dichloroacetic acid

i said in my last post that this post would be about dichloroacetic acid, and the claims that it can be used to cure cancer. all the information i put here comes from wikipedia, but i'll put some more sources down the bottom for to corroborate with.
UPDATE/EDIT THINGY 19 MAY 2011: this post is getting a lot of views, especially by people who seem to be looking for ways to make dichloroacetic acid. if you need to search on the internet how to make it, you most likely don't know how to administer it, you probably don't know how to be sure it actually is DCA, you'll most likely kill yourself or whoever it is you're trying to treat. therefore, my advice to you is: don't make it yourself, if you manage to buy it from somewhere, tell a doctor, get his opinion before you ingest it, probably in one of the many ways it will kill you. remember, the word 'acid' is in the name. don't be a freaking idiot.

before i totally bore you about the facts of dichloroacetic acid, here is a picture outlining the basics of how DCA kills cancer cells. i am going to explain this in greater detail, and show that this is actually real scientific fact, not some science fiction pseudoscience.

the first website i went to was, surprise, wikipedia. its just where everyone goes to get a general idea about any subject. and, unlike other online encyclopedias, the content is usually totally up to date. when michael jackson died, i'm sure there were millions of people trying to be 'the one' to list him on wikipedia as deceased.

but i'm getting off track. the wikipedia article has a lot of big sciencey words that might leave some people confused. all that you need to know about its structure is that it is basically acetic acid, but with 2 hydrogen atoms replaced with chlorine. because the actual liquid is highly corrosive, only the salts are used as medicine. they have been made as early as 1864.
known side effect include a change in the way you walk, damage to peripheral nerves, and neurotoxicity. all these effects are easily reversible.
it does not occur in nature, although it does occur in small quanitites in chlorinated water.

it is used widely to treat lactic acidosis, which is a low pH in body tissues and blood, which means they are acidic, which is also accompanied by a build up of lactic acid, which is the reason your muscles hurt when you do plenty of excercise. 'feel the burn' and all that.
it treats the condition by changing the energy processes from glycolysis to oxidation, cellular respiration, in the mitochondria.
and thats essentially how it destroys cancer cells. because, in cancer cells, the mitochondria are, or at least were thought to be, damaged and unable to work, therefore they use glycolysis to make biological energy. the mitochondria also regulate the apoptotic response, where the cell kills itself, which can be for a variety of different reasons. the shut down of mitochondria causes the cell to become immortal, and whatever shutdown the mitochondria makes the cell 'go rogue'. it quickly performs mitosis, no matter what the other cells around it are telling it to do, creating a cancer tumour.

because it uses glycolysis to get its energy, a buildup of lactic acid is produced, which burns through other cells and allows other tumours, splinter colonies, to grow in new parts of the body.
but the dichloroacetic acid turns the mitochondria back on again, and i guess they're like
'woah, what the hells going on, man?' and make the cancer cells kill themselves.

it sounds, and is, so simple. its beautiful, really, as to how simple it is.

of course, while it has been shown to be an effective agent against most cancers, it has been found that it actually increases the mitotic rate, and decreases the rate of apoptosis, of some forms of cancers. so in some cases it could cure, and in some cases it would make things much, much worse.

the cancer applications of dichloroacetic acid (lets just call it DCA from now on, yeah?) have been known since at least 2007.

and there have been a number of deaths by people who have somehow managed to get DCA, ingested it, and died, because of course they self medicated. all of the side affects of the drug are reversible, but that doesn't mean they're not dangerous.

huh, thats actually, pretty much everything you need to know about DCA, all from wikipedia. of course, its stupid to only use one source when researching this sort of thing, so here are some other websites that have, probably the same information on it.

the official DCA/cancer cure website. likely to have plenty of bias, but undoubtedly a good place for any answers you seek.

another, i think its a blog or something, where i first heard about this thing. its where i got the picture above.

and, probably the most important article that shows this whole thing is actually real, is an article from newscientist.

also, type dichloroacetic acid into google scholar, you should find lots of scientific articles about it. all information in them are real. they are peer reviewed. they are as accurate as anything written by a human being can be. and usually really boring and hard to read.