New kind of chemotherapy kills cancer cells
in [Alternative]
|
Prev: HONEY AND CINNAMON
Next: Why is this young woman using a wheelchair?: She has tardivedyskinesia - caused by psychiatric drugs.
From: ironjustice@aol.com on 8 Jul 2006 14:02 http://www.ceps.unh.edu/news/releases03/planalpprint.htm UNH Awarded Patent for Cancer Treatment New kind of chemotherapy kills cancer cells DURHAM, N.H. --DURHAM, N.H. - The University of New Hampshire (UNH) has been granted a U.S. patent for a new way to kill cancer cells. Roy Planalp, associate professor of chemistry in the UNH College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, invented the novel chemotherapy in collaboration with researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Wake Forest University Health Sciences in Winston-Salem, N.C., which share the patent with UNH. "This invention is exciting because it has significant potential for cancer therapy," said Robert Dalton, director of the UNH Office of Intellectual Property Management. "It also has potential for other therapeutic areas as well." Planalp and his collaborators, funded by a grant from NIH's National Cancer Institute, found that they could kill cancer cells by starving them of the essential nutrient iron. The treatment employs molecules called chelators (KEE-late-ors), which bind tightly with metal. The chelators that best bind iron are in the tachpyr family of substances and are shaped like an open, six-fingered claw. They suck iron in and then snap closed, like a spring-loaded trap. "Iron is like money. It's an essential nutrient that's not always bioavailable, so cells store iron and release it as needed," explained Planalp. "What the chelators do is come in and rob the iron bank just as the cell is making a withdrawal, so the cell makes another withdrawal, and if there are more chelators, that gets robbed too. This continues until the bank is empty and the cell can't function anymore." Encased by the chelator, the iron is no longer available to perform its role in vital jobs like transporting oxygen, and the cancer cell dies. The chelator, still holding tightly to the iron, is quickly removed from the blood by the liver and expelled from the body. Side effects are expected to be negligible as iron chelators are already used to treat people with too much iron in their blood. Planalp stumbled on the cancer-fighting potential of chelators while experimenting with using them as diagnostic agents. While testing a chelator bound to gallium, a metal that shows up well in CAT scans, he found it discarded the gallium in favor of the iron needed by cells, causing them to die. "We didn't expect this," said Planalp, "so we decided to pursue it." Animal testing at the NIH showed that iron chelators are effective at killing several kinds of cancer cells and they are quickly removed by the liver - too quickly, in fact. Planalp and his collaborators are currently investigating ways to either keep iron chelators in the body longer or speed them up so they can finish the job before they are removed. Chelators tailored to bind to toxic metals, such as mercury, chromium or lead, may have other therapeutic applications. "It's all about selectivity," said Planalp. "There's a whole set of challenges out there for detoxification." Awarded in July, the patent is now being marketed by Wake Forest to companies which can turn the idea into a marketable product. Like existing chemotherapy drugs, iron chelators will most likely be used in a chemical "cocktail" containing other chemotherapy agents. CAPTION Spring-loaded trap: A drawing depticts a tachpyr molecule in its open position, before it has bound with a metal, and in its closed position, after it has sucked in the metal and trapped it. ### Who loves ya. Tom Jesus Was A Vegetarian! http://jesuswasavegetarian.7h.com Man Is A Herbivore! http://tinyurl.com/a3cc3 DEAD PEOPLE WALKING http://tinyurl.com/zk9fk
From: ironjustice@aol.com on 8 Jul 2006 14:48
ironjustice(a)aol.com wrote: <<snip>> mineral binding ability <<snip>> MEDICAL ABSTRACTS * Antioxidant functions of phytic acid. * Dietary suppression of colonic cancer. Fiber or phytate? * Phytic acid in health and disease. * Phytic acid and minerals: effect on early markers of risk for mammary and colon carcinogenesis. PUBLISHED ARTICLES * Natural Sugar-Phosphate Compound Shows Promise as Cancer Treatment * The Cancer Stopper _________________________________________________________________ MEDICAL ABSTRACTS Antioxidant functions of phytic acid. Graf E, Eaton JW Pillsbury Company, Technology Center, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Free Radic Biol Med 1990;8(1):61-9 Phytic acid is a natural plant antioxidant constituting 1-5% of most cereals, nuts, legumes, oil seeds, pollen and spores. By virtue of forming a unique iron chelate it suppresses iron-catalyzed oxidative reactions and may serve a potent antioxidant function in the preservation