New Weapon Against Leukemia – A Drink With Microorganisms
Professor Melvyn Greaves has a great life goal – he wants to create a drink that could prevent leukemia from developing in children.
The idea of creating a drink that could prevent leukemia may sound a bit eccentric, yet professor Greaves from the Institute of Cancer Research in London is no “alternative medicine man” and his ideas are being taken quite seriously by many ontological experts.
Cleanliness is important, but…
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia begins because of a series of biological events that start with a genetic mutation that appears in about one out of every twenty children. This mutation happens in the womb making it impossible to prevent with our current knowledge.
But this mutation is not all that needs to happen. A deficient immune system is needed as well. And if a human isn’t exposed to any infections during his/her first year of life it will have negative effects on his immune system. And that is precisely where the issue lies. Nowadays many parents are obsessed with cleanliness around their children – they use antiseptic napkins, antibacterial soap etc. etc.
Plus, many babies are not breastfed or are breastfed less than they would have been in the bast. And on top of that less social contact in comparison with the previous generations is also common. All of this combined results in a lesser probability of the child being exposed to microbes. When they then get sick with a normal illness their immune system may react abnormally. As the inflammation progresses cytokines are released into the blood and they may end up causing a second mutation that in combination with the first mutation opens the floodgates to cancer.
That is why Melvyn and his colleagues started working on a drink that would include bacteria, fungi… All that good stuff that stimulates the immune system. The end goal is to find six to ten microbes that can do the best job at repairing the child’s microbiome.
We should also add that research indicates that insufficient exposure to microorganisms during childhood may lead to allergies and type I. diabetes. Thus, this drink has the potential to decrease the amount of not only leukemia but also other health issues.
Sources:
- https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/30/children-leukaemia-mel-greaves-microbes-protection-against-disease
- https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/get-help/ive-got-cancer/types-cancer/leukaemia?gclid=Cj0KCQiA05zhBRCMARIsACKDWjeKlxqH1FS1ByEa4yVK2k4-nQ1UA88oUdhKAQ_avmur2Zt6OCHp5wQaAg8ZEALw_wcB
- If you like the content I’m producing about science maybe you will like the content I produce about gaming as well! Be sure to check out my other blogs!
- @gaming-trail Where we are your everyday source of gaming-news!
- @kralizec Where I review video games and make commentaries about video games
This post has been voted on by the SteemSTEM curation team and voting trail in collaboration with @curie.
If you appreciate the work we are doing then consider voting both projects for witness by selecting stem.witness and curie!
For additional information please join us on the SteemSTEM discord and to get to know the rest of the community!
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
Thanks for sharing this news. Really helpfull.
Sounds like a bunch of crap to me. Leukemia, especially AML is quite complicated, and is not caused in many cases by "inflammation" and no amount of microbiome tinkering will help. The cancer has a genetic component and misfunctioning metabolic enzymes are the root cause of the lack of white blood cell differentiation.