Mice are used for medical testing of drugs all the time. A friend of mind who is both an MD and a PhD toxicologist tried to explain to me once why mice are ideal for testing drugs that could be used some day in humans but I sorta zoned out after five minutes (it was a social setting and I might have been drinking something if memory serves). When a study can be replicated and show statistically significant results then the study is moved to more "human like" subjects but when it comes to the way cancers and tumors work it's apparently 99.999% the same in mice as in humans.
Here we go again. If someone searches for a good example of journalist reporting scientific results in a very wrong why, here it is.
Not understanding difference between in vivo and in vitro study, not understanding that there are multiple and easy ways to kill cancer like hammer, fire, road roller, etc.
Sad to see another click-bait article since people get convinced that doctors and scientists are promising cure for cancer but are not able to deliver anything, big pharma secretly tries to stop progress and so on.
The paper indicates that the test were done in vivo, in mice models. They also used a synthetic version of a particular compound (melittin), as an adjuvant with an existing cancer drug. They also determined how the compound affected those cells. (plasma membranes formed pores, and interferring with cancer-signalling pathways)
"The study also found when the venom's main component was combined with existing chemotherapy drugs, it was extremely efficient at reducing tumour growth in mice."
I wish I could up-vote this 1000x. Scientific literacy is beyond lacking these days, and the number of people who even know what "in vitro" or "in vivo" actually means is even more staggering. My favorite are the people/groups who tout the toxicity of products like Roundup to skin tissue in an in vitro experiment, completely overlooking the fact that the surfactant used in Roundup to make glyphosate stick to a plant so it can be absorbed causes chemical burns to the skin if you pour it on and leave it on... which, in vitro, kills skin tissue. All of which says nothing of the toxic effects to human stomach enzymes of plants which have absobed glyphosate. But hey, it's a headline on which people will click...
Perhaps even more staggering is the illiteracy of people regarding the field of statistics. I have read that epidemiologists are constantly having to explain the statistics of their findings to MDs who know medicine but not statistics. If medical doctors are stumped by the language and rules of statistics I don't expect news editors or presenters to do any better with it.
On ‘in vitro’ and ‘in vivo’. Maybe we’d have more success communicating this difference if we didn’t expect the layperson to know jargon? Yes, it’s two words, but they’re pretty similar so confusion is inevitable.
I asked my girlfriend to sit on my lap. When she took a shit on my lap I wasn't mad though, since yes, it's two words, but they're pretty similar so confusion is inevitable.
It costs nothing to say "lab testing" instead of "in vitro". Literally the same number of syllables, zero loss of precision, and immediately understandable to a wider audience.
Testing in mice is considered lab testing though, so clearly something is getting lost in translation, no? All you really need to know to infer from context is "vivo" = "alive" and "vitro" = "glass".
I dont know why youre getting downvoted, the latin-rich terminology in medicine is pompous and unnecessary. if you want to learn anything about your own body, you better have a dictionary.
decompress a tension pneumothorax to prevent obstructive shock? depends on which site is cirucumstantially advantageous (midclavicular or midaxiallary), but generally involves palpating to locate the correct intercostal region. need a catheter of sufficient french.
or
if someone's chest is filling with air and crushing their organs, you have to find the correct space between ribs by touch. use a big needle. if the front of their chest is blocked, you can go in under the armpit.
> I dont know why youre getting downvoted, the latin-rich terminology in medicine is pompous and unnecessary.
C'mon! This may seems true for english speakers and non-romance languages. But I as a non-english native speaker, can say exactly the same about CS terminology! It is just too pompous and unnecessary, as it will in almost any other non-germanic/anglic language.
As someone who speaks a latin-derived language, "in vivo" and "in vitro" are immediately easy to infer from context. There's nothing about latin/greek that is pompous: we use words like "dentist" and "plumber" and any english speaking person knows what they mean. Personally, I believe english is the lingua franca of the world precisely because it has a large number of appropriations and thus a very large and diverse vocabulary.
