Surviving-Cancers.com

Ripe Mango

In 2001, a study at the University of Florida indicated that Mangoes contain several cancer fighting components including carotinoids and phenolic compounds called polyphenols, both powerful antioxidants.

A more recent study funded by the National Mango Board and done at Texas A&M University’s AgriLife Research department determined that one class of these phenolic compounds, known as gallotannins, is particularly effective in killing breast cancer and colon cancer cells under laboratory conditions.

In the earlier study, mangoes were pureed and separated into a carotinoid portion and a portion heavy in phenolics.  While both portions inhibited cancer formation, the phenolic portion was shown to be more effective.  Some of the compounds were suspected of being unique to Mangoes and the results suggested that further studies were warranted.

This brings up the later study.  The husband and wife team of Dr. Susanne and Dr. Steve Talcott at Agrilife Research found that gallotannins were effective in slowing the growth of lung, prostate, and leukemia cancer cells, but were even more effective against breast and colon cancer.  The compounds actually caused the breast and colon cancer cells to stop multiplying and die in a form of cell suicide called apoptosis.

The gallotannins also prevented damaged cells, those showing precancerous signs, from developing further.  When the compounds were administered to normal, healthy cells, no harm was done.

Although the research was funded by the National Mango Board, there appears to be no reason to question the findings.

Of course, not all experiments performed in the laboratory pan out when used on human subjects.  But the results give hope that another, more natural alternative to widely prescribed cancer drugs may soon be offered to cancer victims.  Clinical trials may begin soon to determine the efficacy on human subjects.

In the meantime, eat more mangoes and drink tea, which is also high in gallotannins.

Breast cancer self-examination

A year ago I reported on findings which indicated that bisphosphonate drugs might be a contributor to esophageal cancer. Now I have to report new research which indicates that bisphosphonate drugs such as Fosamax may be effective in reducing the risk of breast cancer.

Two different studies have come up with similar results, one resulting from the Woman’s Health Initiative (WHI) and another from a controlled case study in Israel. Both showed a sharply lowered cancer incidence in women who had been prescribed bisphosphonates to prevent bone loss.

The WHI study was led by Dr, Rowan Chlebowski, chief oncologist from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Of the 2816 women having taken bisphosphonates at the beginning of the WHI study, only 64 women developed breast cancer. This was a 32 percent reduction in incidence compared to those women who were not taking the drug.

It should be noted that women taking the drugs were slightly more likely to develop DCIS, or ductal carcinoma in situ, than those who did not. DCIS is a very early form of breast cancer confined to the milk ducts where it is formed and is nearly 100 percent curable when found.

The other study, led by Dr. Gad Rennert, chairman of community medicine and epidemiology at the Clalit National Cancer Control Center in Haifa Israel looked at 4575 women who took bisphosphonates for at least a year. The results indicated a 34 percent reduced rate of breast cancer diagnosis. Even after controlling for other risk factors, the reduction remained at 29 percent.

Where tumors did occur in the women who took the drugs, the tumors were more estrogen-receptor positive and differentiated. These factors are associated with better response to treatment and better prognoses.

Breast cancer ribbon

The study found that protection from the drug was most pronounced after taking it for a year. Less than a year offered little or no protective benefit and after more than a year, the benefit did not increase.

Over 30 million patients are prescribed bisphosphonates for the reduction of osteoporosis.

So there you have it. If you take bisphosphonates you may increase the risk of developing esophageal cancer, and your risk of developing breast cancer may increase if you don’t.

President Roosevelt

It was recently revealed that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died as a result of melanoma, a cancer noted for its ability to spread or metastasize throughout the body.  A tumor in his brain from the metastasized cancer caused the previously reported stroke.

In a study done at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia and in a second study done at the University of California, Los Angeles. research indicated that family history may be more important in gauging melanoma risk than the amount of sun exposure or other factors.

While our knowledge of melanoma has come a long way since the 1940s, it is still one of the deadliest forms of cancer.  This is because it can be influenced by several different genetic factors each of which must be dealt with by a different treatment.  Unless one knows the genetic code involved, one can’t know which treatment will be effective, assuming there is a treatment for a particular genetic mutation.

In a test of a new drug, PLX4032, 20 of 22 patients with a common form of melanoma, associated with a mutation of the BRAF gene, experienced a reduction of their tumors.  It is believed that about half of all melanomas are associated with this genetic mutation.

Administered twice a day by researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, PLX4032 blocked the activity of the gene.  All of the patients in the study had the mutated gene and all had failed to respond to other treatments.

As this treatment addresses the genetic code which causes the cells to divide uncontrollably and not the cell division itself, it does not result in the devastating side effects of chemotherapy.

While the report was promising, the therapy is not yet viewed as a cure.  It did, however, focus on the importance of addressing the genetic programming which causes the disease rather than the symptoms of the disease.

In the future, it is likely that new therapies focusing on genetics will be the answer to beating various forms of cancer, including melanoma.

If FDR had lived in the early decades of the 21st century and had the mutated BRAF gene form of melanoma, he might have stood a chance of surviving the disease.