Posts Tagged ‘oncogenes’
‘Turning Off’ the cancer causing Ras protein
Posted by: adonis49 on: December 9, 2015
Cancer Research Breakthrough Unveiled
As Scientists Learn How To ‘Turn Off’ Notorious Protein
A cancer-causing protein has finally met its match thanks to a discovery unveiled by scientists in Canada.
After years of trying to find a way to stop the Ras protein – “responsible for 30% of all cancers and indirectly involved in virtually all cancers” – researchers have figured out the solution lies with another protein known as SHP2.
Think of it as a fighting-fire-with-fire mechanism.
“For several decades, scientists have tried to turn off a protein called Ras,” said Michael Ohh of the University of Toronto, who was one of the study’s authors.
“But despite their efforts, we ultimately haven’t seen much progress. In fact, it’s been coined the ‘undruggable’ protein.”
The genes that code for Ras (remember genes are an instruction manual telling our body what proteins to make) are known as oncogenes.
A helpful analogy from the American Cancer Society is to think of a cell as a car, and oncogene as the accelerator that causes the cell to divide out of control. And one of the keys that turns this process on is the Ras protein.
What Ohh and his team have found however, is that SHP2 can work like a switch and turn off Ras — easing the pressure on the accelerator if you like.
In a study published in Nature Communications, they “tested this on mice with glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive type of brain cancer.”
“The inhibitors’ results were incredible — we were shocked,” explained Ohh. “Nothing has had the same effect.”
What they found is the tumours reduced by 80 per cent.
As with any breakthrough, this finding still has to be put through the rigours of a clinical trial.
Before this stage however, the team plan to see if SHP2 is effective in mice that have human pancreatic tumours.
Commenting on what this would mean for patients in the longterm, one of the paper’s authors, Yoshihito Kano, said “I see a lot of patients with pancreatic cancer.
“These patients usually die within one year, even with chemotherapy, so this drug could potentially change my patients’ lives.”
Cancer cells are Naturally reversible? Even at an advanced stage?
Posted by: adonis49 on: March 14, 2012
Cancer cells are Naturally reversible? Even at an advanced stage?
All cancer experts know, without a shadow of a doubt, that even in advanced stages, a miracle can happen, and cancer cells of all kinds (leukemia, melanoma, breast, colon, lung, prostate, skin cancers…) may regress to normal cells.
A team of researchers at Cachan, led by Adam Telerman and Robert Amson, has succeeded, in vitro, on cancerous cultures to be “reprogrammed”. Cancerous cells still dispose of “survival mechanism” genes to revert to normal, before they die, and us along…
This stand to reason: If protein P53 attacks cancerous cells, and protein TCTP tries its best to “reprogram” the cancerous cell to normalcy, then a very “rational” duel for survival is engaged among the cells, irrespective of the end result for the dying client…It is who will win: the “rogue States” or the US acclaimed “good and satisfactory” States…
The team of researchers point of view is: “We are looking at how a tumor may quit being lethal, and not focus on how a normal cell takes the wrong turn...”
In this duel, the oncogenes (the accelerator of cancerous mutations) and the “suppressor genes” trying to break-up the mutation havoc and wild craziness are battling for their survival existential nature.
There are myths related to cancer:
Myth #1: “What you eat is the cancer that you get”. Wrong. A third of cancer types are related to diets and the other two-thirds have other main factors. A cancer lingers for 15 years and it is not by following a late specific diet that cancer will be prevented. There are 25,000 bio-components in food and investigating the effects of each component and the interactions of these components is not an easy scientific matter.
Myth #2: “Eating fruits and vegetables will block or retard cancer development”. Wrong. Or the other dictum: “Eat five kinds of fruits and vegetables per day to preserving your health.” Wrong. Fact is fruits and vegetables are plagued with pesticides (proven to be carcinogenic), and simple washing will not do to remove the pesticides. Over 70% of pesticides that enter our digestive system come from vegetable products.
