Archive for the ‘research’ Category
Friday, March 9th, 2012
A new study published online in the journal Biology of Reproduction concluded that treatment with vitamin D reduced the size of fibroids in laboratory rats predisposed to the benign tumor.
Vitamin D was tested on a strain of rats genetically predisposed to developing fibroids. Twelve rats with fibroids were divided into two groups. One group received vitamin D and the other did not. In the study group vitamin D was delivered continuously for three weeks through a small pump planted under the skin. The amount of vitamin D received each day was equivalent to a human dose of about 1,400 international units. This dose is more than the recommended dose for teens and adults age 70 and under of 600 units daily but under the dose of 4,000 units that is considered safe for children over age 9, adults, and for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
After three weeks both the study and control groups were studied. Fibroids in the untreated group (controls) increased in size whereas the fibroids in the study group given vitamin D had shrunk dramatically. The uterine fibroids of the treated group receiving vitamin D were on average, 75 percent smaller than in the control group. The researchers concluded “Additional research is needed to confirm vitamin D as a potential treatment for women with uterine fibroids.”
Tags:fibroids, research, vitamin D
Posted in Vitamin and Minerals, research | 1 Comment »
Friday, February 24th, 2012
A new prospective study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology concluded that people with Lynch Syndrome face significantly increased risks of breast and pancreatic cancers and the relatives of those individuals who do not have the genetic mutation associated with the condition do not have a higher risk of developing cancer than the general public. You may ask “What is Lynch Syndrome?” It is an inherited disorder caused by mutation in specific DNA repair genes. The researchers claimed “Our study is the first prospective analysis to find a strong association between breast cancer and Lynch syndrome.”
In the study researchers followed 446 carriers of one of four mismatch repair mutations related to Lynch Syndrome and 1,029 of their relatives without the mutation. Study subjects were evaluated every five years. After a median follow-up of five years carriers had a 20-fold greater risk of colorectal cancer, a 30-fold greater risk of uterine cancer, a 10-fold higher risk of pancreatic, stomach, and bladder cancers, a 19-fold higher risk of ovarian cancer, and a four-fold higher risk of breast cancer than the general population. Results also showed that carriers tended to be diagnosed at an earlier age than the general population and family members without the mutation had risks comparable to the general population.
Tags:breast cancer, Cancer, conorectal cancer, Lynch Syndrome, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, research
Posted in Cancer, research | Comments Closed
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
A new study published in PLoS ONE concluded that male fetuses of women exposed to radiation during early pregnancy may have an increased risk of developing testicular cancer. In the study that began as an examination of endocrine disrupters as a possible cause of testicular cancer, researchers gave modest doses of radiation, a DNA-damaging agent, to female mice in the middle of their pregnancy. All male offspring developed testicular cancer, compared to 45 percent of mice not exposed to radiation and cancers were more aggressive and had more sites of origin. The study therefore suggested that DNA damaging agents should be studied as a factor in the increased prevalence of testicular cancer. The researcher said “although radiation exposure of pregnant females has been declining and is unlikely to be responsible for this increase, we intent to follow this up with studies on DNA-damaging chemicals found in cigarette smoke and air pollution, to which exposure of pregnant women have been increasing.” “A second class of DNA-damaging agents that we intend to study is chemotherapy drugs like cyclophosphamide, which are used to treat pregnant women with breast cancer.” “Studies at MD Anderson of the children of these women did not show increases in birth or developmental defects. However, we need to test these agents in our animal models since testicular cancer usually does not appear until early adulthood.”
Tags:DNA-damaging, radiatiob, research, testicular cancer
Posted in Cancer, research | Comments Closed
Friday, February 17th, 2012
A study in Science Translational Medicine concluded that chemotherapy works better when combined with cycles of short, severe fasting and that fasting alone effectively treated a majority of cancers tested in animals, specifically five out of eight cancer types in mice responded to fasting alone. The researcher said “the combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone.”
