, etc. See https://youtu.be/42QAyVkAS_0?t=71 or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuebTcdLIKY

The below is from a friend of mine who an M.D. told me has read so much about biomedicine that "it's as if he went to graduate school":

____

In complete contrast to chemotherapy, fasting helps pain, anxiety and depression - http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/04/10/fasting-for-ment....

For general information on fasting, I recommend reading or watching Dr. Jason Fung. He is a nephrologist from Canada. His book The Obesity Code (I have read it) is selling well, but you can get the same information by watching YouTube videos, which I preferred to his book. My favorite were his early lectures that are less flashy “The Aetiology of Obesity Part 1 of 6: A New Hope” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpllomiDMX0 However, if a six hour graduate lecture series is more than you want to sign on for, any of the more recent videos at www.dietdoctor.com will provide the basics.

In addition to Dr. Fung, a number of doctors are publishing articles and videos about fasting and cancer:

* Dr. Fung quoting Noble winner for autophagy - https://www.dietdoctor.com/fasting-cellular-cleansing-cancer... & https://www.dietdoctor.com/attacking-cancers-weakness-not-st...

* Dr. Seyfried - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEE-oU8_NSU - he wrote a book (https://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Metabolic-Disease-Management-P...) that I have not purchased this book, but it is highly regarded and referenced by others.

* Dr. Winters - https://www.dietdoctor.com/member/presentations/winters – This is a discussion of the metabolic approach to cancer

* Dr. Poff - https://www.dietdoctor.com/can-you-treat-cancer-with-low-car... - Keto diet and cancer

Some of this is very biochemistry based and is just tons of detail saying “fasting and/or a ketogenic diet will fight cancer.” Spending the time to understand the biochemistry of the disease and visualizing what you want your body to do will help your body heal. While this sounds very touchy, feely and like voodoo medicine to a traditionally trained biochemist, the research is strong on the ability of the mental imagery to have a therapeutic benefit. (Again, I cite Dr. Rosenthal, neuroscientist, as a higher authority).

____

This may be informative...

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ketogenic-diets-for-cancer-...

Beyond the obvious fact that wasting the last of your friend's life by pushing him to become a one-subject experiment from a random pubmed article is bad. HN is a tech nerd VC forum, and as a rule, nobody here knows anything about medicine. Even if there are one or two actual subject matter experts in this thread, you can't distinguish them from every idiot who thinks they are god's chosen genius because mommy got them an Apple II when they were kids. If, and only if, he's interested himself, try to get him into a clinical trial; don't get Zika virus from who knows where for the love of God. You'll be a good friend to him during this time. Best of luck.

(4 vaguely related people getting the same aggressive brain tumor sounds worrying)

Always put the phone on speakerphone and keep it away from your head.

This is no longer a fringe conspiracy theorist thing (though research on it is still early and relatively sparse).

For example:

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/02/health/brain-tumors-cell-...

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5417432/

Maybe it is causing certain cancers, maybe it isn't. Science will probably know more in 10 years. But in the mean time, why take on unnecessary risk?

My friend got fully recovered from stage 4 melanoma with immune therapy in Italy. Good luck

The state of the art in cancer treatment currently is personalized immunotherapies spearheaded by companies like BioNTech, etc.

Cancer should be viewed from a system wide perspective in my opinion rather than a location specific disease.

If you really want to get into biohacker territory, figure out how to sequence the tumor’s mutanome distribution and then generate a mRNA vaccine encoding the unique antigen markers of the tumor.

That’s basically what these biotech companies are doing[0]. If you need pointers on where to begin your research, BNT122 is a good place to start.

Good luck. Depending on how much money your friend has, you might be able to make something happen. Consider contacting biotech companies directly.

[0]: https://www.biontech.com/int/en/home/pipeline-and-products/p...

I've just read "Brainstorm" the recent biography by Richard Scolyer, the melanoma researcher who has survived 18 months, possibly due to a novel immunotherapy regime. It's worth a read, especially chapter 8, about his GBM treatment.

My takeaways:

* His treatment is an experiment. It's based on techniques regularly used in melanoma treatment, but which have not previously been used for brain cancers. Clinical trials are required to tell if the success to date is due to good luck or the treatment.

* There was/is a real chance of death due to complications, particularly brain swelling or damage to other organs, from the immunotherapy. There have been complications, including liver toxicity, but the book gives the impression that these have been managed.

* The drugs themselves are commercially available, the three immunotherapy drugs used (Anti-PD-1, Anti-CTLA-4, Anti-LAG-3) being "off the shelf" and the customised vaccine was manufactured by a US based company (not a research lab).

* A major barrier to someone else trying this treatment regime is finding a medical team willing to take the risk. That was probably the biggest reason Scolyer was able to access this treatment whereas others might struggle: he and his collaborator, Georgina Long, were able to convince others that it had a reasonable chance of working.

* The novel part of the treatment was delaying the usual brain surgery and steroids and not doing chemotherapy. Instead an immediate treatment was done with immunotherapty drugs, results showing that there was no "blood-brain barrier" that stopped them from working. After about 2 weeks, surgery was performed to remove the bulk of the tumour with minimal cutting into the healthy brain. Radiotherapy was then used, along with a continuing course of the immunotherapy and a course of a vaccine customised to the genetics of Scolyer's tumour.

* Planning is underway to run clinical trials, involving research institutes in Melbourne and the US and a pharmaceutical company, to test whether the results on Scolyer are reproducible.

Preprint of the publication:

"Neoadjuvant Triplet Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Newly Diagnosed Glioblastoma" (this is the paper that documents Scolyer's treatment and results to April 2024)

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-4255559/v1

No, no folk remedies or bio-hacking or wearing magnets on your head will help, unfortunately.

You're a good friend trying to search for answers and I hope you find one.

Very much an anecdote, but when I was younger, I knew someone who attributed the remission of their (expected to be terminal) brain cancer to eating lots of bananas that were so green/unripe that they crunched. I searched for this just now, and it seems there may be some real science behind it, but it's hard to say without digging into it further.

This protocol worked for some patients: mistletoe, valerian, stinging nettle, thyme, mountain germander, rosemary, oregano, yarrow, peppermint, lemon balm, chamomile, hops, st john's wort, glechoma hederacea (ground ivy/evergreen creeper), catnip, artemisia absinthium (common wormwood), artemisia vulgaris (common mugwort), greater celandine, erythrea centaurium, calendula officinalis (marigold), capsella bursa-pastoris (shepherd's purse), betula pendula roth (common birch), basil, althaea officinalis (marshmallow) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5809810/

Some things will stimulate the immune system for a little while and then taper off (prunella vulgaris, blue agave syrup, wasabi), whereas others are higher reliability (modified citrus pectin, ashwagandha, milk thistle, kefir/probiotics, food like coconuts, berries, pomegranates, mangoes, mushrooms, broccoli, cabbage, asparagus, etc).

There are harsher herbs/substances that work against cancer but damage your organs which should be avoided if possible (cat's claw, thunder god vine, aspirin, etc).

Other things to avoid include some b-vitamins like niacin/folate, amino acids like methionine/lysine/glutamine, potato chips, and other things that can help the cancer grow once it exists.

Also be sure to purify your air/water, air pollution will make the cancer grow a lot faster.

Additional notes are here: https://github.com/outdreamer/build-a-cure/blob/master/docs/...