Rather than expecting specialists to water down their vocabulary to cater to the uninitiated, it seems more reasonable to expect that science journalists should instead learn said jargon and learn how to interpret studies and abstracts properly. I'd go a step further and even argue that a highly educated society ought to encourage and celebrate cross-discipline learning not just by media reporters but by every individual, rather than expect everyone to meet at a mediocre common denominator.
Isn't this just a matter of medicine having chosen Latin as the international language? By that same logic we should complain that programming is done in English as well.
Yes, you have to learn a new language, no you don't have to learn all of them (which would be the case if we did not standardize on languages for specific fields).
the problem does not seem to be that people confuse the terms, but rather that they don't understand that testing something inside a living being and in a sterile container differs.
I don't think that criticism is warranted for this article. It seems quite careful to me. It says nothing about a therapy except that it's too early to talk about a therapy. It states facts and no promises are made. The only breathlessness here is that the local scientists are super excited.
Headline: "Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research study finds honeybee venom rapidly kills aggressive breast cancer cells"
"Key points:
- The research was published in the journal Nature Precision Oncology
- It found honeybee venom was effective in killing breast cancer cells
- Researchers say the discovery is exciting but there is a long way to go"
Last paragraph:
"Dr Duffy did not want to use words like breakthrough or cure, stressing this is just the beginning, and much more research needs to be done.
"There's a long way to go in terms of how we would deliver it in the body and, you know, looking at toxicities and maximum tolerated doses before it ever went further," she said."
If the article was about newly discovered action of bleach on cancer cells, and we didn't already believe that was a no-go for a therapy, that would also be an interesting article, yes.
Time will tell if this finding turns out to be useful.
Netflix has a documentary series called Unwell which dissects these modern "health therapies". They have an episode on Bee Sting therapy, which the documentary does a pretty good job of explaining fairly. I recommend this if you're curious about the state of this practice.
Bee venom is a mixture of more than 40 different compounds and its mixture varies a lot from bee to bee. Whatever effect you can get from these compounds would be better served by studying the compounds rather than nature's uncontrolled homogenisation of them.
It seems that the compound target specifically cancer cells:
"The research showed a specific concentration of the venom killed 100 per cent of triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-enriched breast cancer cells within 60 minutes, while having minimal effects on normal cells."
I feel a lot of negativity on the comments. Of course these types of news need to be taken with a grain of salt, but I doesn't take the merit of the research away. Also, it clearly states that it's in a lab environment and with mice.
These types of news help inspire people to join research/academy and it's the type of things that is always welcome. These findings were probably published somewhere in the academia, but general population doesn't see it.
When you say that dynamite also kills cancer cells, I doubt you're ever going to choose dynamite as a cancer treatment in place of other treatments that obviously underwent the same lengthy process of scientific research as this study is beginning it's journey.
We need to keep being realistic, as we might never discover a silver bullet for cancer, but it doesn't take any merit away from this research.
It's sad to see the lack of intellectual curiosity throughout the comments here. Some folks are bashing their strawman interpretations of the headline, others are complaining about scientists using precise language, while others frame scientists as money-grubbing. I guess this is what programmers do to make themselves feel better.
I've lost 6 family members to cancer, and have two cancer survivors in my family. The survivors are still around because they were young when they got sick, and because there were many possible treatments. Hopefully, this will end up in the arsenal of potential treatments to fight cancer.
> Carcinogenic effects of bee venom were evaluated in a mortality study of 580 occupationally exposed beekeepers. The subjects were identified through obituary notices published between 1949 and 1978 in three journals of the U.S. beekeeping industry. Death certificates of beekeepers were examined for causes of mortality, and proportionate mortality ratios were compared with those for the general U.S. population. Beekeepers had a slightly lower than expected fraction of deaths from cancer. The deficit of lung cancers in male beekeepers was significant (p less than 0.05) and may indicate that fewer beekeepers were cigarette smokers. The frequencies of other cancers did not differ significantly from expectation. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma developed in four persons, and was expected in two. Mortality from diseases other than cancer showed no unusual patterns. At least two persons died from accidents directly related to the care of beehives. Analysis of a subgroup of 377 males with major roles in the beekeeping industry showed no substantial differences in distribution of causes of death. This study of beekeepers reveals neither adverse nor beneficial effects of intense exposure to bee stings.