of seeds. By the same mechanism dietary phytic acid may lower the incidence of colonic cancer and protect against other inflammatory bowel diseases. Its addition to foods inhibits lipid peroxidation and concomitant oxidative spoilage, such as discoloration, putrefaction, and syneresis. A multitude of other industrial applications are based on the antioxidant function of phytic acid. _________________________________________________________________ Dietary suppression of colonic cancer. Fiber or phytate? Graf E, Eaton JW Cancer 1985 Aug 15;56(4):717-8 The incidence of colonic cancer differs widely between various human populations. It has been suggested that dietary fiber content is of utmost importance and is inversely related to the occurrence of colonic cancer. However, high-fiber diets are not always correlated with low frequency of colonic cancer, suggesting the involvement of additional dietary constituents. Inositol hexaphosphate (phytic acid) is an abundant plant seed component present in many, but not all, fiber-rich diets. The authors have found that phytic acid is a potent inhibitor of iron-mediated generation of the hazardous oxidant, hydroxyl radical. Herein, the authors propose that inhibition of intracolonic hydroxyl radical generation, via the chelation of reactive iron by phytic acid, may help explain the suppression of colonic carcinogenesis and other inflammatory bowel diseases by diets rich in phytic acid. _________________________________________________________________ Phytic acid in health and disease. Zhou JR, Erdman JW Jr. Division of Nutritional Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana 61801, USA. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 1995 Nov;35(6):495-508 Phytic acid (PA), a major phosphorus storage compound of most seeds and cereal grains, contributes about 1 to 7% of their dry weight. It may account for more than 70% of the total kernel phosphorus. PA has the strong ability to chelate multivalent metal ions, especially zinc, calcium, and iron. The binding can result in very insoluble salts that are poorly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract, which results in poor bioavailability (BV) of minerals. Alternatively, the ability of PA to chelate minerals has been reported to have some protective effects, such as decreasing iron-mediated colon cancer risk and lowering serum cholesterol and triglycerides in experimental animals. Data from human studies are still lacking. PA is also considered to be a natural antioxidant and is suggested to have potential functions of reducing lipid peroxidation and as a preservative in foods. Finally, certain inositol phosphates, which may be derived from PA, have been noted to have a function in second messenger transduction systems. The potential nutritional significance of PA is discussed in this review. _________________________________________________________________ Phytic acid and minerals: effect on early markers of risk for mammary and colon carcinogenesis. Thompson LU, Zhang L Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Carcinogenesis 1991 Nov;12(11):2041-5 This study determined the effect of inositol hexaphosphate or phytic acid (PA; 1.2%), Ca (1.5%) and Fe (535 p.p.m.) alone, and PA in combination with Ca or Fe in a high-fat diet (25%) on the labeling (LI) and mitotic (MI) cell proliferation indices, nuclear aberration (NA) and intraductal proliferation (IDP) in the mammary gland, as well as the LI in colonic epithelial cells. Diet supplementation with PA alone caused reductions (P less than 0.05) in the colon LI by 18%, and in the LI and NA in the total mammary gland structures of mice by 29 and 30% respectively. Supplementation with Fe or particularly Ca caused increases in the colon LI and in the mammary LI, MI, NA and IDP but these were reduced by 25-53% (P less than 0.05) in the presence of PA. These results support the hypothesis that PA may reduce the risk for both colon and mammary cancer and its effect is related to its mineral binding ability. Furthermore, significant relationships (P less than 0.01) were observed between the LI and MI or NA in the total structures of the mammary gland. The number of IDPs also related (P less than 0.05) to LI or NA in the terminal end bud structure of the mammary gland, suggesting that highly proliferating mammary cells, particularly in the terminal end bud structure, are of greater risk for nuclear damage and development to IDP. A significant relationship (P less than 0.01) was observed between the cell proliferation in the mammary gland and that in the colon, indicating that both tissues can be influenced similarly by dietary constituents. _________________________________________________________________ > Who loves ya. > Tom > > > Jesus Was A Vegetarian! > http://jesuswasavegetarian.7h.com > > > Man Is A Herbivore! > http://tinyurl.com/a3cc3 > > > DEAD PEOPLE WALKING > http://tinyurl.com/zk9fk |