>Part of our immune defences - a white blood cell called a T-cell - can swoop in and destroy the spreading cancer as it tries to take root.
>But the study showed that another part of our blood - the platelets that normally stop bleeding - were suppressing the T-cells and making it harder for them to take out the cancer.
>Aspirin disrupts the platelets and removes their influence over the T-cells so they can hunt out the cancer.
Nice summary, this seems like another adaptation that was super useful 10,000 years ago and is less so today.
It would be nice if our bodies could adapt to modernity quicker, like don't prioritize blood clotting over immune defenses, I can just get some more band-aids on the off chance I cut myself in our very safe world.
Don't preserve calories in case we are starving in the future, just build muscles and heal injuries recklessly I can hit up the grocery store if we need more nutrients.
On a ~80 year scale you'd be correct for some of the world. But if you live in the "wrong" part of the world even in the last 80 years, just one "build muscle and heal injuries recklessly" may have resulted in more damage than good, coz the "grocery store" doesn't exist.
The problem is also that if you "adapt fast" to "recklessness", then many people die fast before they would not be able to adapt back if necessary.
Got wounded in a conflict zone cut off from supplies for months? Too bad, coz your body adapted to grocery store being close and unfortunately your body decided to just never put on weight in the first place, so now you have zero reserves to use up and ... you die.
Watch "Alone". Some of the guys are adapted to never put on much weight and that's a real problem for them. They have a TV show safety net. If it was real, they'd be dead.
Something I've been wondering is to what extent we're gut-efficiency-limited rather than calorie-limited.
There's plenty of research showing that brain development and food preparation went hand in hand (cooking allows humans to liberate more calories from food with the same sized gut, allowing us both to be pretty mobile and have more energy available to run our large and energy-hungry brains).
If you look at the way guts are built, clearly nature/evolution is trying to pack as much intestine as possible into a limited space.
Certainly increasing calorie availability beyond a certain point isn't a good thing - our brains can't burn more than a certain amount, and most of us, Michael Phelps excepted, don't like making our bodies do the same - but I wonder to what extent our design-constraints put limits on our ability to absorb non-calorie nutrients.
On the one hand you have a supplement industry who will say anything to make a buck, and are infected with pseudoscience and woo, but on the other, the standard med-sci advice of "just eat a balance diet, it's impossible to improve on that" seems kind of glib and baseless.
I've been an observer of this sphere since ~2017, have implemented various Peat-related concepts towards my own health and fitness, to overall positive results. What's interesting is seeing more and more of these theories - under the theme of 'bioenergetics' - starting to be proven out even in conventional research.
I looked up Ray Peat because I was unfamiliar with him.
I'm sure some of his advice has backing to it. A lot of it doesn't. A good amount of it even has a fair body of evidence against the claim (like Alzheimer's can be stopped by using tobacco).
This is classic highlighting hits while ignoring misses. A quack that tells you to exercise and eat 5lbs of raw chicken every day can be right about the exercise, that doesn't mean their raw chicken diet is also valid.
"There is some evidence that exposure to nicotine, which is one of the components of cigarette smoke, can actually reduce the risk of dementia. Such reports may be useful in indicating possible research directions for drug design.
However, nicotine intake through smoking would not be beneficial. Any positive effects would be outweighed by the significant harm caused by the other toxic components in cigarette smoke."
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-ri...
> I'm sure some of his advice has backing to it. A lot of it doesn't. A good amount of it even has a fair body of evidence against the claim (like Alzheimer's can be stopped by using tobacco).
Can you post the quote/reference for this? At worst I would think he referenced some observational study about smokers - people ingesting significant nicotine - having lowered incidences of Alzheimer's. That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest because we see the same types of studies for things like caffeine.
Mild stimulants and metabolism boosters in particular (energy and metabolism are the core of Peat's theories) are likely associated with protective effects.
So please post specifics from Peat, and be careful to avoid internet broken telephone - a lot of people attribute quotes and ideas to him that he never said nor endorsed.
Devil of a time digging up the original source, but here it is.
> People who take aspirin, drink coffee, and use tobacco, have a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than people who don’t use those things. Caffeine inhibits brain phospholipase, making it neuroprotective in a wide spectrum of conditions. In recent tests, aspirin has been found to prevent the misfolding of the prion protein, and even to reverse the misfolded beta sheet conformation, restoring it to the harmless normal conformation. Nicotine might have a similar effect, preventing deposition of amyloid fibrils and disrupting those already formed (Ono, et al., 2002). Vitamin E, aspirin, progesterone, and nicotine also inhibit phospholipase, which contributes to their antiinflammatory action. Each of the amyloid-forming proteins probably has molecules that interfere with its toxic accumulation.
It's ironic that your knee jerk reaction was to choose one thing (nicotine for brain issues like Alzheimer's) that surely must be quackery, right? I mean, it's so obvious that there's no need to look it up.
And yet, if you'd researched it, you'd have found that it's an active area of research, not just for Alzheimer's treatment, but for several types of brain injury.
It won't be a miracle cure. And of course all of these articles are quick to point out that even if nicotine is potentially beneficial, smoking is still definitely bad for your health, and that's a strong confounding factor.
There's cause for caution and I personally wouldn't start using nicotine or recommending it at this point. But it's not something to dismiss out of hand as "quackery", either. It seems more and more likely that the cure for Alzheimer's won't be a single drug, but rather a combination of several things: lifestyle changes, supplements, and drugs all working together. Nicotine might well play a role in this.
At this point, I think it would be right to call Ray Peat out for overstating the efficacy of an uproven treatment, but unfair to label him as a quack, at least based on this piece of evidence.
You've weakened what Pete said to make him more reasonable (Motte and Baily). He didn't call for simple nicotine consumption, he called for tobacco use.
That's where the quackery enters. Taking something with a kernel of truth and then expanding it past what the research says into unsafe practices.
This is how a lot of quacks work.
> People who take aspirin, drink coffee, and use tobacco, have a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than people who don’t use those things.
> People who take aspirin, drink coffee, and use tobacco, have a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than people who don’t use those things
This is true though.
Tobacco smokers do have a lower incidence of Alzheimer's compared to non-smokers.
