Vitamin D Confirmed As A Protective Agent Against The Advance Of Colon Cancer

Main Category: Colorectal Cancer
Also Included In: Nutrition / Diet
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The indication that vitamin D and its derivatives have a protective effect against various types of cancer is not new. In the field of colon cancer, numerous experimental and epidemiological studies show that vitamin D3 (or cholecalciferol) and some of its derivatives inhibit the growth of cancerous cells. Researchers at the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), in collaboration with the Alberto Sols Institute of Biomedical Research (CSIC-UAB), have confirmed the pivotal role of vitamin D, specifically its receptor (VDR), in slowing down the action of a key protein in the carcinogenic transformation process of colon cancer cells. These results are being published in the journal PLoS One.

This protein, known as beta-catenin, which is normally found in intestinal epithelial cells where it facilitates their cohesion, builds up in large quantities in other areas of the cells when the tumour transformation begins. As a result of these changes, the protein is retained in the cell nucleus, where it facilitate the carcinogenic process, and this is the point at which vitamin D intervenes, or rather, the vitamin D receptor (VDR). "Our study has confirmed the pivotal role of the VDR in controlling the anomalous signal that sparks off the growth and uncontrolled proliferation of colon cells which, in the final instance, ends up causing a tumour to emerge", says Hector Palmer, the coordinator of this study and head of the VHIO's Stem Cells and Cancer laboratory. He continues, "The stimulation of this receptor suppresses the action of the beta-catenin protein, intercepting the series of events that change the intestinal cell into a malignant tumour cell".

The study was conducted on mice and human colon cancer cells. The mice were used as a model to replicate the initial phases of colon cancer. "These findings show that mice of this kind, which also lack the VDR and hence do not respond to vitamin D, present larger and more aggressive tumours than mice with the VDR", explains Dr. Palmer, and concludes: "The number of tumours is not influenced by the absence of VDR, which would indicate that this factor does not protect against the appearance of the tumour but does intervene in its growth phase, reducing its aggressiveness".

The researchers then analysed the effect of the VDR on human colon cancer cell cultures and observed that the concentration of the altered protein, beta-catenin, increased in cells without the VDR. These findings were repeated in the three types of colon cancer cells studied, and confirmed the results observed in the mice.

In two-thirds of advanced colon cancer tumours there was a lack of VDR in the cancer cells, and this circumstance leads us to believe that this loss may contribute to speeding up the growth of the tumour. The findings of this study confirm this supposition.

Vitamin D: essential in the initial phases of colon cancer

In light of these findings, chronic vitamin D deficiency represents a risk factor in the development of more aggressive colon tumours. Patients in the initial stages of colon cancer, the time when the VDR still has a substantial presence in the cells, could benefit from being treated with vitamin D3. However, this would not be useful in the advanced stages of the disease when the presence of the VDR is very much reduced.

The study data support the development of anti-tumour medicines based on the structure of vitamin D, although their use in patients will require further research in the next few years.

The body not only obtains vitamin D from food, especially milk and fish oils, but also manufactures it from exposure to sunlight. Prolonged exposure is not necessary; just 10 minutes in the sun every day when it is not at its peak is sufficient to stimulate its production. During the summer, when we are more likely to sunbathe, it is important to use the appropriate protective measures against sunburn to avoid future sun damage. Use high-factor solar protection products and do not expose the skin to the sun in the middle of the day to protect against skin cancers.

Note: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our terms and conditions.

posted by Peggy on 18 Aug 2011 at 5:40 am

So what is the recommended daily amount of Vitamin D for cancer prevention? In a woman? Older woman? Man?

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posted by William B. Grant on 18 Aug 2011 at 2:04 pm

From observational studies, it appears that good protection against breast, colon, rectal and other cancers is achieved for serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels above 40 ng/mL (100 nmol/L). To achieve this level takes anywhere from 1000 to 5000 IU/d vitamin D3 or more, depending on various personal factors.