Beekeeping suggests living in the countryside and that correlates with better air quality so lower lung cancer rates aren't that surprising.
Growing up my dad kept about 15 hives. A few farms over there was this old guy from Ukraine who was an amazing bee keeper (had about 50 hives of his own). One day while extracting honey, I watched him pick up a bee and force it to sting him by his thumb (wrist area) and asked why, he told me it was like medicine for arthritis. Perhaps he was onto something?
One of the episodes of the Netflix documentary series "Unwell" gives a very interesting overview of bee sting therapy. One doctor talks about its effectiveness against arthritis, because the body releases cortisol and analgesics in response to the bee venom, which explains why people with arthritis feel better.
However, the next point made is that a more straightforward way to achieve a similar result would of course be to inject the cortisol directly, instead of provoking this response by the body by injecting toxins first.
The paper [1] Honeybee venom and melittin suppress growth factor receptor activation in HER2-enriched and triple-negative breast cancer:
> Here, we demonstrate that honeybee venom and its major component melittin potently induce cell death, particularly in the aggressive triple-negative and HER2-enriched breast cancer subtypes.
Bees are very smart their evolution must have been magnificent. I use bees' propolis[1] to treat acne and it works great. Propolis has anti-inflammatory properties.
Propolis ethanol tincture is great for all sorts of wounds, cuts, and especially burns. Amazing stuff. Nothing works better to get burns to heal faster.
Yes, many chemically simple or highly unprocessed substances from nature which are able to be harvested or produced by people who are not corrupt billion dollar chemical companies work. It's great. It's also usually better for the environment.
One I often use is colloidal silver. Basic but powerful antibacterial. Helps skin cuts heal faster simply due to killing bacteria on the surface which undermine the skin's natural wound healing process. It's not magic, it's just basic science.
51 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 42.1 ms ] threadNot understanding difference between in vivo and in vitro study, not understanding that there are multiple and easy ways to kill cancer like hammer, fire, road roller, etc.
Sad to see another click-bait article since people get convinced that doctors and scientists are promising cure for cancer but are not able to deliver anything, big pharma secretly tries to stop progress and so on.
> Dr Duffy did not want to use words like breakthrough or cure, stressing this was just the beginning and much more research needed to be done.
"The study also found when the venom's main component was combined with existing chemotherapy drugs, it was extremely efficient at reducing tumour growth in mice."
Perhaps even more staggering is the illiteracy of people regarding the field of statistics. I have read that epidemiologists are constantly having to explain the statistics of their findings to MDs who know medicine but not statistics. If medical doctors are stumped by the language and rules of statistics I don't expect news editors or presenters to do any better with it.
It costs nothing to say "lab testing" instead of "in vitro". Literally the same number of syllables, zero loss of precision, and immediately understandable to a wider audience.
In vitro is a consice term, useful to me in my profession.
decompress a tension pneumothorax to prevent obstructive shock? depends on which site is cirucumstantially advantageous (midclavicular or midaxiallary), but generally involves palpating to locate the correct intercostal region. need a catheter of sufficient french.
or
if someone's chest is filling with air and crushing their organs, you have to find the correct space between ribs by touch. use a big needle. if the front of their chest is blocked, you can go in under the armpit.
give me break.
C'mon! This may seems true for english speakers and non-romance languages. But I as a non-english native speaker, can say exactly the same about CS terminology! It is just too pompous and unnecessary, as it will in almost any other non-germanic/anglic language.
Rather than expecting specialists to water down their vocabulary to cater to the uninitiated, it seems more reasonable to expect that science journalists should instead learn said jargon and learn how to interpret studies and abstracts properly. I'd go a step further and even argue that a highly educated society ought to encourage and celebrate cross-discipline learning not just by media reporters but by every individual, rather than expect everyone to meet at a mediocre common denominator.
Yes, you have to learn a new language, no you don't have to learn all of them (which would be the case if we did not standardize on languages for specific fields).