This strange fact is what started the research, as noted in several of the links I shared.
Of course, for smokers, it's offset by higher cancer, higher dementia, all kinds of other problems.
> He didn't call for simple nicotine consumption, he called for tobacco use.
Are you sure? I'm not familiar with Ray Peat but I've just spent a few minutes researching and it seems like the man himself never said this, but rather his followers took quotes out of context - like the one you shared - and ran with it.
As far as I can see, he recommends using patches rather than smoking. If I'm wrong, can you find a quote from him (not someone else cherry picking his writing) specifically reccomending smoking?
Tesla had a scientific foundation for inventions like alternating current because he could do the experiments.
He didn't just story-tell about how they might be true like how Peat claims walnuts are carcinogenic due to unsaturated fat and sucrose cures disease and his other crockpot ideas.
When one or two of his ideas happen to sound reasonable, it's the research that should get the epistemic credit, not a guy shotgunning 100 dumb ideas. What about all his claims that go against the evidence like avocados being carcinogenic due to unsaturated fat?
This is a common problem with cult followings. Their followers keep bringing you claims to debunk, they watch them get debunked, and they never stop to ask themself why they are still playing human centipede with the guy shitting these claims into their mouth.
And debunking claims is how we know the earth is round and the sun is at the center of the solar system. It sounds like you're real issue is with the cult followers who believe everything.
His followers might have serious health conditions and might be grasping for straws. You can't blame them, really. Better to address the source of overstated claims.
Also, if someone tells lies then even if there is only a small fraction of people who believe them, then the law of large numbers on the internet says that these lies will get amplified.
Can you provide some examples that back up your statement?
Edit: Some people are getting angry (and in some cases, deleting their comments). Let me be clearer: I have no idea who Ray Peat is. The OP commented that Peat is a "quack" and I was just asking why, because they didn't provide any supporting documentation.
Oddly enough, I just now discovered that I used to live down the street from Peat, before he passed away. I don't recall ever meeting him, though.
Many appear to be public information. Here are some listed on his RationalWiki entry:
Avocados
Peat claimed that avocados are carcinogenic because they contain a lot of unsaturated fat.[8] Like all the other nonsense he spouted, he failed to back up this ridiculous claim with any scientific evidence.
Orange juice
Peat was a big fan of orange juice which he said is "anti-estrogenic".[41] He also claimed that orange juice is good because it raises people's cholesterol.[42] There is not any evidence in the medical literature that shows orange juice consumption raises cholesterol. Studies have found the opposite, as it lows LDL-c and total cholesterol.[43][44] A 2022 review of clinical trials found that orange juice significantly reduces circulating total cholesterol levels.[45] Everything Peat said about foods should be fact-checked because in most cases he was entirely wrong in what he had claimed.
It's important to actually read sources when it comes to controversial people and topics, rather than trusting some Wiki's summation of something. The Wiki completely misrepresents what Dr. Peat said.
The quote in question: "Not all fruits, of course, are perfectly safe--avocados, for example, contain so much unsaturated fat that they can be carcinogenic and hepatotoxic."
Note that phrasing "can be", "Not... perfectly safe.". Also btw, did you know that carrots "can be" hepatotoxic (toxic to the liver) because of all the vitamin A? This doesn't mean that carrots are bad, but rather that they shouldn't be an excessively large part of one's daily diet. They are not "perfectly safe".
Let's examine how Peat came to this idea based on the research. Remember, the actual claim is that "avocados.. can be carcinogenic and hepatotixic." Not that avocados cause cancer. That is not what he wrote. That wiki article has a clear bias.
Anyways, his research for the actual claim:
"In Vivo 1998 Nov-Dec;12(6):675-89. Comparative anticancer effects of vaccination and dietary factors on experimentally-induced cancers. ... Experiments in mammary glands cancer showed that a 15% olive-oil diet reduced significantly the tumor incidence caused by 9,10-dimethyl-1,2-benzanthracene. The antitumor effect of the olive-oil diet was connected to its content of monounsaturated fatty acids, such as oleic and palmitic acids. The promotive tumorigenic effects of other high-fat diets (avocado, soybeans) were associated with high content of some polyunsaturated fatty acids (linoleic and alpha-linolenic). Different diets have different targets. The effect of the same diet depends on its anti-tumor substances content. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccination and some diets have similar mechanism in their tumor-preventive effects."
"Ann Nutr Metab 1991;35(5):253-60. Effect of dietary avocado oils on hepatic collagen metabolism. Wermam MJ, Mokady S, Neeman I Department of Food Engineering and Biotechnology, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. The effect of various avocado and soybean oils on collagen metabolism in the liver was studied in growing female rats for 8 weeks and in day-old chicks for 1 week. In comparison with rats fed either refined avocado oil, refined or unrefined soybean oils, rats fed unrefined avocado oil showed a significant decrease in total collagen solubility in the liver, while there were no changes in total collagen, protein and moisture content. Chicks fed unrefined avocado oil as compared to those fed refined avocado oil also showed a decrease in hepatic total soluble collagen while hepatic total collagen remained unaffected. Electron micrographs and light-microscope examinations of rats' liver revealed collagen accumulation in the periportal location. This is suggestive of the early stages of fibrosis."
All he did was link real-world research to a possible hypothesis. A logical argument. Now you can criticize this argument and say that we can't draw any such conclusions from in vivo and animal model experiments, but at least then you'd be actually engaging with the content of the ideas, not outsourcing your thinking to a poorly-written Wiki article.
Cherry picking bits and pieces of research and then escalating them to much more general claims then they actually make really is the essence of good quality quackery though.
"avocados, for example, contain so much unsaturated fat that they can be carcinogenic and hepatotoxic" is exactly what he says in the article text. That explicitly read as "consumption of avocados can cause cancer", not the much weaker claim "it's possible that there's a mechanism by which avocados might cause cancer or be hepatotoxic but we don't actually know", which is what you actually get if you look at those reference.
