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Exercise ‘Cuts Colon Cancer Risk’

Endoscopic image of colon cancer identified in...
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Taking exercise can cut the risk of the most common kind of bowel cancer by a quarter, research suggests.

US scientists, who reviewed 52 previous studies, calculated the most active people are 24% less likely to develop colon cancer than the least active.

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Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death

Colon cancer is the most common form of bowel cancer, a disease which affects more than 36,500 people a year in the UK, causing 16,000 deaths.

“These results give us a very reliable calculation of the positive effect that exercise can have on reducing colon cancer risk ” says Dr Kathleen Wolin of Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis

The study appears in the British Journal of Cancer.

The study took into account many different types of physical activity including occupational activity like manual labour, as well as more traditional leisure-time activity such as running or going to the gym.

Lead researcher Dr Kathleen Wolin, from the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis said: “These results give us a very reliable calculation of the positive effect that exercise can have on reducing colon cancer risk.

“It’s very positive to see that exercise has such a clear benefit in reducing cancer risk and we hope it will encourage people to enjoy a healthy active lifestyle as well as treating it as a way to minimise their colon cancer risk.”

Dr Wolin said she hoped it would eventually be possible to give individuals a detailed breakdown of how they could reduce their chances of cutting their risk of bowel cancer tailored to their own specific circumstances.

Sara Hiom, director of health information at Cancer Research UK, said: “One hundred people a day are diagnosed with bowel cancer in the UK alone, so it’s imperative that we do all we can to prevent the disease.

“We know that around half of all cancers could be prevented by changes to lifestyle.

“Maintaining a healthy bodyweight is one of the best ways to lower the risk of bowel and other cancers – potentially helping to avoid an estimated 13,000 cases each year.”

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Sources: BBC NEWS: 12Th. Feb.’09

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Tadpoles ‘Could Prevent Skin Cancer’

Tadpoles could hold the key to developing skin cancer drugs, according to scientists.
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A team at the University of East Anglia has identified a compound which blocks the movement of the pigment cells that give the tadpoles their distinctive markings.

It is the uncontrolled movement and growth of pigment cells that causes skin cancer in both humans and frogs.

And by blocking their migration, the development and spread of cancerous tumours can potentially be prevented, the scientists have claimed.

Dr Grant Wheeler, who led the team, was quoted by the British media as saying: “This is an exciting advance with implications in the fight against cancer.

“The next step is to test the compound in other species and, in the longer term, embark on the development of new drugs to fight skin cancer in humans.”

The scientists have based their findings on years of work on tadpoles in the university laboratory- the results of which are published in the latest edition of the Cell Press journal ‘Chemistry and Biology’.

In fact, the team, working in partnership with the John Innes Centre (JIC) and Pfizer, claims that South African clawed frog tadpoles- Latin name Xenopus Laevis-have the same organs, molecules and physiology as humans.

The close comparison means the same mechanisms are involved in causing cancer in both Xenopus tadpoles and humans. Until the 1960s, Xenopus Laevis frogs were used as the main human pregnancy test.

Ed Yong of Cancer Research UK welcomed the findings. But he said: “There is still a lot of work to do before these interesting but preliminary results can be used to benefit people affected by cancer. It shows that studying animals like tadpoles could lead to potential cancer drugs.”

Sources: The Times Of India

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Protein Compels Cancer Cells to Death

A protein that inhibits ovarian cancer growth does so by partly forcing the cancerous cells to self-destruct, according to the latest research.

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The Texas Univeristy (TU) team that carried out the study also found that expression of PEA-15, a protein, is an independent indicator of a woman’s prospects for surviving ovarian cancer, said study co-author Naoto T Ueno, associate professor of breast medical oncology.

An analysis of ovarian tumours in 395 women showed those with high expression of the PEA-15 survived for 50.2 months, compared to 33.5 months for women with low protein levels.

Ovarian cancer kills about 15,000 women in US alone every year. It is notoriously hard to diagnose in its early stages, when it is also most optimal time to treat, according to a TU release.

“These findings provide a foundation for developing a PEA-15 targeted approach for ovarian cancer and for clarifying whether this protein is a novel biomarker that can predict patient outcomes,” Ueno said.

Sources:The report appeared in Saturday’s issue of Cancer Research.

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Purple Tomato that Fights Cancer

A purple tomato genetically engineered to contain nutrients more commonly seen in dark berries helped prevent cancer in mice, British researchers said on Sunday.

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The finding, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, bolsters the idea that plants can be genetically modified to make people healthier.

Cancer-prone mice fed the modified fruit lived significantly longer than animals fed a standard diet with and without regular tomatoes, Cathie Martin and colleagues at the government-funded John Innes Centre in Britain reported.

“The effect was much bigger than we had expected,” said Martin, a plant biologist.

The study focused on anthocyanins, a type of antioxidant found in berries such as blackberries and blackcurrants that have been shown to lower risk of cancer, heart disease and some neurological diseases.

While an easy health boost, many people do not eat enough of these fruits, the researchers said.

Using genes that help colour the snapdragon flower, the researchers discovered they could get the tomatoes to make anthocyanins — turning the tomato purple in the process.

Mice genetically engineered to develop cancer lived an average of 182 days when they were fed the purple tomatoes, compared to 142 days for animals on the standard diet.

“It is enormously encouraging to believe that by changing diet, or specific components in the diet, you can improve health in animals and possibly humans,” Martin said in a telephone interview.

The researchers cautioned that trials in humans are a long way off and the next step is to investigate how the antioxidants actually affect the tumours to promote better health.

But the findings do bolster research suggesting that people can significantly improve their health by making simple changes to the daily diet, other researchers said.

“It’s exciting to see new techniques that could potentially make healthy foods even better for us,” said Dr. Lara Bennett, science information officer at Cancer Research UK.

“But it’s too early to say whether anthocyanins obtained through diet could help to reduce the risk of cancer.”

Click to see :->Pomegranates: the fruity panacea

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Purple tomato ‘may boost health’

Sources: The Times Of India

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Talcum Powder Linked to Ovarian Cancer

Women have been warned to immediately stop using talcum powder around their genitals, as new research suggests particles may travel to the ovaries and trigger a process of inflammation that allows cancer cells to flourish.

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Previous studies have raised concerns over talc, but the latest findings suggest that women who use it are 40 percent more likely to get ovarian cancer.

Experts studied more than 3,000 women and found using talc merely once a week raised the risk of ovarian cancer by 36 percent. The danger rose to 41 percent for those applying powder every day.

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