Cancer “Switch” Discovered

April 23rd 2007

Gents, This very interesting article concerning a cancer breakthrough is from the online version of the Brisbane Courier Mail, at:

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/health/

A deadly “active ingredient” in almost all human cancers has been mapped by Australian scientists, bringing the world closer to a potentially life-saving treatment.

The breakthrough, published today in the leading international journal Science, will speed up the international research effort to develop anti-cancer drugs that effectively “switch off” tumour growth.

Cancer researchers at the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) have discovered the composition of an enzyme called telomerase, which is overactive in almost 90 per cent of cancers.

The so-called molecular fossil is famed for its Jekyll-and-Hyde-like reputation, making both healthy and cancerous cells immortal so they never die.

The enzyme is internationally regarded as one of the most important triggers in cancer, because the disease clearly relies on it to survive.

Telomerase was believed to contain any mixture of 32 different proteins, but Dr Scott Cohen and his team found that only two are involved.

“We discovered that it was a really simple composition,” said Dr Cohen.

“All these researchers studying it can really focus now and that should boost the productivity of research into new drugs, which is very exciting.”

The team made the finding by growing an industrial quantity of cancer cells to collect enough of the hard-to-find enzyme. They then purified it down and used a $1 million telescope to work out what it contained.

“The next step is to define its shape and if you can do that you can pretty effectively design drugs to very specifically target telomerase, turn it off and stop the cancer growth,” Dr Cohen said.

“It won’t be easy and it will take a while, but at least now we can say it’s possible.”

The researchers say the find is one of the biggest achievements in the telomerase field since the enzyme was first discovered by former Melbourne researcher Elizabeth Blackburn in the 1980s.

Dr Blackburn has won several accolades for his discovery, which centred on the realisation that telomerase helps cells survive when they shouldn’t by replenishing the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres.

International cancer research expert and acting CMRI director Dr Roger Reddel believes the identification ’switches on a light’ for basic cell biology and cancer research.

“This discovery sharpens the focus of these efforts and no doubt will speed up the process of delivering successful treatment,” Dr Reddel said.

Today’s Quote:

“It’s not what happens to me, but how I respond to what happens” (that matters)

From “Quest for Life” by Petrea King, published by Random House Australia

Omega-3 Oil May Prevent Cancer Spreading

Hi Guys,

I found this item of particular interest as I have been taking an omega 3 - 6 - 9 oil blend for the past 7 months or so. However, the ratio is different to what is suggested in the article in that the omega 3 portion is double that of the omega 6. That is twice the amount of omega 3 necessary to overcome the bad effect of the omega 6. Now, that must produce even better results, right? Or am I missing something here?

I have queried this with the Australian supplier and await its response. I'll let you know the outcome.

BBC NEWS
March 22, 2006


A diet rich in a fat found in oily fish may protect men with prostate cancer from developing a more aggressive form of the disease, scientists have found.

Prostate cancer is much more likely to be life-threatening if tumour cells migrate and invade other tissues, such as the bone marrow.

Lab tests found omega-3 oil - present in fish like salmon - prevented this.

The results of the study, based at Manchester’s Christie Hospital, are in the British Journal of Cancer.

Eating a diet with the right balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fats may well help to keep prostate cancer within the prostate gland
Noel Clarke

The Paterson Institute researchers tested the effect of two types of dietary fat on prostate cancer cells in the lab.

Previous research has suggested omega-3 fats, which is also found in mackerel and fresh tuna, may help cut the risk of cancer - and other conditions, such as heart disease.

Omega-6 fats, found in vegetable oils, nuts and seeds, also play a key role in keeping us healthy.

Energy source

However, while omega-6 fats increased the spread of prostate cancer cells into bone marrow, omega-3 fats blocked this.

Researcher Dr Mick Brown said: “It is possible to have a healthy balance of these two types of fat - we only need about half as much omega-3 as omega-6 - that will still stop cancer cells from spreading.”

The researchers believe tumour cells might use omega-6 fats as a high energy source - giving them the energy they need to maintain a high growth rate and to create molecules that control migration.

Omega-3 fats appear to interfere with this process in some way.

Lead researcher Noel Clarke said: “Some tumours develop slowly in the prostate without producing symptoms and sometimes when symptoms do develop, it is because the cancer has already spread.