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Posted in: Advance,Against,Agent,Cancer,Colon,Confirmed,Protective,Vitamin

Study: HPV Tests Better at Predicting Cervical Cancer Than Pap Tests

No Significant Gain From Combining the Tests, Study ShowsBy Brenda Goodman
WebMD Health News

Aug. 22, 2011 -- DNA tests that detect the most virulent strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV, may find more advanced precancerous cells that can lead to cervical cancer than traditional Pap smears, a new study shows.

The study, which is published in The Lancet Oncology, suggests that testing for HPV strains 16 and 18, which cause about 70% of all cervical cancer, could replace Pap tests as the primary screening tool for the disease.

“We’re not there yet, but this trial gives us more data that shows that it is reasonable to consider HPV as a standalone test,” says Therese Bevers, MD, medical director of the Cancer Prevention Center at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. 

The study of more than 40,000 healthy women over age 25 found that HPV testing correctly detected nearly 40% more advanced precancers than Pap smears did.

“There are still points to be worked out, but clearly this study is providing more data to say that this may be a strategy that’s reasonable to consider,” says Bevers, who was not involved in the research.

Importantly, the study also found that combining HPV and Pap testing, as many doctors do, only found about 5% more advanced precancers and cancers, but it increased the number of women who falsely tested positive by more than one-third.

“You get a 5% gain for a 35% over-referral,” says study researcher Mark H. Stoler, MD, professor of pathology and clinical gynecology at the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, Va.

Those false-positive tests lead to more frequent or invasive testing to rule out cancer, more anxiety for patients, and more expense for individuals and insurance companies.

“The study suggests that if you’re really concerned about efficiency with very little penalty, then HPV testing should be the first test,” Stoler tells WebMD.

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Posted in: Better,Cancer,Cervical,Predicting,Study,Tests

Dogs Sniff Out Lung Cancer in Humans

Study Shows Some Dogs Can Be Trained to Identify Lung Cancer When They Sniff a Person's BreathBy Brenda Goodman
WebMD Health News

Aug. 17, 2011 -- German researchers say that highly trained dogs are able to reliably sniff out lung cancer in human breath.

In its early stages, lung cancer has few symptoms, making it difficult for doctors to catch it early, when it's still treatable.

"This is the holy grail," says Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, associate professor and director of the lung program at Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta.

"The whole field is focused on using something that's readily available that does not involve an expensive surgery or scan that would allow us to find early cancers," says Ramalingam, who is developing technology that aims to replicate the ability of dogs to smell trace amount of chemicals produced by cancerous tumors. He was not involved in the research.

Recently a large, government-funded study found that longtime smokers at high risk for lung cancer who received annual rapid computed tomography (CT) scans of their lungs cut their risk of dying of the disease by 20%.

But that test has caused controversy because it falsely detects cancer in about one out of four people, leading to further invasive procedures.

The new study, which is published in the European Respiratory Journal, found that four trained dogs -- two German shepherds, an Australian shepherd, and a Labrador retriever -- correctly identified cancer in 71 of 100 samples from lung cancer patients.

They also ruled out cancer in 372 out of 400 samples that were known not to have cancer, giving them a very low rate of false positives, about 7%.

"The surprising result of our study is the very high specificity of our dogs to identify lung cancer," says study researcher Thorsten Walles, MD, a lung surgeon at Schillerhoehe Hospital in Gerlingen, Germany.

"It even surpasses the combination of chest computed tomography (CT) scan and bronchoscopy, which is an invasive procedure that needs some form of anesthesia," Walles tells WebMD in an email.

Doctors have previously reported cases in which dogs have alerted their owners to undiagnosed skin, breast, and lung cancers by repeatedly pawing or nosing an affected body part. Some dogs have even been trained to smell low blood sugar levels in people who have diabetes.

But dogs have had more mixed success in carefully controlled studies, where samples from healthy people and sick people have been mixed.

A study published in BMJ in 2004 found that dogs correctly identified bladder cancer an average of about 40% of the time, a rate that was better than the 14% accuracy that could be expected by chance, but was lower than available tests.

But in June, researchers in Japan reported that dogs could detect the presence of colon cancer in human breath and stool samples with nearly 90% accuracy, a success rate only slightly lower than colonoscopy.