Even the quotes he chooses are mismatched to what he says in the text. The liver one is about dietary avocado oils specifically, not avocados generally, and has the weakest possible conclusion that the chicks have something "suggestive of early stages of fibrosis" for unrefined but not refined. It's beyond just in vivo and animal model limitations, it: doesn't address dietary avocado consumption and doesn't conclusively show liver toxicity. That this reference is so weak, and yet the one he chose, is itself quite damning.
> The team at the University of Cambridge said it was an exciting and surprise discovery that could eventually lead to cancer patients being prescribed the drug - but not yet and people are advised against just taking the pills themselves.
While the Ethics Panel and solicitors may have ordered the researchers to say that, I'm thinking that anyone with serious cancer should (1) start taking aspirin, (2) read a bit about aspirin side-effects and contra-indications, then (3) let their doctor know that they did (1) and (2).
There are risks to taking aspirin everyday, including an increased risk of hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke, so it's important to weigh the pros and cons. That is difficult before sufficient research has been done to identify who benefits and how much, but it's certainly something to consider.
Note my prior "... anyone with serious cancer should (1) ..." disclaimer.
If the cancer that you already have is (say) 10% likely to kill you, then waiting several years - for researchers to nail down details - is likely far riskier than taking aspirin now.
(No, you can't be an idiot about it. Aspirin at 50g/kg would kill you faster than any cancer could, etc., etc.)
If you're already on cancer, I'm wondering if you're already on other medical interventions, and now I'm wondering how aspirin will interact with those.
I am not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV. But if I understand correctly, there are two types of strokes: hemorrhagic strokes (strokes caused by bleeding in the brain) and... I don't know the technical term, but clot-based strokes (a blood clot blocks an artery in the brain). And if I understand correctly, clot-based strokes are something like 80% of strokes - they're four times as likely as hemorrhagic strokes.
So isn't aspirin a net win anyway? You may increase your odds of a hemorrhagic stroke, but decrease your odds of the other kind of stroke, and the other kind is more common. (Unless you have some reason to think that you are more susceptible to hemorrhagic strokes than the other kind.)
Corrections welcome, especially ones with data.
Note well: This is not medical advice. Consult a doctor, not randos on the internet.
I'm not a doctor either, just a postgrad pre-med student with a heart problem (so I read a lot about the heart). I know just enough to be dangerous, but I do know you're right about the two types of stroke and the benefit of aspirin in preventing ischemic strokes (clots).
And until recently, daily aspirin was recommended for that, even for people with no history of heart disease. But AIUI, now the American Heart Association (2019) [1], U.S. Preventive Service Task Force (2022) [2], and the European Society of Cardiology (2019) [3] all say that for people with no history of cardiovascular disease, daily aspirin has little to no net benefit in younger patients and increases mortality in older patients.
Of course, the possibility of preventing metastasis adds another benefit, and may tip the balance back in favor of aspirin therapy.
The main risk from aspirin isn't hemorrhagic strokes, it's GI bleeds. There are other blood thinners that are considered safer at an appropriate dose, including warfarin (the same stuff that, at higher doses, is used as rat poison). Getting dose right with this stuff is very important and varies from individual to individual. Not something that's ethical to mess with at "shotgunning the population" level (or even as a DIY thing), IMO.. there's a reason they put iodine and folate in bread, but not this stuff.
You are assuming the pre-intervention incidence of each type of stroke is a guide to the effect size of the intervention on each, which isn't, as a rule, a justified assumption.
> While the Ethics Panel and solicitors may have ordered the researchers to say that
Is there any evidence that the researchers believe otherwise? Often, people on HN accuse researchers and news of overstating results.
> I'm thinking that anyone with serious cancer should
Why should anyone trust you with treatment for "serious cancer"? Does your advice depend on what kind of cancer? The location in the body? Other factors in the patient's health?
More life-and-death advice from an Internet rando. I think I'll ask my doctor, who has examined me, has seen thousands of cancer patients, studied the human body, health, and cancer for decades, talks to other such experts (rather than fielding ideas on HN), ...
As I recall, there are some studies that show that a daily baby aspirin can be helpful for general heart health. I you were taking an adult aspirin, that may have been the issue.
> I think it's safe to say if it's recommended for cancerous old folks, it's safe to take for average people.
I'm not sure why you would think that. There are many things we are willing to prescribe to older people because they are unlikely to suffer long-term negative effects.
I had a heart bypass 29 years ago and my daily meds since then included a baby aspirin, but a year or so ago the occasional rectal bleeding got really bad. Stopped the aspirin and the bleeding went away.
What works in mice doesn't always translate to humans, and aspirin's risks (like internal bleeding) mean it's not a simple "just take it" solution... Yet still it could be a game-changer for early-stage cancer treatment
Oddly critical that this research is going on in London. If this were in the US then current efforts to shut down the National Institute of Health would have everything about present and future in a muddle.
Enteric-coated aspirin is safer, but it does nothing. It is best to take plain aspirin with vitamin C and/or DGL - studies show both protect the lining of the stomach from ulcers. That's why Aspirin C in Europe is the best combo! Haidut, one of the most prominent Ray Peat's followers and translators, if I could characterize him like this, told me that he just combines aspirin with collagen, and it does the same thing.
As instructed, I asked chatgpt to characterize your comment:
“““
[...]
Irrelevant to Cancer Discussion – In the context of the BBC article about aspirin preventing cancer spread, this comment is only tangentially related. It does not engage with the article’s findings about aspirin's effect on cancer cells and instead focuses on aspirin's formulation and stomach safety, which is a separate discussion. The comment seems to use the article as a springboard for discussing a niche health opinion rather than engaging with the core scientific findings presented.
Overall Characterization:
The comment is opinionated, alternative-health-oriented, and off-topic regarding the article's cancer discussion. It reflects a niche perspective influenced by Ray Peat’s followers, prioritizing aspirin’s stomach safety over its potential anti-cancer benefits. While it might offer practical advice for those concerned about aspirin’s side effects, it does not directly contribute to the scientific discussion in the BBC article.
”””
I hate these types of headlines that omit an important part of the context: The study was conducted in mice. We're not mice.
The results are encouraging but in no way conclusive for humans. They open for the opportunity for broader studies, studies in humans. That's all they do.
