Could a Genetic Mutation Provide Resistance to both AIDS and Cancer?

[bioquest]

I heard that there is a genetic mutation that can make organisms (Im not sure if they've seen this in just lb animals or people) highly resistant to AIDS, ie it takes 1000x the amount of the virus to affect them or something like that and that this genetic mutation might have helped people survive the black plague. I was wondering if people who are resistant to aids would also be highly resistant to cancer, and if people with a high resistance to aids could possibly help other people fight aids with a blood transfusion like how blood from the cancer resistant mice cured cancer. I was wondering what you guys thought about some people having a natural resistant to cancer like the cancer-resistant mice; ie do you think it's likely, possible, so implausible that's it's almost a stupid question? I think they were going to begin to look for cancer-resistant people (during this summer?) I read a quote that said "well sometimes people smoke a lot and the ones that never develop cancer are maybe cancer-resistant" but that was just a random quote...also sorry for totally misunderstanding the bone marrow quote I read before

 

[Moonbear]

1) Resistance is specific, so if someone has a resistance to one virus, it doesn't mean they'll be resistant to another.
2) While some forms of cancer might be triggered by a virus, cancer itself isn't a virus, so viral resistance wouldn't transfer to cancer resistance.
3) Resistance is genetic, not blood-borne. Transfusions would do nothing for it (and you really need to give up on this odd notion that transfusions are somehow going to cure everything you read about...I'm not sure how you got this idea, but it's REALLY misguided.)

 

[bioquest]

k I just thought blood from a resistant person would cure the non resistant person because I thought white blood cells from cancer resistant mice could cure cancer in non cancer resistant mice this is one source of that info but there are others
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060509094714.htm

I was talking about temporary resistance though, ie ability to have the disease go away via the new blood...not about the whole permanent resistance being transferred
Do you think think that using blood ie white blood cells from people who are aids resistant and/or resistant to other diseases could theoretically cure the disease they're resistant to in non-resistant people? (Sorry, it is the above info that confused me about that)
is it possible for people to be born potentially 100% resistant to cancer? How likely do you think that would potentially be?

 

[jim mcnamara]

Yes, cancer remission is real. One hypothesis is that the patient's immune system, for whatever reason reacted against the tissues as foreign.

All of this kind of stuff is not usually backed by anything other than some clinical observation - which is not really any kind of a scientific study.

Since you seem to jump to unwarranted conclusions let's try this.

First off, pubmed or nih is probably the best place for you to check those weird claims from the ads above. Secondly, a lot of the stuff you veer off towards has BAD after effects, sometimes even fatal. Monnbear is trying to tell you that, over and over again. I kinda gave up. Last try.

So - Here is a link to an nih page. I picked something that has a broad range good -> bad depending on what "claim" you are interested in.

This page deals with claims about fish oil supplements. Fish oil supplements have LOTS AND LOTS of hype out there. The page is trying to give a reasonable summation of what is currently known. Notice that sometimes fish oil in large amounts may actually be dangerous. Other times it is known to be beneficial. When you want to know if something has merit (in this case it's fish oil supplements) try going to a decent source.
The medlineplus section at nih is meant to be readable by non-scientists, for example. Consider bookmarking this page, so you can go to any of the other features later on.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/patient-fishoil.html

 

[bioquest]

I think someone said before NewScientist (it may have been a different source though that they said was bad) was a bad source of info? could anyone verify whether or not this was accurate/probably accurate?

I really understand now though that the body's a lot more fragile than I used to think about and how things can be more fatal/dangerous than I thought they could be

I also get what you're saying about sources, i can look elsewhere for info like this but I just read this now I just wondered what ppl though about the below info/accuracy of it

Immune cells from "cancer-resistant" people are to be injected into those with cancer to help fight the disease.

Zheng Cui at Wake Forest University of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and his colleagues have received permission from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to screen people for their ability to ward off cancer. Immune cells from the best cancer fighters will be given to cancer patients, after being matched for blood type.

All of us have some ability to fight cancer, via immune cells called NK cells which can identify and kill tumour cells, although the extent of these cells' influence is not known. But Cui has now discovered that a much larger population of immune cells called granulocytes can also kill cancer and that the effectiveness of these cells varies from person to person.

Cui took blood samples from more than 100 people and mixed their granulocytes with cervical cancer cells. While granulocytes from one individual killed around 97 per cent of cancer cells within 24 hours, those from another healthy individual only killed around 2 per cent of cancer cells. Average cancer-killing ability appeared to be lower in adults over the age of 50 and even lower in people with cancer. It also fell when people were stressed, and at certain times of the year. "Nobody seems to have any cancer-killing ability during the winter months from November to April," says Cui, who presented preliminary results at the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence meeting in Cambridge, UK, earlier this month.

“All people possesses some cancer-fighting ability, though it is lower when people are stressed and at certain times of the year”
Initial evidence suggests it may be possible to transfer the ability to fight off cancer between people. Granulocytes are already taken from donors and given to some patients whose immune systems have been depleted by chemotherapy, for example, though not to treat cancer directly. And last year Cui successfully treated a range of different cancers in mice by injecting them with granulocytes from a strain of mice that are completely resistant to cancer (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0602382103).

Cui hopes to begin human trials next summer in the US, when the immune systems of potential granulocyte donors will be at their peak.

"The concept of using immune cells from one person to fight cancer in another person is a very hot topic right now," says John Gribben, a cancer immunologist at Cancer Research UK's experimental medicine centre at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London.

However, if Cui plans to try this therapy in people, he will have to be very careful, Gribben says. "If they're using live cells there is a theoretical risk of graft-versus-host disease, which can prove fatal." This is a particular problem in patients with depleted immune systems, where transfused cells may proliferate and take over the host's immune system, eventually destroying cells in the bone marrow. Cui says he is working with the FDA to minimise this risk.

 

[bioquest]

My friend said there would be no complete resistance to cancer anyway due to DNA damage and mutations

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I think someone said before NewScientist (it may have been a different source though that they said was bad) was a bad source of info? could anyone verify whether or not this was accurate/probably accurate?

Is New Scientist accurate as a source? With any magazine I'd check the cited papers if you are in doubt. New Scientist tends to be as accurate as the information they are given. They're like any other fairly mainstream magazine though, subject to error. They're not as bad as the newspapers (I don't think that's actually possible anyway) they're not as good as a credible journal.

Think of them like a scientific wikipedia, their articles are only as good as the citations given.