Talk:Insulin potentiation therapy

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[edit] Problems with current text and duplicate article

Anonymous editor 65.126.208.78 created a copy of this article at IPT lowdose chemotherapy, which I've changed to a redirect. The editor made several changes to the new version, but rather than try to merge them all in, I'm copying the new text below, with the changed paragraphs in italics, and problematic parts in bold followed by my comments indented. (Not all of the problematic text is by the anonymous editor. This article has had problems for a while.)

IPT Lowdose Chemotherapy (IPT) uses FDA approved chemotherapy drugs potentiated by the hormone insulin. Its proponents claim that the approach delivers the same or better results than conventional chemotherapy. One of the major benefits are that side effects from the chemotherapy drugs do not occur.

Unsupported statement; also ungrammatical ("one... are"?).

This treatment has often been called Insulin Potentiation Therapy. It has been primarily used with chemotherapy drugs in the fight against cancer and therefore this name. IPT seems particularly effective fighting cancer cells, however the treatment has shown promise in managing other diseases [1]

Insulin potentiation therapy is the correct general name for this broad category of treatments; chemotherapy is one specific application of it. "IPT chemotherapy" is not a term used by medical writers; it's a redundant phrase since the "T" already stands for therapy, so it's like saying "ATM cash machine".

It is well known that insulin, which is created in the pancreas, modulates many of the bodies functions at the cellular level. The regulation of diabetes is the most well known.

This text was the same in the old version, but it really needs to be changed. The phrase "regulation of diabetes" is nonsense; insulin regulates normal body functions, and diabetes is a breakdown of that regulation.

Although yet to be proven, IPT proponents suggest that insulin modifies cancer cells receptivity to being penetrated by the cytotoxic drugs. Several in-vitro (test-tube) and animal studies have shown how hormones can affect receptivity to chemotherapy. The studies suggest that 1) cancer cells secrete their own insulin and insulin-like growth factor (IGF) which work together to consume your body's nutrients and grow the cancer and 2) Cancer cell membranes have about sixteen times more insulin receptors and Insulin Growth Factor(IGF) receptors than normal cells. These receptors are believed to cross-react with synthetic insulin. .[2][3] [4] . With this backing and with the help of dozens of trained practitioners, hundreds of patients have chosen to be treated with IPT rather than have conventional chemotherapy.

It's nice to have the links to the studies, but the last sentence is rather vague and boosterish.

How does it work

When a dose of synthetic insulin is administered, the cancer is starved for the glucose it craves. This starving action generates enzyme activity that makes the cancer cell membrane more permeable. The chemotherapy drug gets absorbed by the cancer cells. By using the very same mechanisms that cancer cells use to grow and kill people, IPT channels the chemotherapy drug directly inside the cancer cells leaving normal cells alone. Normal cells do not absorb the drug and so remain side effect free.

This is a decent attempt at explaining the principle in very simple terms, but it's vague to the point of being inaccurate (what are "the very same mechanisms that cancer cells use to grow and kill people"?), and it also overstates the unproven claim that "normal cells... remain side effect free".

We consider that this "smart bomb" phenomenon plays a central role in both the increased safety to the host, as well as increased efficacy against the cancer. The lowered doses of anticancer drugs work better due to the membrane effect that leads to the increased intracellular dose intensity. These lower systemic drug doses - but actually higher intracellular ones within cancer cells - will then more effectively damage the cancer cells via insulin's powerful metabolic effect on them.

The preceding paragraphs was copied from this article, without attribution. That is a copyright violation; please don't do it. (It was pretty easy to see something was fishy, since Wikipedia never refers to itself as "we".)

The principal proponents of this procedure is Dr. Donato Perez Garcia, the grandson of the discoverer, Dr. Donato Perez Garcia (1896-1971), who claims that IPT is especially effective with breast cancer. He suggests that it is also effective with a number of other cancers, including small-cell lung cancer and prostate cancer. Essentially, if a cancer can be significantly affected by existing chemotherapy drugs, then insulin potentiation therapy may be effective, without major side effects. The most experienced U.S. physician doing this work is Dr. Steven Ayre

The beginning of that paragraph is an unattributed copy from this page. The last sentence is an unsupported claim ("most experienced" how?).

