Quote:
Originally Posted by 21stCentury
3/2/2008: To Sharon Grant: Since these antibodies attach to white blood cells and mutate them, why wouldn't they be considered a form of cancer? They multiply so quickly(1-6 hours) it even sounds like they are cancerous-out of control-cells. What do you think? Has anything else been printed about it? Specifically. It sounds more like the info was general explanation.
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These antibodies do not mutate the patients' blood cells; they simply attach to them and in so doing, alter their function, just as if you attached a set of aluminum cans to your shoes by an extra lace. Makes normal ambulation, stair climbing, etc. really hard. Antibodies that don't belong on the cell impede the cell's usual function, if not actually leading to cell destruction; at least they would interfere with the body's normal way of utilizing or responding to those cells.
As Jan Wade has pointed out by his post, these are not cancerous cells. The pathophysiology is quite different. Cancerous cells replicate the way they do because for some reason the cells' normal "stop replication" signal fails to kick in, and the cells reproduce out of control. They use up tremendous amounts of the body's energy resources that would normally go to other tissues for metabolism. (This is a totally simplistic way of putting it, but just for purposes of differentiation...
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