DCA and How It Works

Dichloroacetic acid versus Sodium Dichloroacetate

Dichloroacetic acid is a small molecule, basically acetic acid with 2 chlorines. The molecular formula is Cl2CHCOOH. Dichloroacetate is the sodium salt of dichloroacetic acid. Replace a hydrogen with sodium and you get Cl2CHCOONa If you view the video from CTV you will see a jar of dichloroacetic acid prominently displayed. http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/vid1.htm is well worth watching. But they used a cheap ...powder. Dichloroacetic acid only comes in liquid. The powder is the sodium salt of dichloroacetic acid. It is sodium dichloroacetate. The researchers did not use the acid. For those of you searching for DCA, do not buy the acid. I posted info on the FAQ about it. The acid is not the same thing as the acetate. The acid is dangerously corrosive. How does DCA work, briefly? The Michelakis team reports that DCA turns on the mitochondria of cancer cells, allowing them to commit cellular suicide, or apoptosis. Cancer cells shut down the mitochondria, which is the part of the cell that is involved in metabolism and, incidentally, initiates the cell suicide. A non-cancerous cell will initiate apoptosis when it detects damage within itself that it cannot repair. But a cancer cell resists the suicide process. That is why chemotherapy and radiation treatments do not work very well and actually result in terrible side effects the healthy cells actually die much easier. Michelakis and his team discovered that they could re-activate the mitochondria of cancer cells. Not only that, the DCA is very effective in doing it: To quote from the Michelakis paper: The decrease in [Ca2+]i occurs within 5 min and is sustained after 48 hr of DCA exposure. The mitochondria are so sensitive to DCA that just 5 minutes of exposure reactivates them for 48 hours. The metabolic approach to cancer is supported by other research. Inhibition of Glycolysis in Cancer Cells: A Novel Strategy to Overcome Drug Resistance Associated with Mitochondrial Respiratory Defect and Hypoxia is a paper by a John Hopkins research team supporting this approach. http://www.thedcasite.com/dcaforum/DCForumID1/79.html is a post on our chat room by Willis. giving a prediction as to which cancers DCA might not control, and it is being supported by the reports we are receiving. http://www.thedcasite.com/dca_how_it_works.html