In 2000, the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Advisory Panel on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAPCAM) invited Drs. Perez Garcia and Ayre to present IPT to them as part of the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Best Case Series program. Their comments were generally very positive and that with their support "the most likely positive outcome would be to show that this therapy is as good as standard chemotherapy but significantly less toxic, which would be a major contribution to humanity and medicine." .

This paragraph was already in the old version, but I think it's highly misleading. Judging by the link, the "generally very positive" comments did not say anything about the efficacy of IPT - only about the need for a further study.

There is enough positive evidence provided by patients that have been treated with IPT to suggest that more work is required to prove or disprove the viability of this procedure. The Elka Best Foundation is working to support research and education in this area.

Enough? Says who? It may well be true, but it's a judgment Wikipedia can't make.

The comments from the National Cancer Institute and patient experiences are in sharp contrast to the criticism below [5] Conventional chemotherapy regularly generates major side effects whereas IPT claims to eliminate those side effects for at least some patients. The main concern in the criticism surrounds the mild hypoglycemia generated by using insulin. Millions of diabetics infuse themselves with insulin every day without any supervision whereas the IPT patient is constantly monitored by trained and certified doctors and nurses. During a recent conference call with most of the major IPT practitioners, they unanimously supported the statement that "no patient has ever died as a result of IPT".

Vague wording that seems to violate NPOV guidelines; who's to say who these patients and practitioners were, or what their statements prove?

I'll try to address some of these problems myself, time permitting. ←Hob 20:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

The Uruguay study is very important to reference, as it is the first controlled clinical trial ever done on IPT for treating cancer. The results were very positive for IPT. I deleted the quackwatch citation because it is basically a negative propaganda piece, and is unethically using Wikipedia to rise to the top of Google listings for "insulin potentiation therapy". This could discourage people from looking into IPT further, thus depriving them of the possiblity of getting chemotherapy with greatly reduced or eliminated major side effects. -- Zorroz

 10-12-2005

[edit] 4th International Symposium

I removed the following paragraph:

Practioners of IPT share their experiences of integrating of IPT in their efforts to treat cancer, most recently at a the 4th International Symposium in Atlanta, Georgia in October of 2006. At the symposium, plans we're discussed to bring IPT into a therapy of repute through the development of specific treatment protocols and data accumulation consistant with the rigorous demands of the modern scientific community. The symposium abounded with well documented clinical evidence regarding IPT. A consensus regarding the value of strict clinical studies became elusive when consideration of the uniqueness of individual cases of cancer and the integral role of IPT was presented and discussed. Future study of IPT as a method of treating cancer will be supported by The Elka Best Foundation with supervision through the National Institute of Health. Co-Chairman of the Symosium, Dr. Steven Ayers correctly spoke of an effort to "herd cats" in regard to advancing the integration of IPT in treating cancer and other diseases. Clear and valuable information regarding the mediolegal aspects of practicing IPT were presented and discussed by attorney Alan Dumoff. A new and well designed website- www.iptforcancer.com was presented and is being devoloped to provide accurate and forthright information regarding IPT and its practitioners. The audience left the symposium encourged to continue in their efforts to validate IPT, share their experiences, and to continue offer it as an alternative method of treating cancer and other diseases.

Spelling errors aside, the problems with this are:

1. It's not clear what the relevant points are. That there was a conference? That practitioners are working on learning more? This is no different than any clinical field.
2. There are no sources given for this description of the event. Wikipedia is not a place for original reporting.
3. Phrases like "clear and valuable", "abounded with well documented clinical evidence", and "well designed", and unverifiable statements like "the audience left the symposium encouraged", violate WP:NPOV pretty severely. ←Hob 01:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FDA

I was disconcerted to see the FDA equated to Federal Drug Administration. It is not ! The acronym FDA stands for Food and Drug Administration. It controls the purity of both foods and drugs.

A suggestion: whenever you wikilink using "[[ ]]" use "Show Preview" and see if it works. Particularly for something as prominent as the FDA. Both FDA and Food and Drug Administration work as wikilinks, but Federal Drug Administration does not as can be seen in this sentence.

I have corrected all the places in en.wikipedia.org that Google lists as containing that error. Only four pretty good!

Nwbeeson 17:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)