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Posted in: Cancer,Humans,Sniff

Ecstasy 'could be used in cancer treatment'

Researchers from Birmingham University claimed the designer drug, also known as MDMA, could be used to treat leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma after making it 100 times more effective at suppressing growth.

Ecstasy was already known to be effective against more than half of white blood cell cancers, but previously the large dose required to treat a tumour would also have killed the patient.

In a study published in the Investigational New Drugs journal, the scientists said the new drug could be used by doctors to treat cancer if it can be produced in a safe form.

Lead author Professor John Gordon said: "This is an exciting next step towards using a modified form of MDMA to help people suffering from blood cancer.

"While we would not wish to give people false hope, the results of this research hold the potential for improvement in treatments in years to come."

Dr Julie Sharp of Cancer Research UK said: "As MDMA is a dangerous drug, the researchers need also to find out if they can create safe versions to treat people with the disease.

"Although survival rates for leukaemia have improved over the past thirty years new approaches to treatment are still needed to tackle this disease even more effectively."

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Posted in: Cancer,could,Ecstasy,treatment

Tropical plants could be used to fight cancer

The extracts, blends of chemicals and other ingredients found inside several plants from tropical regions, could form the base ingredients of new medicines to combat the disease, experts said.

Prof Ian Cree of the University of Portsmouth, who led the research, said: "This is a first – no one has managed to use cells obtained directly from cancers to screen an entire library of plant extracts and we are very excited by the results obtained.

"The key now will be to obtain further funding to produce drugs from those samples showing that they can kill cancer cells.

"It should be stressed that drug development is a very lengthy process and that these results, though exciting, are a long way from being used in patients."

Prof Cree is now working with University of Strathclyde researchers to develop a programme aimed at identifying other plant extracts with cancer-fighting properties.

Ovarian cancer, is the fifth most common cancer in women and one of the most deadly, killing more than 4,000 women a year in Britain.

Alan Harvey, Professor of Pharmacology at Strathclyde's Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, said: "Our collection of natural plant samples gives us a broad range of possibilities for treatment and we have had good results from many plants.

"A great many samples have been studied in our collaboration with Portsmouth and a lot of activity has been detected that wouldn't have been picked up in conventional tests.

"We are hoping that more tests will bring new treatments a step closer."

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Posted in: Cancer,could,fight,plants,Tropical

New Drug Shows Promise in Treating Ovarian Cancer

Olaparib Shrinks Tumors in Women With Few Treatment Options

Aug. 22, 2011 -- An experimental drug that has been shown to be effective in treating ovarian cancer in patients with BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations also appears to work in some patients without the mutations.

The drug olaparib is one of several experimental treatments that block the activity of the protein PARP, which, like BRCA, is involved in DNA repair.

In earlier trials, PARP inhibitors have been shown to promote tumor cell death in breast and ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutations by preventing the cells from repairing their DNA.

But the new study is the first to suggest the drugs may prove effective in a broader group of patients with non-inherited cancers who have few treatment options, lead researcher Karen Gelmon, MD, of Vancouver, Canada’s BC Cancer Agency tells WebMD.

The study included 65 ovarian cancer patients and 26 breast cancer patients with highly aggressive, advanced forms of the diseases.

Prior to entering the study, the patients had been treated with an average of three different chemotherapy regimens, and some had received as many as 10 different treatments.

Some of the patients carried the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations while others did not.

All of the patients were treated with 400 milligrams of olaparib twice a day for a month between July 2008 and September 2009. Side effects were described as well tolerated and included fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and decreased appetite.

Ovarian cancer patients who took part in the trial had high-grade serous tumors, which share similar traits to tumors in women with BRCA mutations.

After taking the experimental drug for four weeks, 41% of the ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutations and 24% of those without a mutation showed substantial shrinkage in the size of their tumors.

Responses were not seen in breast cancer patients with triple-negative tumors -- tumors that do not respond to hormonal treatments or those targeting HER2 receptors.

While the response in these breast cancer patients was disappointing, the response in the ovarian cancer patients suggests that the drug may have a role in the treatment of patients without BRCA mutations, oncologist Melinda Telli, MD, tells WebMD.

Telli is an assistant professor of medicine in the division of medical oncology at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif.