Specifically, the studies in mice showed that fasting cycles without chemotherapy slowed the growth of breast cancer, melanoma, glioma, and human neuroblastoma and in several cases the fasting alone was as effective as chemotherapy. Fasting also extended survival in mice with a human ovarian cancer. The study of melanoma showed that cancer cells became resistant to fasting alone after a single round but that cycle was as effective as chemotherapy in reducing the spread to other organs. For all types of cancers studied, fasting with chemotherapy improved survival, slowed tumor growth and/or limited the spread of tumors. In one series with a highly aggressive type of children’s cancer that had spread throughout the organism multiple cycles of fasting combined with chemotherapy cured 20 percent of the mice and produced a more limited spread of the same cancer in 40 percent. In no instance did mice survive when treated by chemotherapy alone. However, fasting had its limits and with large tumor masses fasting and chemotherapy could reduce the growth but could not achieve cancer-free survival.
A clinical trial of several years is need to determine whether or not humans would benefit from the same treatment.
Tags:Cancer, chemotherapy, fasting, research
Posted in Cancer, research | Comments Closed
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
Recent research carried out in Wales and England and published in the journal Science Signaling reported the discovery of the switch that releases zinc into cells and says this may be key to improving treatment for some types of aggressive breast cancer. Earlier research concluded that too much or too little zinc could cause cell death and there was evidence that linked zinc to disease states such as diabetes and cancer. In previous research this team linked zinc delivery to some types of breast cancer
From research it was also known that zinc levels were controlled by protein molecules called zinc transporters that moved the zinc in and out of cells to ensure correct levels but it was unknown how this process worked. The research group discovered a switch,known as CK2, a protein, that opens one transporter, called ZIP7 and allows the zinc to flow. Higher levels of intracellular zinc and ZIP7 were found in tamoxifen-resistant breast cancers. The discovery that CK2 opens ZIP7 means that drugs which block the release of zinc might also block cancer development. Early results from their clinical trials of CK2 inhibitors indicate they are working well. The researchers said “We know that zinc, in the right quantities, is vital for development, our immune systems and many other aspects of human health. But when something goes wrong with the body’s zinc delivery system, it looks likes as though disease can result. In particular, our research has shown a link to highly aggressive forms of breast cancer….if we can block malfunctioning transporter channels, we can potentially halt the growth of these forms of cancer.”
Tags:breast cancer, CK2, inhibitors, research, transporters, zinc, ZIP7
Posted in Cancer, breast cancer, research | Comments Closed
Friday, February 10th, 2012
New research published in the journal Physical Biology concluded that an advanced blood test that detects and analyzes circulating tumor cells in the blood of cancer patients was highly sensitive and may provide information comparable to that obtained in surgical biopsies when tested in 5 settings. The new test called HD-CTC labels cells in a patient’s blood in a way that distinguishes circulating tumor cells from ordinary red and white blood cells. It then uses a digital microscope and an image-processing algorithm to isolate the suspect cells with sizes and shapes unlike those of healthy cells so that the pathologist can examine the images of the suspect CTC cells to eliminate false positives. This process is similar to that used by a pathologist with biopsy slides.
To test the technology, five studies were carried out in California, Montana and in the Netherlands.
In the first study researchers examined 83 advanced cancer patients using HD-CTC to document the sensitivity and accuracy for different cancer types. Researchers found that the test detected five or more CTCs per milliliter of blood in 80% of patients with metastatic prostate cancer, 70% of those with metastatic breast cancer, 50% of those with metastatic pancreatic cancer and no healthy subjects. The current gold-standard CTC test (CellSearch) was notably less sensitive in detecting tumor cells in the samples.
Most patients whose CTC count surpassed the detection threshold also showed small aggregates of CTCs, which cancer biologists call “microtumor emboli” that are believed to be incipient metastatic tumors and triggers for blood clots that often kill advanced cancer patients. In study 2, scientist showed that HD-CTC could detect these aggregates in 43% of 71 patients with advanced prostate, lung, pancreas, and breast cancers and in none of a group of 14 healthy subjects.
In the third study, HD-CTC was used to compare circulating tumor cells from prostate cancer patients with cells from prostate cancer cell lines often used as convenient models for prostate cancer biology in the lab. Significant differences were found between the two classes of cells, in their cell morphology and in the way they were labeled by HD-CTC fluorescent tags. These results underscore the need when carrying out research to use cells from cancer patients and not model cancer cells that may be different from the real thing.
Researchers performed HD-CTC tests on 28 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer over periods up to a year in the fourth study. They were able to detect CTCs in 68% of the sample, and the numbers of detected CTCs tended to go up as other measures showed cancer progression.
In the last study the researchers used HD-CTC in 78 patients who had just been diagnosed with various stages of non-small cell lung cancer and that demonstrated that they could detect CTCs even in patients with early stage cancer.