“Eating a diet with the right balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fats may well help to keep prostate cancer within the prostate gland where it may be monitored safely or more easily treated with surgery or radiotherapy.”

Larger studies

Derek Napier, of the Association for International Cancer Research, which part-funded the study, said the findings might aid the development of new ways to block the spread of many types of cancer.

Professor John Toy, of Cancer Research UK, said the work was still at an early stage.

“We would need large population studies to provide the needed evidence to say a change in diet could reduce prostate cancer cells from spreading,” he added.

Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in the UK.

The research was funded by the Association for International Cancer Research (AICR) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

The Food Standards Agency recommends men can eat up to four portions of oily fish a week.
Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/4826168.stm

® BBC MMVI

Informative URL's About Prostate Cancer

Hi Guys,

Here's a few useful links concerning prostate cancer. These I have collected over the past 12 months or so but note I have not checked them today, before posting. However, I would imagine that they are still current. I certainly found them worth exploring in the past and will revisit them over coming days as I'm sure they will have been updated.

Prostate Cancer links on the net.

As you will see, most URL's given below are of Australian web sites, simply because that's how they are on my listing. I have more URL's to follow in a few days...

The following seven URL’s are taken from: www.prostatehealth.org.au/links

The Lions Club of Australia:

www.prostatehealth.org.au

www.prostatehealth.org.au/links.html

The Prostate Cancer Research Institute of the US

www.prostate-cancer.org/tools/tools.html

(Yes, that repetition of 'tools' is correct.)

Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia

www.prostate.org.au

Cancer Voices NSW :

www.cancervoices.org.au

Andrology Australia:

www.andrologyaustralia.org

The Australian Centre for Sexual Health:

www.impotenceaustralia.com.au

Soy as Prostate Cancer Protection Yields Paradoxical Results

Hi Guys,

For years I have used soy products, most particularly soy milk and tofu, but following my diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancer last May and then the public warnings of the danger associated with taking soy, I stopped taking soy milk and moved over to rice milk and oat milk. The tofu I continue to have because my research tells me that the fermentation process used, destroys the two bad elements within soy (hence, I guess, how it is that the Chinese have been consuming tofu for hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, without any perceived ill effects.)

With that background I found the following article of special interest. It appears that consuming soy in the early stages of prostate cancer may be a good thing but definitely not if it is of the aggressive type. But how would you know? Ask a specialist? Maybe! But ask two or three and you're likely to get a different answer each time. Confused? Yep, and so are they much of the time.

The answer? Take charge of your own health and wellbeing. Do your own research, talk to medical professionals; naturopaths; homeopaths, friends and neighbours. Anyone in fact who can add a smidgen of anecdotal or clinical information that will help YOU make your own, rational judgments and decisions.

I can only hope that I cut out taking soy milk in time and that I didn't, in my earlier ignorance, worsened an already worst case scenario.

Visit us online at www.MedPageToday.com


Soy as Prostate Cancer Protection Yields Paradoxical Results

By Neil Osterweil, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Rubeen K. Israni, M.D., Fellow, Renal-Electrolyte and Hypertension Division, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
March 16, 2007


MedPage Today Action Points

Explain to patients who ask that that several studies have suggested that diets rich in soy may protect against some types of prostate cancer.


Explain that this study suggests that in addition to protection there may also be increased risk for advanced prostate cancer from high soy diets, although the reasons are unclear.

Review
TOKYO, March 16 -- Diets rich in soy protect against prostate cancer. Then again, they don't.

This paradoxical finding came from a study of 43,509 Japanese men. For some soy isoflavones in the diet decreased the risk of localized prostate cancer, but at the same time soy containing miso soup increased the risk of advanced prostate cancer.


So reported Norie Kurahashi, M.D., of the National Cancer Center of Japan, and colleagues, in the March issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.


"The present findings provide no clear understanding of when or how localized cancer will develop to aggressive cancer, and of the related effect of isoflavones," said Dr. Kurahashi.


The investigators recommended that Japanese men continue their high consumption of soy from foods, but they discouraged the use of supplements.


The investigators hypothesized that soy in general, and its isoflavones genistein and daizden in particular, may attenuate but not prevent the progression of latent prostate cancer. Soy isoflavones are estrogen mimics and strong antioxidants in vitro, and appear to be protective against cancer in animal models.


The Japanese study, the largest of its kind, prospectively evaluated the relationship between soy consumption and prostate cancer in men who were part of an even larger cohort study.