The question was how it works and as far as I know you can't legally yet use genetically engineered humans to suppress a gene, induce cancer and test a theory.
How would you test this theory on human (safely) ?
Yeah, more or less. A risk assessment for the study is done and submitted and there's many more layers of beurocracy (both the good human-protective kind and the less-good regulatory capture kind). Providing things like information on effects and generalized consent forms and whatnot are included so the patient is given prior understandings of what the effects might be, from animal studies or previous human studies in some cases if you're testing for a novel effect in an existing treatment, for example, have determined might occur. You then, ideally, do a double blind study on the group of participants.
You missed my point, how would you safely analyze aspirin mechanism over t-cell in humans, without relying on genetically engineered humans with suppressed genes ?
If the scientist went to use genetically modified mice, I assume it's because there is no easier, non invasive test, to analyze the influence of platelets over the T-cell behavior. Like using a microscope or chemicals.
I'm not talking about signing a form but the technical aspect. However if you know how, please share, it would be interesting.
It was an honest misunderstanding. I am completely ignorant on this subject, honestly trying to understand something.
Like, why would the humans need to have a specific generic configuration? Only with some specific genes the T-Cells are affected by platelets? This is not something that happens on every human?
I just reread the article and went to look for the publication.
> The discovery, published in the journal Nature, happened by accident as the scientists were not researching aspirin.
> The team in Cambridge were investigating how the immune system responded to cancers when they spread.
> They were using genetically engineered mice and found those lacking a specific set of genetic instructions were less likely to get metastatic cancer that had spread.
From the publication :
> Here we show that inhibitors of cyclooxygenase 1 (COX-1), including aspirin, enhance immunity to cancer metastasis by releasing T cells from suppression by platelet-derived thromboxane A2 (TXA2).
Safe to say my assumption was wrong, they didn't use generally modified mouse because they had no other choice but because they were looking for something else.
> This is not something that happens on every human?
It's usually much harder in science to understand and prove the 'how' than it is to check the 'if'. To prove a mechanism you got to be able to track it, for instance by using radioactive product, or use such a way that you refute all other casualties.
I think in that case, it would have been possible to prove the mechanism by using several different inhibitors of cyclooxygenase, checking if the effect on spreading cancer is still there. If yes, it's a good indication of casualties.
I don’t understand why they are still referring to acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) as Aspirin.
Aspirin today can be a mixture of ingredients but what the described effects are about is ASA.
A mixture of ingredients? If you mean a standard aspirin tablet, it will have fillers and binders in it to keep the tablet together and help it break down in the GI tract and etc, but in essence anything labeled aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid.
If I was a copy editor and read the draft title "Scientists crack how acetylsalicylic acid might stop cancers from spreading" I would stop the author right there.
Stuff that allows it to form a solid block instead of powder. Stuff to time how long it takes to dissolve (how else can there be fast-acting and slow-acting versions?) Stuff to make the pills large enough to see with your eyes. A grain of sand is about 20 milligrams. Low-dose aspirin is 80 milligrams, but the pill is a much more convenient size than 4 grains of sand. (or 8 grains of sand, since sand is about twice as dense as pure ASA)
I am GP and did more research and need to post a correction but it's too late to edit my former comment.
The grain, in terms of weight, is 64.8 milligrams, or much more than a even a course grain of sand, which it turns out, is somewhere around 1 milligram, ranging from 0.04 mg for fine sand to 4 mg for very course sand, average around 0.3.
ASA is an unfortunate acronym here: You might consider the Accessible Surface Area of immune-system proteins, in accessing interaction with the aspirin molecule!
>Part of our immune defences - a white blood cell called a T-cell - can swoop in and destroy the spreading cancer as it tries to take root.
>But the study showed that another part of our blood - the platelets that normally stop bleeding - were suppressing the T-cells and making it harder for them to take out the cancer.
>Aspirin disrupts the platelets and removes their influence over the T-cells so they can hunt out the cancer.
Nice summary, this seems like another adaptation that was super useful 10,000 years ago and is less so today.
It would be nice if our bodies could adapt to modernity quicker, like don't prioritize blood clotting over immune defenses, I can just get some more band-aids on the off chance I cut myself in our very safe world. Don't preserve calories in case we are starving in the future, just build muscles and heal injuries recklessly I can hit up the grocery store if we need more nutrients.
On a ~80 year scale you'd be correct for some of the world. But if you live in the "wrong" part of the world even in the last 80 years, just one "build muscle and heal injuries recklessly" may have resulted in more damage than good, coz the "grocery store" doesn't exist.
The problem is also that if you "adapt fast" to "recklessness", then many people die fast before they would not be able to adapt back if necessary.
Got wounded in a conflict zone cut off from supplies for months? Too bad, coz your body adapted to grocery store being close and unfortunately your body decided to just never put on weight in the first place, so now you have zero reserves to use up and ... you die.
Watch "Alone". Some of the guys are adapted to never put on much weight and that's a real problem for them. They have a TV show safety net. If it was real, they'd be dead.
That’s a very interesting thought. Presumably stuff like CRISPR will make our meat code open source and we’ll be able to deploy hot fixes ourselves.
In your future children, maybe. Chasing down and editing the DNA of live somatic cells in a meaningful way is basically impossible.
Natural selection only favors adaptations that help us create more surviving offspring to spread genes to the next generations.
Something I've been wondering is to what extent we're gut-efficiency-limited rather than calorie-limited.
There's plenty of research showing that brain development and food preparation went hand in hand (cooking allows humans to liberate more calories from food with the same sized gut, allowing us both to be pretty mobile and have more energy available to run our large and energy-hungry brains).
If you look at the way guts are built, clearly nature/evolution is trying to pack as much intestine as possible into a limited space.
Certainly increasing calorie availability beyond a certain point isn't a good thing - our brains can't burn more than a certain amount, and most of us, Michael Phelps excepted, don't like making our bodies do the same - but I wonder to what extent our design-constraints put limits on our ability to absorb non-calorie nutrients.
On the one hand you have a supplement industry who will say anything to make a buck, and are infected with pseudoscience and woo, but on the other, the standard med-sci advice of "just eat a balance diet, it's impossible to improve on that" seems kind of glib and baseless.
