Huntington’s Disease Produced Molecules Are Fatal to Cancer Cells

Huntington's Disease Produced Molecules Are Fatal to Cancer Cells
Huntington’s Disease Produced Molecules Are Fatal to Cancer Cells

Could a clue to more effective cancer treatment be found in the biochemistry of another illness? Scientists are hopeful that the gene behind Huntington’s disease could be fatal to cancer cells without harming healthy ones.

What Is Huntington’s Disease?

Huntington’s disease is a genetically inherited condition that destroys nerve cells in the brain. There is currently treatment but no cure for the disorder, which causes a slowly progressive decline in both cognitive and physical abilities.

The faulty gene that triggers Huntington’s disease contains an excessive number of repeats of a certain sequence of nucleotides, which form the building blocks of DNA and RNA. These sequences create small interfering RNAs, which are molecules that attack specific genes crucial for cell survival.

“Assassin Molecules”

Brain cells in particular are vulnerable to the cell death caused by small interfering RNAs. Cancer cells are also highly susceptible, which is thought to be the reason why Huntington’s disease patients have such a low incidence of cancer.

A research team at Northwestern University tested these so-called “assassin molecules” on human and mouse cancer cells, including brain, breast, colon and ovarian, that were grown in a laboratory. The small interfering RNAs killed all cancer cells from both humans and mice.

Researchers were encouraged that the treatment also showed no toxicity to healthy cells. Further testing is underway to find a more targeted form of delivery.

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New Research: Light Activated Cancer Medications with Minimal Side Effects

Exploration of New Cancer Therapy Techniques Is on the Horizon.
Exploration of New Cancer Therapy Techniques Is on the Horizon.

A new light may literally be shining on the search for more effective cancer treatment. Scientists are making progress on the creation of cancer drugs that are light-activated and have fewer debilitating side effects.

Fighting the Toxic Side Effects of Chemotherapy

Most of today’s cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy receive cisplatin or another platinum-based compound. These treatments date back more than 50 years, and they attack both healthy and diseased cells, which results in toxic side effects.

A team from the Warwick Monash Alliance, which is an intercontinental collaboration between two universities in the UK and Australia, tested a potential platinum-based chemotherapy drug that is activated by direct light. The inorganic-metal compound has the ability to specifically target and attack cancer cells.

The treatment is completely inert in darkness. Once it’s inserted into a cancerous area, direct light triggers a reaction that causes the compound to degrade into active platinum and release ligand molecules on the diseased cells.

Harnessing the Power of Photoactivation

Peter Sadler, professor of chemistry at the University of Warwick, stated that this discovery has great potential for the development of targeted cancer treatment. Since the light can be focused directly on the tumor, the drug spares healthy tissue and kills only cancer cells.

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The Keto Diet May Prove Beneficial to Cancer Patients While in Treatment

What You Put in Your Body Could Be Affecting Your Likelihood of Catching Cancer.
What You Put in Your Body Could Be Affecting Your Likelihood of Catching Cancer.

People are always looking for the next great diet in an effort to lose weight. The recently popular ketogenic diet could have some surprising benefits for patients undergoing cancer treatment.

The Warburg Effect

Cancer cells proliferate via the Warburg effect, named for the scientist who first advanced the idea. Fermentation is a process by which sugars are metabolized to provide energy for bacteria. Sauerkraut and yogurt are some of the more widely-known products of fermentation.

Unlike normal body cells, which derive their energy from mitochondria, cancer cells receive energy from fermentation of glucose within cytoplasm. When a cell starts getting energy from glucose, it can be the first sign of abnormal cell function that ultimately results in formation of a tumor.

The Ketogenic Diet: Starving Cancer Cells

A keto diet plan is low in carbohydrates and high in fat. The science behind it is based on a biological response that dates back to prehistoric times. When food was scarce, the body responded by shifting metabolic gears and using stored fat as fuel.

When the body’s supply of carbs is restricted, it shuts off the flow of glucose and other cancer-promoting fuels. As cancer cells become compromised, the body resumes its normal cellular signaling, putting the brakes on further tumor development.

The keto diet should not be considered a cure for cancer. However, it’s a valuable tool for use in conjunction with immunotherapy and other cancer treatment.

Immunotherapy and Nutrition: A Winning Combination

Good nutrition is a perfect complement for our non-toxic cancer treatment programs. Visit our website for more information about cancer vaccines and other individually created treatments.