Headline: "Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research study finds honeybee venom rapidly kills aggressive breast cancer cells"
"Key points:
- The research was published in the journal Nature Precision Oncology
- It found honeybee venom was effective in killing breast cancer cells
- Researchers say the discovery is exciting but there is a long way to go"
Last paragraph:
"Dr Duffy did not want to use words like breakthrough or cure, stressing this is just the beginning, and much more research needs to be done.
"There's a long way to go in terms of how we would deliver it in the body and, you know, looking at toxicities and maximum tolerated doses before it ever went further," she said."
My point is, this paper doesn't have a very useful finding.
Time will tell if this finding turns out to be useful.
"Bee venom in cancer therapy" (2011 )
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10555-011-9339-3
Bee venom is a mixture of more than 40 different compounds and its mixture varies a lot from bee to bee. Whatever effect you can get from these compounds would be better served by studying the compounds rather than nature's uncontrolled homogenisation of them.
"She said a component of the venom called melittin is what had the killing effect.
The researchers reproduced the melittin synthetically and found it mirrored the majority of the anti-cancer effects of the honeybee venom."
"It effectively shut down the signalling pathways for the reproduction of triple-negative and HER2 cancer cells."
"The research showed a specific concentration of the venom killed 100 per cent of triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-enriched breast cancer cells within 60 minutes, while having minimal effects on normal cells."
These types of news help inspire people to join research/academy and it's the type of things that is always welcome. These findings were probably published somewhere in the academia, but general population doesn't see it.
When you say that dynamite also kills cancer cells, I doubt you're ever going to choose dynamite as a cancer treatment in place of other treatments that obviously underwent the same lengthy process of scientific research as this study is beginning it's journey.
We need to keep being realistic, as we might never discover a silver bullet for cancer, but it doesn't take any merit away from this research.
I've lost 6 family members to cancer, and have two cancer survivors in my family. The survivors are still around because they were young when they got sick, and because there were many possible treatments. Hopefully, this will end up in the arsenal of potential treatments to fight cancer.
> Carcinogenic effects of bee venom were evaluated in a mortality study of 580 occupationally exposed beekeepers. The subjects were identified through obituary notices published between 1949 and 1978 in three journals of the U.S. beekeeping industry. Death certificates of beekeepers were examined for causes of mortality, and proportionate mortality ratios were compared with those for the general U.S. population. Beekeepers had a slightly lower than expected fraction of deaths from cancer. The deficit of lung cancers in male beekeepers was significant (p less than 0.05) and may indicate that fewer beekeepers were cigarette smokers. The frequencies of other cancers did not differ significantly from expectation. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma developed in four persons, and was expected in two. Mortality from diseases other than cancer showed no unusual patterns. At least two persons died from accidents directly related to the care of beehives. Analysis of a subgroup of 377 males with major roles in the beekeeping industry showed no substantial differences in distribution of causes of death. This study of beekeepers reveals neither adverse nor beneficial effects of intense exposure to bee stings.
Beekeeping suggests living in the countryside and that correlates with better air quality so lower lung cancer rates aren't that surprising.
However, the next point made is that a more straightforward way to achieve a similar result would of course be to inject the cortisol directly, instead of provoking this response by the body by injecting toxins first.
Also interesting (and becoming a more common treatment) is the venomous secretion from a tree frog called Kambo-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_cleanse
> Here, we demonstrate that honeybee venom and its major component melittin potently induce cell death, particularly in the aggressive triple-negative and HER2-enriched breast cancer subtypes.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41698-020-00129-0
https://xkcd.com/1217/
I hope this research leads somewhere but I doubt it will
Whenever I see this standard disclaimer I replace it with:
"Don't stop the gravy train yet!"
Still looking for analogous headlines with "crucifixes" and "holy water."
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21269259/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propolis
I'm looking forward to learn more about honey bee venom ability to kill breast cancer cells.
One I often use is colloidal silver. Basic but powerful antibacterial. Helps skin cuts heal faster simply due to killing bacteria on the surface which undermine the skin's natural wound healing process. It's not magic, it's just basic science.