Sharks and cancer

Do sharks get cancer

  • Of course sharks don't get cancer.

    Votes: 2 3.5%

  • Sharks do get cancer, even chondroma.

    Votes: 46 80.7%

  • On Planet X cancer is the kewl.

    Votes: 9 15.8%
  • Total voters
    57

Eos of the Eons

Mad Scientist
Eos of the Eons
Joined
Jul 23, 2003
Messages
13,749
This is an informal poll to start a dialogue about sharks, cartilage, and the craze that many alties started over shark cartilage supplements.

I was wondering if anyone knows/believes that sharks don't get cancer, especially chondroma.
 
Please vote before looking it up. I know this is a bad forum for this, but I don't have time to find a more typical sampling of the population :p

I'm curious to know what people think, just from what they know before checking their facts.
 
TX50 said:
That information is easy to find:

http:
Click to expand...

Hey, looking it up first is cheating, um, in this case...

Okay, yeah, this forum is too full of knowledgeable ungullible folks. I may just sign up at another forum and post the results here.

Thanks for making my inquiry more difficult, :p
 
You really picked a bad spot for this survey. :)

The Science section of a skeptics board is going to get people who think "Um. Damifino. Where's a reference?" Or else who have already been there and done that. "$%^& woos. Of course sharks get cancer. I looked that up last year." Or, quite likely, given this board's population, "I've removed tumors from sharks here at Seaworld in (City X.) Of COURSE they get cancer."
 
Oh crap. Can I nominate myself for idiot of the week? I automatically clicked the first answer and only realised it wasn't the yes answer afterwards. Personally I blame Lisa.
 
Okay, I think it is safe to say why I started this thread.

There was a little boy in my city diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma that had already spread to both lungs.

If the disease is caught in the liver and excised before it spreads, then there may be a chance it is curable. But, by the time it was diagnosed it had spread. The boy spent the next 2 years in the hospital, including one in Calgary. He did die at 12 years old though.

Thing is, a lady where I work is saying the only thing that kept him alive (nevermind that he was in a hospital except for occasional short trips home for 2 years) was taking shark cartilage. She says that the boy only died once the family could no longer afford the shark cartilage. She also said that fundraisers were to raise money for the cartilage.

The old myths were all there, that sharks don't get cancer, etc.

I found the fundraisers were for something else though. Does anyone know about hospitals in Tennessee where he might have been going to? Maybe it was an alternative hospital, but I don't think so, but a person was giving Reiki treatments at the fundraiser.


I just don't understand how my co-worker could discount the hospital care and say his 2 years of survival was only due to taking shark cartilage. She was trying to convince another co-worker to buy some special "purified" shark cartilage for her friend's cancer.

After the shark cartilage lover left I told the other co-worker that sharks do get cartilage, etc.

So, I was wondering how prevalent this myth about sharks was, etc.
 
Last edited:
AFAIK, any multicellular organism can get some kinds of cancer, but without knowing specifically about chondroma, I couldn't vote.
 
I was told this myth about sharks and shark cartilage many times when my father was diagnosed with cancer. At the time I was given some links to some place in Canada (sorry, don't have them any more, I deleted them in a rage) that was supposed to be doing research on using shark cartilage in cancer patients, but as I recall when I read the site I was not impressed with the information and dismissed it as another silly myth. (We heard tons of them during this time, some people even offered to pay for these goofy treatments!)

So I would say among people I know, that myth is pretty common. I remember hearing it from at least 5 different people.
 
I feel the myth is common because of Kevin Trudeau and other alties that think it is a lovely lil theory, and they can sell their cheap cartilage.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_50068.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0238348120070602
Studies refute it, but that doesn't stop the canards from quacking. Thing is, ethically the patients get regular treatment too. The alties say this stops the woo medicine from working. These ratbags would prefer the patients ONLY get the cartilage.

Others claim that the kinds of cartilage used in the studies weren't "their" special kind, and that's why it didn't work.
 
I never understood this one. Pizzas don't get cancer: therefore pizza cures cancer. Okay, that's flawed as pizza is not alive unless you're in a Japanese fusion restaurant.

But who the hell cares if a shark doesn't get cancer? And why cartilage? Why not shark meat or shark eyeballs?

From what I can tell, the theoretical anti-cancer agent (found in cartilage) isn't even unique to sharks. You can get the same stuff from pig's ears. Pigs don't get cancer! (Except they do.)
 
I didn't know the myth existed. So naturally, from reading the OP, I simply deduced that sharks do get cancer. Further reading confirmed this.

Just saying that while it's all informal and everything, it's sort of difficult - partially because I know you, Eos - to not understand what the correct answer is even before starting the research.
 
Hepatocellular cancer is notoriously hard to treat. The organ that is affected is also the one responsible for breaking down standard chemotherapeutic agents (i.e., it's difficult to get a concentration of effective chemotherapy that isn't fatal to the rest of the body). Surgery, including orthotopic transplant, seems to be the only truly effective option and chance for complete cure. I'm sure shark cartilage, even if it was proven to contain an effective anti-cancer compound, would suffer the same fate as other already-proven chemotherapeutic agents, namely being broken-down and rendered ineffective at it's intended site of action.

-Dr. Imago
 
i get so mad at all these mad claims.These people prey on others when they are at their most vunerable.I know when you have a loved one who is very ill you hold on even to the tinest bit of hope you think .... well maybe.....
Even I at times have looked into these weird and wacky ideas you are just cluching at straws hoping for the best.But its all so wrong I mean i ask you sharks cartilige,horses tongues,whales bones,tigers balm,where does it all end.
 
Actually the theoretical beneficial agents are proteins too large for the human body to digest. The serious people are looking at treated and synthetic forms, and they aren't bothering with sharks as bovine cartilage is readily available.
 
Shark cartilage as with most the of the rest of the shark is a waste product from shark fin soup. How can it be expensive?
 
Because they usually saw off the fins and dump the dying shark back. Unless it's a mako or other tasty shark.
 
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