Helpful summary, thanks.
are you saying that if i had cancer all i'd have to do is to take aspirin?
There's a niche online health community which follows the work of a late Dr. Ray Peat, who have been touting the benefits of aspirin for a long time:
https://raypeat.com/articles/aging/aspirin-brain-cancer.shtm...
Some of Dr. Peat's disciples have even begun their own independent cancer research (in mice) trying to prove efficacy of far more basic interventions:
https://x.com/haidut/status/1751716166387597730
I've been an observer of this sphere since ~2017, have implemented various Peat-related concepts towards my own health and fitness, to overall positive results. What's interesting is seeing more and more of these theories - under the theme of 'bioenergetics' - starting to be proven out even in conventional research.
I looked up Ray Peat because I was unfamiliar with him.
I'm sure some of his advice has backing to it. A lot of it doesn't. A good amount of it even has a fair body of evidence against the claim (like Alzheimer's can be stopped by using tobacco).
This is classic highlighting hits while ignoring misses. A quack that tells you to exercise and eat 5lbs of raw chicken every day can be right about the exercise, that doesn't mean their raw chicken diet is also valid.
"There is some evidence that exposure to nicotine, which is one of the components of cigarette smoke, can actually reduce the risk of dementia. Such reports may be useful in indicating possible research directions for drug design.
However, nicotine intake through smoking would not be beneficial. Any positive effects would be outweighed by the significant harm caused by the other toxic components in cigarette smoke." https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-ri...
Nicotine is cheaply available in pill, patch and gum form.
> I'm sure some of his advice has backing to it. A lot of it doesn't. A good amount of it even has a fair body of evidence against the claim (like Alzheimer's can be stopped by using tobacco).
Can you post the quote/reference for this? At worst I would think he referenced some observational study about smokers - people ingesting significant nicotine - having lowered incidences of Alzheimer's. That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest because we see the same types of studies for things like caffeine.
Mild stimulants and metabolism boosters in particular (energy and metabolism are the core of Peat's theories) are likely associated with protective effects.
So please post specifics from Peat, and be careful to avoid internet broken telephone - a lot of people attribute quotes and ideas to him that he never said nor endorsed.
Devil of a time digging up the original source, but here it is.
> People who take aspirin, drink coffee, and use tobacco, have a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than people who don’t use those things. Caffeine inhibits brain phospholipase, making it neuroprotective in a wide spectrum of conditions. In recent tests, aspirin has been found to prevent the misfolding of the prion protein, and even to reverse the misfolded beta sheet conformation, restoring it to the harmless normal conformation. Nicotine might have a similar effect, preventing deposition of amyloid fibrils and disrupting those already formed (Ono, et al., 2002). Vitamin E, aspirin, progesterone, and nicotine also inhibit phospholipase, which contributes to their antiinflammatory action. Each of the amyloid-forming proteins probably has molecules that interfere with its toxic accumulation.
https://raypeat.com/articles/aging/madcow.shtml
It's ironic that your knee jerk reaction was to choose one thing (nicotine for brain issues like Alzheimer's) that surely must be quackery, right? I mean, it's so obvious that there's no need to look it up.
And yet, if you'd researched it, you'd have found that it's an active area of research, not just for Alzheimer's treatment, but for several types of brain injury.
https://discoveries.vanderbilthealth.com/2019/09/nicotine-to...
https://www.science.org/content/article/nicotine-and-alzheim...
https://www.healthline.com/health/alzheimers-dementia/nicoti...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1670208/ (Nicotine for Alzheimer's)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35138210/ (Nicotine for traumatic brain injury).
It won't be a miracle cure. And of course all of these articles are quick to point out that even if nicotine is potentially beneficial, smoking is still definitely bad for your health, and that's a strong confounding factor.
There's cause for caution and I personally wouldn't start using nicotine or recommending it at this point. But it's not something to dismiss out of hand as "quackery", either. It seems more and more likely that the cure for Alzheimer's won't be a single drug, but rather a combination of several things: lifestyle changes, supplements, and drugs all working together. Nicotine might well play a role in this.
At this point, I think it would be right to call Ray Peat out for overstating the efficacy of an uproven treatment, but unfair to label him as a quack, at least based on this piece of evidence.
You've weakened what Pete said to make him more reasonable (Motte and Baily). He didn't call for simple nicotine consumption, he called for tobacco use.
That's where the quackery enters. Taking something with a kernel of truth and then expanding it past what the research says into unsafe practices.
This is how a lot of quacks work.
> People who take aspirin, drink coffee, and use tobacco, have a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than people who don’t use those things.
> People who take aspirin, drink coffee, and use tobacco, have a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than people who don’t use those things
This is true though.
Tobacco smokers do have a lower incidence of Alzheimer's compared to non-smokers.
This strange fact is what started the research, as noted in several of the links I shared.
Of course, for smokers, it's offset by higher cancer, higher dementia, all kinds of other problems.
> He didn't call for simple nicotine consumption, he called for tobacco use.
Are you sure? I'm not familiar with Ray Peat but I've just spent a few minutes researching and it seems like the man himself never said this, but rather his followers took quotes out of context - like the one you shared - and ran with it.
As far as I can see, he recommends using patches rather than smoking. If I'm wrong, can you find a quote from him (not someone else cherry picking his writing) specifically reccomending smoking?
I mean, I don't care about all of the failed Tesla work, nor his odd life. But I sure do like my transmitted electricity.
Tesla had a scientific foundation for inventions like alternating current because he could do the experiments.
He didn't just story-tell about how they might be true like how Peat claims walnuts are carcinogenic due to unsaturated fat and sucrose cures disease and his other crockpot ideas.
When one or two of his ideas happen to sound reasonable, it's the research that should get the epistemic credit, not a guy shotgunning 100 dumb ideas. What about all his claims that go against the evidence like avocados being carcinogenic due to unsaturated fat?
This is a common problem with cult followings. Their followers keep bringing you claims to debunk, they watch them get debunked, and they never stop to ask themself why they are still playing human centipede with the guy shitting these claims into their mouth.