The men, ages 45 to 74 years, responded to a validated questionnaire which included 147 food and beverage items, including questions about portion size and frequency of consumption.


The authors focused on the consumption of miso, a soy-based soup, and at tofu in various forms, as well as natto, or fermented soybean, and soy milk. They also looked at the consumption of the isoflavones, which they estimated based on food composition tables listing isoflavone content of Japanese foods.


The study used as its baseline the five-year follow-up interval from the Japan Public Health Center-Based Prospective Study. Beginning in 1995 and continuing through 2004, there were 307 new cases of prostate cancer: 74 advanced, 220 organ-localized, and 13 of indeterminate stage.


The authors found that intake of genistein, daidzein, miso or soy foods did not have a significant effect on the risk of developing total prostate cancer (localized and advanced) for the entire cohort.


But when they broke the data down according to cancer by stage and age they found that men older than 60 in the highest quartile of intake of three of the four items -- genistein, daidzein, and soy foods -- had significantly decreased risk for localized prostate cancer versus those in the lowest quartile.


Of the men older than 60 with localized cancer, genistein was associated with a relative risk for cancer of 0.52 (95% CI, 0.30-0.90, P for trend = 0.03) in 25,538 person-years of follow-up.


Similarly, highest consumption of daidzein was associated with a relative risk of 0.50 (95% CI, 0.28-0.88, P for trend = 0.04) in 25,276 person-years, and soy foods were associated a relative risk of 0.52 (95% CI, 0.29-0.90, P for trend = 0.01).


There were no significant differences between the highest and lowest quartiles for any of the four items among men younger than 60, however.


When the investigators looked at advanced cancer among men older than 60 in a multivariate analysis adjusted for energy intake, there was a dose-dependent increase in risk for advanced prostate cancer associated with miso soup. There was a multivariable relative risk for the highest versus lowest quartile of 2.79 (95% CI, 1.19-6.55; P for trend = 0.02). Consumption of soy foods or the isoflavones was not associated with advanced prostate cancer in multivariate analysis, however.


"In the present study, we observed a dose-dependent decrease in the risk of localized prostate cancer with isoflavone consumption," the investigators wrote. "Men with the highest intake of isoflavones (as genistein, > 32.8 mg/d) had a decreased risk of prostate cancer compared with those with the lowest intake of isoflavones (as genistein, <13.2mg/d).>

Vitamins ! Are They Good For You?

Hi Guys,

I dare say many of you will have read much of the misinformed nonsense written in recent print media world-wide about the potential harm of vitamins but not much has been written in reply, giving the counter arguments and disputing the interpretations of the studies, or questioning the sponsorship of such studies.

In a earlier post I mentioned that last year the Chief Coroner in New Zealand had queried similar negative reports about the dangers of vitamins to human health and had been inspired to conduct a review of all recorded deaths, nation-wide. As I recall from media reports, he could not find any incidence of vitamins, or other such supplements, being the cause, or a major contributor, of a death.

Another cause of some concern is bleating from the medical profession contesting the benefits of supplements which they say are untried and untested. (Ignoring the past hundred years or so and in the case of some, herbs especially, thousands of years).

The medical profession talk of the well tested, credible, and strictly regulated drugs and pharmaceuticals used by doctors’ but that dubious claim appears to have been refuted in a recent Brisbane Courier report, wherein professor Kelman from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, is quoted as saying “The current system for evaluating drug safety is outdated”.

It seems that currently, new medicines are judged solely on pre-marketing trials and on doctors’ adverse finding reports. Experts have warned that all new drugs should carry warning labels as part of an overhaul of Australia’s “archaic” monitoring system for new medications.

Professor Kelman is quoted as saying Australia has fallen behind the rest of the world in this matter, and that “Trials usually last no more than 12 months, so do not evaluate the increasingly common long-term use of medicines by patients with chronic disorders.”

Gents, we must counter the pharmaceutically-biased, misinformed, misinterpreted and often, drug company sponsored, studies condemning vitamins and let the truth be know. We can best do this by being well informed ourselves, fully armed with apposing argument. I have recently found a brilliant web site that most ably presents the total picture and which appears to have all the ammunition we need. CLICK on the link below…

For a wealth of information on this issue, go to:

http://www.doctoryourself.com/safety.html

See also: http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml

Prostate Cancer and Other Forms of Cancer

Hi Guys,
Here's food for thought. No doubt some readers will be investigating prostate cancer following recent diagnosis. In which case a little background info on cancer in general won't go astray.