The five studies not only demonstrated the accuracy and effectiveness of the test for a number of different cancer types, it began to explore the utility of the technology for diagnosing and monitoring patients and improving cancer research in the laboratory.
Tags:biopsy, blood test, Cancer, diagnoses, HC-CTC, lung, monitoring, pancreatic, prostate, research
Posted in Cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, research | Comments Closed
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
A new study published in the Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology concluded that rats given regular multi-vitamin and mineral supplements showed a significantly lower risk of developing colon cancer when exposed to carcinogens.
In the study rats were fed a high-fat diet (20% fat) over a 32 week period and were divided into 6 groups that were exposed to different combinations of supplements and carcinogens: the colon carcinogenesis induced in the study rats has characteristic mimicking human colon cancer. Researchers found that the rats given a high-fat plus low fiber diet and exposed to carcinogens developed precancerous lesions. whereas those given a similar intervention but also given daily multivitamin and mineral supplements, had a significant reduction (84%) in the formation of pre-cancerous lesions and did not develop tumors. The researchers concluded that multivitamin and mineral supplements synergistically contribute to the cancer chemopreventive potential, and hence, regular supplements of multi-vitamins and minerals could reduce the risk of colon cancer.”
Tags:colon cancer, prevention, research, supplements
Posted in Cancer, research, supplements | Comments Closed
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
An invitro study published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research concluded that “caffeine derivatives in mate tea not only induced death in human colon cancer cells, they also reduced important markers of inflammation.” Inflammation can trigger the progression of cancer. In the study, researchers isolated, purified, and then treated human colon cancer cells with caffeoylquinic acid (CQA) from mate tea and as they increased the CQA concentration cancer cells died as a result of apoptosis. In other words, “cancer cells self-destruct because its DNA has been damaged.” The researchers identified the mechanism that led to cell death and have completed a follow up study in which they compare the development of colon cancer in rats that drank mate tea as their only source of water with a control group that drank only water. These results will be published soon.
The researcher concluded “We believe there’s ample evidence to support drinking mate tea for its bioactive benefits especially if you have reason to be concerned about colon cancer. Mate tea bags are available in health food stores and are increasingly available in large supermarkets.”
Tags:colon cancer, inflammation, invitro study, mate tea, research
Posted in Cancer, research | Comments Closed
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
A new study published in the journal Carcinogenesis concluded that in both cell line and mouse model studies, grape seed extract killed head and neck squamous carcinoma cells without harming healthy cells. Although heard of less often than breast, prostate and lung cancer, this cancer will kill nearly 12,000 people this year in the United States and over half-a-million people worldwide. The researcher says “cancer cells are fast growing. Not only that =, but they are necessarily fast growing. When conditions exist in which they can’t grow they die.” Grape seed extract produces the condition that are unfavorable to their growth. The research showed that grape seed extract damages the DNA of cancer cells and also stops the pathways that allow repair. And at the same time there was no toxicity to the mice. The researcher said that cancer cells have a lot of defective pathways and are vulnerable if you target them. However, this is not true of healthy cells. The researchers plan further research using clinical trials.
Tags:grape seed extract, head and neck cancer, research
Posted in Cancer, research | Comments Closed
Friday, January 27th, 2012
A new study published in an advanced online edition of Tobacco Control concluded that nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs) such as nicotine patches and nicotine gum used to assist with smoking cessation do not seem to be effective long-term even when used in combination with counseling.
In the prospective study researchers followed 787 adult smokers who had recently stopped smoking. Surveyed over three time periods, 2001-2002, 2003-2004, and 2005-2006, subjects were asked whether or not they used nicotine replacement therapy in the form of a patch, gum, inhaler, or spray to help them quit, and if so, how long they had used the product. Subjects were also asked if they had joined a quit-smoking program, or received help from professions such as a physician or counselor.
Results showed that for each time period studied, almost 1/3 of the recent quitters had reported a relapse. There was no difference in the relapse rate of those using NRT for more than 6 weeks with or without professional counseling and no difference in successful quitting using NRT for heavy or light smokers. The researchers xoncluded “This study shows that using NTR is no more effective in helping people stop smoking cigarettes in the long-term than trying to quit on one’s own. “
Tags:long-term, nicotine products, research, smoking cessation, success
Posted in research, smoking cessation | Comments Closed