And debunking claims is how we know the earth is round and the sun is at the center of the solar system. It sounds like you're real issue is with the cult followers who believe everything.
His followers might have serious health conditions and might be grasping for straws. You can't blame them, really. Better to address the source of overstated claims.
Also, if someone tells lies then even if there is only a small fraction of people who believe them, then the law of large numbers on the internet says that these lies will get amplified.
Ray Peat is as quacky as health quacks can get. Completely nuts.
Can you provide some examples that back up your statement?
Edit: Some people are getting angry (and in some cases, deleting their comments). Let me be clearer: I have no idea who Ray Peat is. The OP commented that Peat is a "quack" and I was just asking why, because they didn't provide any supporting documentation.
Oddly enough, I just now discovered that I used to live down the street from Peat, before he passed away. I don't recall ever meeting him, though.
Many appear to be public information. Here are some listed on his RationalWiki entry:
Avocados
Peat claimed that avocados are carcinogenic because they contain a lot of unsaturated fat.[8] Like all the other nonsense he spouted, he failed to back up this ridiculous claim with any scientific evidence.
Orange juice
Peat was a big fan of orange juice which he said is "anti-estrogenic".[41] He also claimed that orange juice is good because it raises people's cholesterol.[42] There is not any evidence in the medical literature that shows orange juice consumption raises cholesterol. Studies have found the opposite, as it lows LDL-c and total cholesterol.[43][44] A 2022 review of clinical trials found that orange juice significantly reduces circulating total cholesterol levels.[45] Everything Peat said about foods should be fact-checked because in most cases he was entirely wrong in what he had claimed.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ray_Peat
Thanks. Great page. For some reason, this one didn't show up for me in the first few pages of Google results.
That’s scary, no shared reality
Guess it’s why it takes half the population forever to still be “doing their research”
It's important to actually read sources when it comes to controversial people and topics, rather than trusting some Wiki's summation of something. The Wiki completely misrepresents what Dr. Peat said.
"He made many other ridiculous claims such as avocados causing cancer.[8]" https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ray_Peat#cite_ref-Vegetables_8...
Link [8]: "Vegetables". raypeat.com. Goes to: https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/vegetables.shtml
The quote in question: "Not all fruits, of course, are perfectly safe--avocados, for example, contain so much unsaturated fat that they can be carcinogenic and hepatotoxic."
Note that phrasing "can be", "Not... perfectly safe.". Also btw, did you know that carrots "can be" hepatotoxic (toxic to the liver) because of all the vitamin A? This doesn't mean that carrots are bad, but rather that they shouldn't be an excessively large part of one's daily diet. They are not "perfectly safe".
Let's examine how Peat came to this idea based on the research. Remember, the actual claim is that "avocados.. can be carcinogenic and hepatotixic." Not that avocados cause cancer. That is not what he wrote. That wiki article has a clear bias.
Anyways, his research for the actual claim:
"In Vivo 1998 Nov-Dec;12(6):675-89. Comparative anticancer effects of vaccination and dietary factors on experimentally-induced cancers. ... Experiments in mammary glands cancer showed that a 15% olive-oil diet reduced significantly the tumor incidence caused by 9,10-dimethyl-1,2-benzanthracene. The antitumor effect of the olive-oil diet was connected to its content of monounsaturated fatty acids, such as oleic and palmitic acids. The promotive tumorigenic effects of other high-fat diets (avocado, soybeans) were associated with high content of some polyunsaturated fatty acids (linoleic and alpha-linolenic). Different diets have different targets. The effect of the same diet depends on its anti-tumor substances content. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccination and some diets have similar mechanism in their tumor-preventive effects."
"Ann Nutr Metab 1991;35(5):253-60. Effect of dietary avocado oils on hepatic collagen metabolism. Wermam MJ, Mokady S, Neeman I Department of Food Engineering and Biotechnology, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. The effect of various avocado and soybean oils on collagen metabolism in the liver was studied in growing female rats for 8 weeks and in day-old chicks for 1 week. In comparison with rats fed either refined avocado oil, refined or unrefined soybean oils, rats fed unrefined avocado oil showed a significant decrease in total collagen solubility in the liver, while there were no changes in total collagen, protein and moisture content. Chicks fed unrefined avocado oil as compared to those fed refined avocado oil also showed a decrease in hepatic total soluble collagen while hepatic total collagen remained unaffected. Electron micrographs and light-microscope examinations of rats' liver revealed collagen accumulation in the periportal location. This is suggestive of the early stages of fibrosis."
All he did was link real-world research to a possible hypothesis. A logical argument. Now you can criticize this argument and say that we can't draw any such conclusions from in vivo and animal model experiments, but at least then you'd be actually engaging with the content of the ideas, not outsourcing your thinking to a poorly-written Wiki article.
Cherry picking bits and pieces of research and then escalating them to much more general claims then they actually make really is the essence of good quality quackery though.
"avocados, for example, contain so much unsaturated fat that they can be carcinogenic and hepatotoxic" is exactly what he says in the article text. That explicitly read as "consumption of avocados can cause cancer", not the much weaker claim "it's possible that there's a mechanism by which avocados might cause cancer or be hepatotoxic but we don't actually know", which is what you actually get if you look at those reference.
Even the quotes he chooses are mismatched to what he says in the text. The liver one is about dietary avocado oils specifically, not avocados generally, and has the weakest possible conclusion that the chicks have something "suggestive of early stages of fibrosis" for unrefined but not refined. It's beyond just in vivo and animal model limitations, it: doesn't address dietary avocado consumption and doesn't conclusively show liver toxicity. That this reference is so weak, and yet the one he chose, is itself quite damning.
Indeed, thanks. I try to be skeptical about assumptions, even my own.
> The team at the University of Cambridge said it was an exciting and surprise discovery that could eventually lead to cancer patients being prescribed the drug - but not yet and people are advised against just taking the pills themselves.
While the Ethics Panel and solicitors may have ordered the researchers to say that, I'm thinking that anyone with serious cancer should (1) start taking aspirin, (2) read a bit about aspirin side-effects and contra-indications, then (3) let their doctor know that they did (1) and (2).