“We thought this class of drugs might have a larger role to play, and this is the first study to confirm that this might be the case,” she says.

The study was published online and will appear in the September issue of The Lancet Oncology. Drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, which hopes to market the drug pending FDA approval, funded the research.

Earlier this year, another PARP inhibitor, Sanofi-Aventis’ iniparib, failed to extend overall survival in a study involving women with advanced, triple-negative breast cancer when added to a standard chemotherapy regimen.

Telli says PARP inhibitors may still prove useful for the treatment of this type of highly aggressive, hard-to-treat cancer.

“There is a lot more to this story and a lot more research to be done,” she says.

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Posted in: Cancer,Ovarian,Promise,shows,Treating

More Evidence That Caffeine Lowers Risk Of Skin Cancer

Main Category: Melanoma / Skin Cancer
Also Included In: Nutrition / Diet
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There might be a time when instead of just drinking that morning cup of coffee you lather it on your skin as a way of preventing harmful sun damage or skin cancer.

A new Rutgers study strengthens the theory that caffeine guards against certain skin cancers at the molecular level by inhibiting a protein enzyme in the skin, known as ATR. Scientists believe that based on what they have learned studying mice, caffeine applied directly to the skin might help prevent damaging UV light from causing skin cancer.

Prior research indicated that mice that were fed caffeinated water and exposed to lamps that generated UVB radiation that damaged the DNA in their skin cells were able to kill off a greater percentage of their badly damaged cells and reduce the risk of cells becoming cancerous.

"Although it is known that coffee drinking is associated with a decreased risk of non-melanoma skin cancer, there now needs to be studies to determine whether topical caffeine inhibits sunlight-induced skin cancer," said Allan Conney, director of the Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research.

In this newly-published study, instead of inhibiting ATR with caffeinated water, Rutgers researchers, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Washington, genetically modified and diminished ATR in one group of mice. The results: the genetically modified mice developed tumors more slowly than the unmodified mice, had 69 percent fewer tumors than regular mice and developed four times fewer invasive tumors.

The study also found, however, that when both groups of mice were exposed to chronic ultraviolet rays for an extended period of time, tumor development occurred in both the genetically modified and regular mice. What this seems to indicate, says Conney, is that inhibiting the ATR enzyme works best at the pre-cancerous stage before UV-induced skin cancers are fully developed.

According to the National Cancer Institute, sunlight-induced skin cancer is the most prevalent cancer in the United States with more than 1 million new cases each year. Although multiple human epidemiologic studies link caffeinated beverage intake with significant decreases in several different types of cancer, including skin cancer, just how and why coffee protects against the disease is unknown.

"Caffeine might become a weapon in prevention because it inhibits ATR and also acts ad as a sunscreen and directly absorbs damaging UV light," said Conney.

Note: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our terms and conditions.

Please note that we publish your name, but we do not publish your email address. It is only used to let you know when your message is published. We do not use it for any other purpose. Please see our privacy policy for more information.

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Posted in: Caffeine,Cancer,Evidence,Lowers

Cancer treatment 'blows tumours away in weeks'

Researchers have pioneered a technique that involves leukaemia patients being treated with their own T cells – a type of white blood cell – that have been genetically modified to attack and destroy tumours within their bodies.

Dr Carl June, the lead researcher, said the treatment was so powerful that tumours were "blown away" within a month, and with far fewer side effects than existing treatment.

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Centre in America tested the treatment on three patients suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

After removing the patient's T cells, the team reprogrammed them to attack tumours by binding to a protein expressed by cancerous cells.

The killer T cells were programmed to multiply when the binding occurs and attack until all the cancer cells were destroyed.

The study was published in the Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine. It said one patient, a 64–year–old man whose blood and marrow were riddled with tumours, responded extraordinarily well. By day 28, his blood and bone marrow appeared clear of leukaemia.

Dr June said: "Within three weeks, the tumours had been blown away, in a way that was much more violent than we ever expected. It worked much better than we thought it would."

The team now hopes to use the treatment to combat other types of cancer, including non–Hodgkins lymphoma and acute lymphocytic leukaemia.

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Posted in: blows,Cancer,treatment,tumours,weeks