Understanding cancer means knowing it’s more than one disease

Although there are many kinds of cancer, they all start because of out-of-control growth of abnormal cells. Normal body cells grow, divide and die in an orderly fashion. Because cancer cells continue to grow and divide, they are different from normal cells. Instead of dying, they outlive normal cells and continue to form new abnormal cells.

Cancer cells develop because of damage to DNA, which directs all activities in each cell. When DNA becomes damaged, the body is usually able to repair it. In cancer cells, however, the damaged DNA is not repaired. People can inherit damaged DNA, which accounts for the approximately 10 percent of inherited cancers. More often, though, a person’s DNA becomes damaged by exposure to something in the environment or random cellular events.

Most cancers originate almost anywhere in the body and usually form as a solid tumor, while others, such as leukemia and myeloma, are sometimes referred to as liquid tumors (see illustration). These cancer cells involve the blood and blood-forming organs (bone marrow) and circulate through other tissues, where they grow.

The different types of cancer include:

Carcinomas: The most common type of cancer, these tumors arise from the cells that cover external and internal body surfaces. The most frequent cancers of this type in the United States are lung, breast and colon cancer.

Sarcomas: Cancers that arise from cells found in the supporting tissues of the body, such as bone, cartilage, fat, connective tissue and muscle.

Lymphomas: Cancers that arise in the lymph nodes and tissues of the body’s immune system.

Leukemias: Cancers of the immature blood cells that grow in the bone marrow and tend to accumulate in large numbers in the bloodstream.

The place where a cancer starts is called the primary site. From there, it can spread (metastasize) to other parts of the body. Regardless of where a cancer may spread, it is always named for the place it began. For instance, breast cancer that spreads to the liver is still called breast cancer, not liver cancer.

Different types of cancer can behave very differently. For example, lung cancer and breast cancer are very different diseases. They grow at different rates and respond to different treatments. That is why people with cancer need treatment that is aimed at their particular kind of cancer.

Not all tumors are malignant (cancerous). Benign, or noncancerous, tumors do not spread to other parts of the body and, with very rare exceptions, are not life-threatening.

During the second half of the 20th century, scientists uncovered many of the intricacies of cancer and developed the technology to pinpoint the exact site of the damage to a specific gene, which has had a tremendous impact on the types of therapies now available.

Adapted from an article from the American Cancer Society
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp

Does Seawater Improve a Tomato's Antioxidant Punch?

Hi Guys,
Wow! Having read this and living with the sea just meters from my front door, as well as being on grade 5 water restrictions (South East Queensland), I think I will be collecting a bucket of sea water tomorrow for my tomato plants. Apart from the fact that tomato's contain beta-carotene, vitamins C and E, and lycopene, I'm told they are especially good as an anti-cancer agent when in the cooked, or processed (tomato sauce), state.

This item taken from the Science and Nutrition Research Newsletter, http://www.foodnavigator.com which is published by:
http://www.decisionnewsmedia.com/


Breaking News on Supplements & Nutrition - Europe

Does seawater improve a tomato's antioxidant punch?

By Stephen Daniells

16/03/2007- Growing tomatoes in diluted seawater significantly increased the levels of antioxidant vitamins C and E, says new research from Italy.

The research, focusing on standard 'salad' tomatoes and varieties genetically engineered for ripening, suggests opportunities for antioxidant-enhanced fruit and extracts produced in parts of the world with critical water shortages.

"The controlled use of alternative water resources, such as diluted seawater, could be a valid tool to face drought in the Mediterranean region," wrote the authors, led by Riccardo Izzo, in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Call For Better Prostate Cancer Biopsies

Hi Guys,

If you read between the lines in this article you will see that it further evidences the fact that, as far as treatment for prostate cancer is concerned, conventional medicine is still flying blind. Treatment is still very much trial and error, a choice of this poison over that. The overall success of which depends entirely on the tunnel blindness or pragmatic wisdom of your particular specialist, or specialists - and just you try to get them to agree on anything. Picking a modern thinking, outside the square, specialist is a roll of the dice, unless you properly investigate and qualify them first.

GO to my site at: http://www.prostateruminate.com/blog