(We are going through a period where soil is impoverished and needs constant and abundant chemical fertilizers; the produce have to be treated with pesticides in order to reach maturity). Unless you are confident that your provider is entirely bio and that you can afford the higher prices, then do not bet on any effective diet.
Myth #3: “Wine is carcinogenic from the first glass you drink.” Wrong. Khayat suggest for men to drink three glasses of wine per day (preferably red wine) and women two glasses (a maximum of 30 grams of ethanol): wine has high levels of “resveratol” which is an antioxidant and thus, offers anti-cancer virtue. The less alcoholic and the less in sugar content the better the wine is for the health.
(I don’t know; maybe wine is given special status among all other alcoholic beverages because studies on wine benefits are done by French, Italian, and Spanish biased researchers. Cheap wine in those countries might simply be cheaper than bottled water. I want to know the effects of cheap beer, cheap vodka, and cheap gin: Just to be fair with consumers in most countries).
Myth #4: “Eat lots of fish.” Wrong. Fat and large fish, those that feed on other fish, have high levels of heavy metals (far higher than industrial mines!) such as dioxin, arsenic, polychlorobiphenol, methylmercury, cadmium and lead…) that are proven to be carcinogenic. Anyway, omega 3 was not proven to be that beneficial to health.
Physician Khayat offers many recommendations:
First, eat meat with moderation and make sure meat does not come in direct contact with fire: When temperature reaches over 240 (C degrees) then aromatic amino polycyclic are produced and they are proven to be highly carcinogenic.
There are no link between red meat and colon cancer. It appears that Asiatic women using the “wok” (cooking utensil) have higher levels of lung cancer compared to other women and this is due to using the wok for cooking meat.
(I would like to believe that studies on the wok effects have controlled most of the variables that produce cancers. All that I can say when I read these kinds of “scientific studies” is that “Wok has to be studied more seriously”)
Second, Vitamin E, iron, and beta-carotene should go out of the window. These vitamins are time bombs. People who regurgitated lots of vitamin E had more cases of colon cancers than normal people. Beta-carotene (found in carrots) increase lung cancers among smokers.
Third, men suffer more prostate cancers than other kinds of cancers. Thus, men over 50 should eat plenty of tomatoes, drastically reduce milk and milk based consumption, and eliminate fatty products that fabricate male hormones susceptible to stimulating cancerous cells in the prostate.
Fourth, females have tendencies for higher cases of breast and uterus cancers after menopause. Thus, women have to eat plenty of green and white kinds of vegetables that are rich in phyto-oestrogenes. They have to eat fruits and vegetables rich in fibers (ale, banana, onion, asparagus, whole grain breads, …): these products accelerate the transit and reduce the time of contact between intestinal mucus and product potentially carcinogenic. Women should drink non-fatty milk for its calcium.
Can we deduce that basically, what is harmful for men is good for women?
(Here I get nervous and pretty suspicious: what, if I like milk and milk products then, should I be angry and upset for being created with prostate?)
Fifth, eat in the morning yellow and orange kinds of fruits and vegetables( such as orange, mandarin, mango, grapefruit (pampelmouse)…): their high antioxidant properties repair a night fasting. Eat at anytime and during the entire day all kinds of red and white fruits and vegetables (such as tomatoes, red cabbage, ale, onion, and soja): reasons not explained.
At night, eat green (broccoli, cabbage…): green color is the product of photosynthesis linked to solar activities and thus, night-time equilibrate these effects.
Avoid red-violet and blue products at night. (Here I get suspicious when colors are involved; for example, if there are outside effects then how these effects resume when eaten inside our system?)
Six, eat plenty of Curcuma, green tea (the Japanese kind), ale, onion, quercetine, selenium, and tomatoes.
I love to eat everything and in moderation. Since I cannot afford meat, I am doubly lucky. I suggest that psychological stability far outweigh food dieting for those categorical in their diet systems
Note: This post was inspired by an article in the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur and the book by physician Khayat.