There are risks to taking aspirin everyday, including an increased risk of hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke, so it's important to weigh the pros and cons. That is difficult before sufficient research has been done to identify who benefits and how much, but it's certainly something to consider.
Note my prior "... anyone with serious cancer should (1) ..." disclaimer.
If the cancer that you already have is (say) 10% likely to kill you, then waiting several years - for researchers to nail down details - is likely far riskier than taking aspirin now.
(No, you can't be an idiot about it. Aspirin at 50g/kg would kill you faster than any cancer could, etc., etc.)
>(No, you can't be an idiot about it. Aspirin at 50g/kg would kill you faster than any cancer could, etc., etc.)
If someone is dumb enough to down 9 lbs of Aspirin, it's on them.
If you're already on cancer, I'm wondering if you're already on other medical interventions, and now I'm wondering how aspirin will interact with those.
OK, but...
I am not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV. But if I understand correctly, there are two types of strokes: hemorrhagic strokes (strokes caused by bleeding in the brain) and... I don't know the technical term, but clot-based strokes (a blood clot blocks an artery in the brain). And if I understand correctly, clot-based strokes are something like 80% of strokes - they're four times as likely as hemorrhagic strokes.
So isn't aspirin a net win anyway? You may increase your odds of a hemorrhagic stroke, but decrease your odds of the other kind of stroke, and the other kind is more common. (Unless you have some reason to think that you are more susceptible to hemorrhagic strokes than the other kind.)
Corrections welcome, especially ones with data.
Note well: This is not medical advice. Consult a doctor, not randos on the internet.
I'm not a doctor either, just a postgrad pre-med student with a heart problem (so I read a lot about the heart). I know just enough to be dangerous, but I do know you're right about the two types of stroke and the benefit of aspirin in preventing ischemic strokes (clots).
And until recently, daily aspirin was recommended for that, even for people with no history of heart disease. But AIUI, now the American Heart Association (2019) [1], U.S. Preventive Service Task Force (2022) [2], and the European Society of Cardiology (2019) [3] all say that for people with no history of cardiovascular disease, daily aspirin has little to no net benefit in younger patients and increases mortality in older patients.
Of course, the possibility of preventing metastasis adds another benefit, and may tip the balance back in favor of aspirin therapy.
1: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000678
2: https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2022/04/27...
3: https://www.escardio.org/static-file/Escardio/Guidelines/Pub...
Is there any data about the cancer incidence in people who had to take aspirin daily for those reasons ?
To be precise, this article isn't talking about aspirin preventing cancer, just stopping it from metastasizing. It links to data about that:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22440947/
The main risk from aspirin isn't hemorrhagic strokes, it's GI bleeds. There are other blood thinners that are considered safer at an appropriate dose, including warfarin (the same stuff that, at higher doses, is used as rat poison). Getting dose right with this stuff is very important and varies from individual to individual. Not something that's ethical to mess with at "shotgunning the population" level (or even as a DIY thing), IMO.. there's a reason they put iodine and folate in bread, but not this stuff.
You are assuming the pre-intervention incidence of each type of stroke is a guide to the effect size of the intervention on each, which isn't, as a rule, a justified assumption.
> While the Ethics Panel and solicitors may have ordered the researchers to say that
Is there any evidence that the researchers believe otherwise? Often, people on HN accuse researchers and news of overstating results.
> I'm thinking that anyone with serious cancer should
Why should anyone trust you with treatment for "serious cancer"? Does your advice depend on what kind of cancer? The location in the body? Other factors in the patient's health?
> Why should anyone trust you with treatment for "serious cancer"?
When you're facing a death sentence, something that "works in mice" is preferable to nothing at all.
GP didn't ask that cancer sufferers avoid existing treatment; I read it more as "Aspirin cannot possibly hurt, so you may as well".
It's like buying a lottery ticket - the negative impact of doing so is negligible but the positive impact of winning is life-changing.
Same with aspirin for cancer - the negative impact of doing so is non-existent, but the positive impact is life-changing.
More life-and-death advice from an Internet rando. I think I'll ask my doctor, who has examined me, has seen thousands of cancer patients, studied the human body, health, and cancer for decades, talks to other such experts (rather than fielding ideas on HN), ...
> nothing at all
Who said anything about that?
I did it for a few weeks but I started having nosebleeds daily so I stopped.
As I recall, there are some studies that show that a daily baby aspirin can be helpful for general heart health. I you were taking an adult aspirin, that may have been the issue.
I've heard this, but it doesn't seem to pan out.
Random example: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10381905/ - Even 10mg/day causes gastric injury/toxicity by removing the nice slime layer in your gut.
Also, once you get specific about which CVD metrics you're trying to optimize, you'll find vastly superior interventions to try.
A few years ago my grandma had cancer and was told by the hospital doctor to take daily baby dosage aspirin.
I think it's safe to say if it's recommended for cancerous old folks, it's safe to take for average people.
It's just a matter of dosage.
> I think it's safe to say if it's recommended for cancerous old folks, it's safe to take for average people.
I'm not sure why you would think that. There are many things we are willing to prescribe to older people because they are unlikely to suffer long-term negative effects.
I took half a dose daily, but went down to a quarter but that still gave me nosebleeds.
It's the teenage asprin that you really have to watch out for. It just doesn't know when to stop!
I had a heart bypass 29 years ago and my daily meds since then included a baby aspirin, but a year or so ago the occasional rectal bleeding got really bad. Stopped the aspirin and the bleeding went away.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease...
Is bleeding bad from the butt a life worth living?
Wondering what prep h suppositories would have done for you...
Rectum!? Damn near killed em..
What works in mice doesn't always translate to humans, and aspirin's risks (like internal bleeding) mean it's not a simple "just take it" solution... Yet still it could be a game-changer for early-stage cancer treatment
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08626-7 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43270665)
Oddly critical that this research is going on in London. If this were in the US then current efforts to shut down the National Institute of Health would have everything about present and future in a muddle.
So is here any positive correlation with cancer survivor rates with those with low to extremely low platelets? Excluding blood cancers of course .
