I have a Facebook feed on my phone that runs day and night.
The other night I got up at about 3 in the morning to use the bathroom and as long as I was up I decided to check the feed.
Some guy was asking the world if anyone had a good place to buy raw chicken.
He said he had been buying his at Walmart without adverse results, but he was afraid there might be a little too much salmonella in it.
Too much salmonella? Like, there is an amount that is acceptable? And why would anyone in their right mind eat raw chicken anyway? As I read on I discovered that he was eating raw chicken in an attempt to cure his cancer.
It was his belief that the salmonella bacteria would kill the cancer cells.
Craziest thing I've ever heard.
But, I had a doctor tell me once that there is a little poison in every medicine, so I decided to check it out.
The first thing I found out is don't eat raw chicken.
No surprise there.
The second thing was pretty amazing though.
Researchers in Italy have been successfully treating cancer in mice with the help of salmonella bacteria.
(They aren't doing it by feeding them raw chicken though.
) I'm going to give you a basic, non-technical idea of how this works.
We have an immune system that usually does a pretty good job of keeping us healthy.
Anything it finds in our body that doesn't belong, worn out cells, bacteria etc.
, it destroys.
The problem with cancer though, is that it hides from our immune cells.
It's almost like the cancer cells have a cloaking device that makes them invisible.
The salmonella essentially turn off this "cloaking device" making the cancer visible to the immune system which then destroys the cancer.
Obviously, this is way over simplified.
However, this is basically how it works.
This technique seems to work in mice and human trials may be underway as early as this summer.
There may be treatments for specific cancers as well as a vaccine for others.
So, back to my basic question.
Can eating raw chicken cure cancer? I know that the researchers were using a genetically modified form of this bacteria.
The GMO bacteria will target the cancer cells without producing a poison that would kill the mice.
Another technique they used was combining the bacteria, cancer cells and the patients immune cells in a medium.
The bacteria actually "teach" the immune cells to recognize the cancer.
The immune cells are then injected back into the patient where they can do their job.
Bottom line, I would not eat raw chicken.
I am excited about this new research though.
Hopefully we will have a new weapon in our arsenal to fight cancer.
Your thoughts?