Links to Cancer and Processed Foods are Studied by Brazilian and French Researchers

What You Put in Your Body Could Be Affecting Your Likelihood of Catching Cancer.
What You Put in Your Body Could Be Affecting Your Likelihood of Catching Cancer.

Following a nutritional diet during cancer treatment is essential to boosting your immune system and energy level. A recently published study indicates that there may be a link between highly processed foods and development of cancer.

Does Diet Affect Cancer Risk?

A recent issue of medical journal BMJ included the report of a study conducted by a team of French and Brazilian scientists. After reviewing the diets and medical records of 104,980 French adults, the researchers found that an increase in consumption of processed foods paralleled an increase in cancer risk.

Specifically, data showed that eating 10 percent more highly processed foods was accompanied by a 12 percent increase in overall cancer risk and 11 percent increase in breast cancer risk.

Items defined as “highly processed foods” included ready-to-eat meals, carbonated drinks and reconstituted meat found in products like chicken nuggets. According to the research team, these types of foods constitute nearly half of the energy intake in many developed countries.

Making Healthy Choices

No link was found with moderately processed foods such as cheese, canned vegetables and freshly made bread. Not surprisingly, minimally processed foods such as fruits and vegetables, meat, eggs and fish were linked to a lower risk of cancer.

The team said that study limitations prevented firm conclusions. Further research can clarify the implications and help to identify the specific elements in foods that link to cancer.

Issels®: The Leader in Immunotherapy Cancer Treatment

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Ribosomes May be Hijacked to Protein Fuel for Cancers

It's Time to Stop Cancer
It’s Time to Stop Cancer

Cancer cells often have an uncanny ability to hijack the functions of normal body cells. Scientists have focused on this property in the belief that deciphering the process will lead to more effective cancer treatment.

Thanks to the results of a Yale University study, the scientific community may be a little closer to this goal. Discovery of unknown pathways to fuel sources provides insights into the development and growth of cancer.

How Cell Proteins Drive Cancer Growth

Organelles are specialized structures in cells that carry out certain tasks, much like organs do for the human body. One of these organelles, called the nucleolus, produces ribosomes, which in turn manufacture proteins.

Ribosomes can be hijacked by cancer cells to divert protein production in order to fuel cancer growth. In a study published in Cell Reports, Dr. Susan Baserga of Yale University and two of her graduate students screened 18,000 proteins that are vital to nucleoli formation.

A Target for Immunotherapy Cancer Treatment?

Dr. Baserga and her team found 139 proteins that serve as a type of master switching network. The proteins represent countless cellular pathways that control the production of ribosomes. This discovery clarifies the link between ribosomes and cancer as well as the one between ribosomes and certain birth defects known as ribosomopathies.

Personalized Cancer Treatment at Issels®

Our innovative cancer treatments target both the tumor and its microenvironment. Immunotherapy programs at Issels® are created specifically to address a patient’s individual needs.

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New Possible Cervical Cancer Treatments Focus on Cancer’s Energy Supply

New Possible Cervical Cancer Treatments Focus on Cancer's Energy Supply
New Possible Cervical Cancer Treatments Focus on Cancer’s Energy Supply

A new potential cervical cancer treatment is making waves. After decades of the same, largely unchanged treatment protocol, there may be a new hope on the horizon. A study conducted on mice by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has uncovered that cervical tumors that don’t respond to radiation are vulnerable to therapies that cut off cancer’s energy supply at the source.

Turning Cervical Cancer ‘Off’
The mice used in the study, implanted with human cervical cancer cells, provided some interesting data. When treated with a combination of radiation and 3 drugs designed to slow tumor metabolism, cancer’s ability to burn glucose and protect itself was shut down, thwarting cancer cell survival attempts.

The Sugar-Zapping Theory
Cancer cells take up glucose in larger amounts than normal tissues. Researchers in the study observed that tumors resisting treatment were those that took up a large deal of glucose prior to radiation therapy. On the hypothesis that sugar strengthens tumor resistance, they decided to delve closer into what would happen if that sugar uptake was inhibited.

Shocking Potential
With glucose eliminated as a food source, cancer cells must scavenge for sustenance. In typical treatment modalities, cancer will rally by hitting the cells’ metabolic pathways in two more ways simultaneously, making tumors vulnerable to their own self-created toxic stew.

Free radical toxicity escalates, eventually devastating the cancer cells. As healthy cells don’t rely on this fuel production pathway, no obvious negative side-effects were revealed. Future studies will explore this cancer treatment’s potential in HPV-induced cervical cancer.

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