Enteric-coated aspirin is safer, but it does nothing. It is best to take plain aspirin with vitamin C and/or DGL - studies show both protect the lining of the stomach from ulcers. That's why Aspirin C in Europe is the best combo! Haidut, one of the most prominent Ray Peat's followers and translators, if I could characterize him like this, told me that he just combines aspirin with collagen, and it does the same thing.
What are you yammering about?
If you struggle with your own natural intelligence, reach out to some artificial one in a desperate attempt at comprehending basic English statements.
As instructed, I asked chatgpt to characterize your comment:
“““ [...]
Irrelevant to Cancer Discussion – In the context of the BBC article about aspirin preventing cancer spread, this comment is only tangentially related. It does not engage with the article’s findings about aspirin's effect on cancer cells and instead focuses on aspirin's formulation and stomach safety, which is a separate discussion. The comment seems to use the article as a springboard for discussing a niche health opinion rather than engaging with the core scientific findings presented.
Overall Characterization: The comment is opinionated, alternative-health-oriented, and off-topic regarding the article's cancer discussion. It reflects a niche perspective influenced by Ray Peat’s followers, prioritizing aspirin’s stomach safety over its potential anti-cancer benefits. While it might offer practical advice for those concerned about aspirin’s side effects, it does not directly contribute to the scientific discussion in the BBC article. ”””
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I hate these types of headlines that omit an important part of the context: The study was conducted in mice. We're not mice.
The results are encouraging but in no way conclusive for humans. They open for the opportunity for broader studies, studies in humans. That's all they do.
The thing is we already know that it works on human.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22440947/
The question was how it works and as far as I know you can't legally yet use genetically engineered humans to suppress a gene, induce cancer and test a theory.
How would you test this theory on human (safely) ?
How are treatments tested on humans safely?
Select some cancer patients and ask their consent to some novel treatment with Aspirin?
Yeah, more or less. A risk assessment for the study is done and submitted and there's many more layers of beurocracy (both the good human-protective kind and the less-good regulatory capture kind). Providing things like information on effects and generalized consent forms and whatnot are included so the patient is given prior understandings of what the effects might be, from animal studies or previous human studies in some cases if you're testing for a novel effect in an existing treatment, for example, have determined might occur. You then, ideally, do a double blind study on the group of participants.
You missed my point, how would you safely analyze aspirin mechanism over t-cell in humans, without relying on genetically engineered humans with suppressed genes ?
If the scientist went to use genetically modified mice, I assume it's because there is no easier, non invasive test, to analyze the influence of platelets over the T-cell behavior. Like using a microscope or chemicals.
I'm not talking about signing a form but the technical aspect. However if you know how, please share, it would be interesting.
It was an honest misunderstanding. I am completely ignorant on this subject, honestly trying to understand something.
Like, why would the humans need to have a specific generic configuration? Only with some specific genes the T-Cells are affected by platelets? This is not something that happens on every human?
I just reread the article and went to look for the publication.
> The discovery, published in the journal Nature, happened by accident as the scientists were not researching aspirin.
> The team in Cambridge were investigating how the immune system responded to cancers when they spread.
> They were using genetically engineered mice and found those lacking a specific set of genetic instructions were less likely to get metastatic cancer that had spread.
From the publication : > Here we show that inhibitors of cyclooxygenase 1 (COX-1), including aspirin, enhance immunity to cancer metastasis by releasing T cells from suppression by platelet-derived thromboxane A2 (TXA2).
Safe to say my assumption was wrong, they didn't use generally modified mouse because they had no other choice but because they were looking for something else.
> This is not something that happens on every human?
It's usually much harder in science to understand and prove the 'how' than it is to check the 'if'. To prove a mechanism you got to be able to track it, for instance by using radioactive product, or use such a way that you refute all other casualties.
I think in that case, it would have been possible to prove the mechanism by using several different inhibitors of cyclooxygenase, checking if the effect on spreading cancer is still there. If yes, it's a good indication of casualties.
I see! Thanks for the detailed response, it is much clearer now. I couldn't glean as much detail reading it myself.
Sounds promising, honestly, obviously having to weigh in the risks of using medication that inhibits the action of platelets.
In the article they talk about the Add-Aspirin trial. See https://www.addaspirintrial.org/
I don’t understand why they are still referring to acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) as Aspirin. Aspirin today can be a mixture of ingredients but what the described effects are about is ASA.
A mixture of ingredients? If you mean a standard aspirin tablet, it will have fillers and binders in it to keep the tablet together and help it break down in the GI tract and etc, but in essence anything labeled aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin
From the first line of Wikipedia:
"Aspirin is the genericized trademark for acetylsalicylic acid (ASA)"
That's why
If I was a copy editor and read the draft title "Scientists crack how acetylsalicylic acid might stop cancers from spreading" I would stop the author right there.
If the title said "acetylsalicylic acid (ASA)", I would not have known what they were talking about. But I do know what Aspirin is.
News to me, what else do they put in it?
Some people are just learning pills are not a single solid block of pure active ingredient.
Yes, that’s me. What else is in aspirin?
Stuff that allows it to form a solid block instead of powder. Stuff to time how long it takes to dissolve (how else can there be fast-acting and slow-acting versions?) Stuff to make the pills large enough to see with your eyes. A grain of sand is about 20 milligrams. Low-dose aspirin is 80 milligrams, but the pill is a much more convenient size than 4 grains of sand. (or 8 grains of sand, since sand is about twice as dense as pure ASA)
A 20mg grain of sand is either not a grain or not sand
Doing the conversion - 20 milligrams is 0.308647 grains So you're correct.
(had to use Google - I only know that there are 7000 grains to the pound)
I am GP and did more research and need to post a correction but it's too late to edit my former comment.
The grain, in terms of weight, is 64.8 milligrams, or much more than a even a course grain of sand, which it turns out, is somewhere around 1 milligram, ranging from 0.04 mg for fine sand to 4 mg for very course sand, average around 0.3.
Excedrin brand in the US has tablets with caffeine and aspirin, for example, but people might just call them aspirin (my grandmother, for example).
ASA is an unfortunate acronym here: You might consider the Accessible Surface Area of immune-system proteins, in accessing interaction with the aspirin molecule!
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The actual paper used aspirin:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08626-7