pH and Cancer

[Joselle24]

Can having an acidic pH lead to cancer?
What effect does acidic pH have on cancer?

[sunmoonstars]

Hi Joselle,

I am not completely sure if pH differences have an effect on cancer.

Let me tell you a little about pH in the body, for background. The body is separated into different organ systems, based on their function. The pH of the stomach is much lower than the pH in other parts of the body. Generally in the body the pH remains near 7 (in order for everything to remain in good working order). Generally, cancer cells have a higher tolerance for environment changes (such as pH) than normal cells do, so it is quite possible that normal cells would feel the pain before cancer cells do... if the pH of the body were to get seriously out of normal range.

I did a google search and I see many claims of bicarbonate lowering the pH (usually in the stomach) and then shrinking tumors, but please read this statement on that:
http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatme ... m-chloride

If you wanted to test this, I think you would use a cell culture assay with normal and human cells and a method to control and measure the pH.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have further questions on that.

Tonya

[Joselle24]

Thank you Tonya, this was very helpful. I have also read about an oncologist in Italy, Dr. Tullio Simoncini who is destroying cancer tumors with sodium bicarbonate. I would also like to test the effects of sodium bicarbonate on cancer.

[Joselle24]

Will I be using a cell culture assay when I test it with sodium bicarbonate?

[sunmoonstars]

Will I be using a cell culture assay when I test it with sodium bicarbonate?

Hi Joselle,

Yes, I think so. You could consider an LD50 (ED50) cell culture assay - this would test what the average does needed to kill 50% of the cell culture population. I first learned the assay testing drugs for possible cancer therapies in the lab during graduate school. This would be testing the effect of the bicarobate on the cell itself - which is a bit different than using it to change the pH of the environment and assessing THAT change.

In the literature you read, which mechanism does it seem to be that is more important? Which did you intend on testing?

Tonya

[Joselle24]

I was thinking of testing both cesium chloride and sodium bicarbonate.

[deleted-132180]

Hello there,

Very interesting project idea, and the other experts have already given you some great advice. One aspect you should consider though is what type of cells you are going to test your chemicals on. Are you going to use cancerous cell lines? It probably makes the most sense to do that because you are trying to test the effects of these chemicals on cancer cells. What type of cancer cells are you planning to test though? It may be cool to test cancer cell lines isolated from different organs to see whether the chemicals affect these cancers differently, and if changing the concentration of the chemicals also alters the amount of cancer cells that are killed.

Are you going to be working in a research lab under the guidance of a mentor? Cell culture work requires and incubator and biosafety hoods that are found in labs. Furthermore, if you want to test different cell lines, it would definitely be difficult to try to purchase all of them since cell lines are expensive. It would be nice to be able to contact different labs to see if you can ask them to give you a split of a certain cell line so that you can grow it up yourself for doing your experiments and not worry about having to spend lots of money on a bunch of different cell lines.

Hope that helped!

Connie

[Joselle24]

Thank you for the advice Connie! This was very helpful. I will be using cancer cell lines isolated from different organs. With these cell lines, I will be using cesium chloride and sodium bicarbonate. Do you have any recommended sites on where I can buy cesium chloride and sodium bicarbonate?

[deleted-132180]

Sites like Sigma Aldrich would be a good place to purchase chemicals, albeit they could be a bit pricey. If you are going to be working in a lab, perhaps they may already have some of these in stock and you can perhaps ask them if it would be okay for you to use some for your experiments? Otherwise, you can also ask around neighboring labs. Usually, labs are pretty good about sharing reagents, especially if you don't need too much!

Connie

[Joselle24]

I have gone to the site Sigma Aldrich and there are many forms of Cesium Chloride with the different types of grades. I seem to be having a hard time on which grade to get. Any suggestions on which grade would be best to work with? Thank you.

[sunmoonstars]

Hi Joselle,

I would pick this one:

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/pro ... &region=US

The different grades are for different applications. Chemisty applications generally need a much purer grade than life science applications, but the one I picked for you will work well and it isn't too expensive. Please make sure you read the MSDS and ask questions if you don't understand the safety requirements of working with this chemical!

Let us know if you have more questions.

Tonya