A request to the Library Pixies for "most up-to-date review of deuterium-oxide cytotoxicity" was promptly answered with the delivery of Katz's paper from Sci. Am.[1960].
We learn much from it that is interesting (for sufficiently obsessive values of "interest")... but in particular, that the idea of curing cancer with heavy water has been around for as long as the heavy water itself was available in any quantity [Barbour & Allen 1938], with a new burst of enthusiasm every decade or two. The added molecular weight, stronger bonds and slower chemical dynamics of deuterium compounds have no end of ripple-on effects on cell metabolism, but they particularly bork fast-dividing cells (stabilising the self-assembly of microtubules blah blah blah mitotic spindles blah blah blah)... therefore slower tumour growth.
Katz concluded that for the effect to be clinically useful requires most of the water in an animal's body to be replaced with D2O. Unfortunately the inconvenient and undesirable side-effects at this concentration (in the form of death when the percentage reaches 20-30%) has hindered the uptake of heavy-water therapy.
Were the scriptwriters of Hogan's Heroes aware of (and influenced by) the Katz paper? It would be irresponsible not to speculate. In Episode 9 (1965), a barrel of heavy water is stored for safe-keeping at Stalag XIII, until the prisoners are appraised of the fact that it is a component in the German A-bomb program, so they persuade Werner Klemperer's character to drink it in the belief that it is invigorating (and hair-restoring) spa water.*
ANYWAY... the most recent re-inventor of the heavy-water-for-health wheel is one Mikhail Shchepinov. His twist is to synthesise deuterated nutrients -- heavy fat, heavy proteins, carbodeuterates -- using algae of various persuasions, which can survive 100% heavy-water environment. Then the strengthened molecular bonds (in specific nutrients, in specific stages of metabolism) will create fewer free radicals. These are bad, therefore immortality.
This is not actually a stupid idea, and something may come of Shchepinov's"Retrotope" biotech company (though it has kept a low profile for the last year, apart from sending delegates to grifty conferences like DDTWC). But then the mendacious shouty people at the Daily Fail got hold of the notion and ran it through their Enstupidising Machine, as part of their "ongoing ontological program to divide all inanimate objects into ones that will either cause or cure cancer"[Ben Goldacre, 2006].
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
"Why have you shut Swearing Bob in the Evolvamat?" asked tigris.
"To stimulate his dormant genes into activity," I explained.
"Yes," tigris allowed, "it's the Evolvamat, that's what it does. I was not under the impression that he was in time-out. Which genes?"
"The ones we share with choanoflagellate algae," I said. "Dating back to our common eukaryote ancestor."
"They will increase his tolerance for heavy water," Another Kiwi vouchsafed, "allowing us to pump him up with 100% in his fluids instead of 25%, as a cure for cancer."
Tigris did not rate highly for this research program. She reminded us (punctuating her argument with pokes with a pointed stick until we acceded to the force of her logic) that when a high density of deuterium is combined with the quantum coherence tunnelling properties of microtubules within a cytoplasmic environment, there is a non-zero chance of a cold-fusion reaction.
"Would that be a bad thing?"
"It is best left as a plot device for Stross's next Laundry novel."
We learn much from it that is interesting (for sufficiently obsessive values of "interest")... but in particular, that the idea of curing cancer with heavy water has been around for as long as the heavy water itself was available in any quantity [Barbour & Allen 1938], with a new burst of enthusiasm every decade or two. The added molecular weight, stronger bonds and slower chemical dynamics of deuterium compounds have no end of ripple-on effects on cell metabolism, but they particularly bork fast-dividing cells (stabilising the self-assembly of microtubules blah blah blah mitotic spindles blah blah blah)... therefore slower tumour growth.
Katz concluded that for the effect to be clinically useful requires most of the water in an animal's body to be replaced with D2O. Unfortunately the inconvenient and undesirable side-effects at this concentration (in the form of death when the percentage reaches 20-30%) has hindered the uptake of heavy-water therapy.
Were the scriptwriters of Hogan's Heroes aware of (and influenced by) the Katz paper? It would be irresponsible not to speculate. In Episode 9 (1965), a barrel of heavy water is stored for safe-keeping at Stalag XIII, until the prisoners are appraised of the fact that it is a component in the German A-bomb program, so they persuade Werner Klemperer's character to drink it in the belief that it is invigorating (and hair-restoring) spa water.*
ANYWAY... the most recent re-inventor of the heavy-water-for-health wheel is one Mikhail Shchepinov. His twist is to synthesise deuterated nutrients -- heavy fat, heavy proteins, carbodeuterates -- using algae of various persuasions, which can survive 100% heavy-water environment. Then the strengthened molecular bonds (in specific nutrients, in specific stages of metabolism) will create fewer free radicals. These are bad, therefore immortality.
This is not actually a stupid idea, and something may come of Shchepinov's"Retrotope" biotech company (though it has kept a low profile for the last year, apart from sending delegates to grifty conferences like DDTWC). But then the mendacious shouty people at the Daily Fail got hold of the notion and ran it through their Enstupidising Machine, as part of their "ongoing ontological program to divide all inanimate objects into ones that will either cause or cure cancer"[Ben Goldacre, 2006].
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
"Why have you shut Swearing Bob in the Evolvamat?" asked tigris.
"To stimulate his dormant genes into activity," I explained.
"Yes," tigris allowed, "it's the Evolvamat, that's what it does. I was not under the impression that he was in time-out. Which genes?"
"The ones we share with choanoflagellate algae," I said. "Dating back to our common eukaryote ancestor."
"They will increase his tolerance for heavy water," Another Kiwi vouchsafed, "allowing us to pump him up with 100% in his fluids instead of 25%, as a cure for cancer."
Tigris did not rate highly for this research program. She reminded us (punctuating her argument with pokes with a pointed stick until we acceded to the force of her logic) that when a high density of deuterium is combined with the quantum coherence tunnelling properties of microtubules within a cytoplasmic environment, there is a non-zero chance of a cold-fusion reaction.
"Would that be a bad thing?"
"It is best left as a plot device for Stross's next Laundry novel."
* Thx LGM commenter