Thread: Cancer breakthrough: scientists discover harmless bacteria in soil kills cancer tum

Cancer breakthrough: scientists discover harmless bacteria in soil kills cancer tumors

(NaturalNews) Cancer remains one of the most feared diseases on the planet -- and cancer patients being treated by mainstream medicine are usually bombarded with radiation and subjected to toxic chemotherapy that destroys healthy cells and weakens the body while trying to kill tumors.

Thankfully, as NaturalNews readers are aware, a growing body of research is revealing that many natural substances have cancer prevention and treatment potential, including Mediterranean type foods that fight prostate cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/025659.html) and walnuts which contain breast cancer preventive phytochemicals.

Now there's evidence a cure for cancer may be all around us and is as common as dirt. In fact, it's something in dirt.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033505_so...#ixzz1XBa29Vks


Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033505_so...#ixzz1XBZyvLes


Comment: here is another one they won't want people to use or know about, why? Because they want less people.

Gonna need it - cancer rates goin' up...

Warning over global cancer levels
7 September 2011 - Rise in number of cancer cases reported

The number of new cancer cases has increased by 20% in under a decade and now stands at 12 million a year, according to the World Cancer Research Fund. It warns that nearly a quarter of those cases are "preventable". The figures have been released ahead of a United Nations meeting on diseases including cancer. The WCRF said there was a "once in a generation" opportunity to reverse the trend. It calculated that 2.8m new cancers each year are linked to diet, exercise and obesity.

The figure is expected to rise "dramatically" over the next decade, the organisation warned. Professor Martin Wiseman, medical and scientific adviser for WCRF, told the BBC: "The truth is the number of cases around the world is going up partly because we are an ageing population, but also because of changes in lifestyle. "As countries become more urbanised, they become more prone to the Western diseases that we are used to seeing. Not just cancers - coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity and lung diseases."

He said: "Many people are still unaware that risk factors such as alcohol and obesity affect cancer risk, while from television advertising to the pricing of food, our society works in a way that discourages people from adopting healthy habits." Later this month, the UN is holding a summit on non-infectious diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Professor Wiseman said the summit: "offers the chance to look at public health issues at the international level."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14819396

Cancer cells can develop resistance to drugs too...

Cancer drug resistance clue found
8 September 2011 - It may be possible to extend the usefulness of cancer drugs by preventing drug resistance in tumours, say researchers.

A study, published in Science Translational Medicine, showed a chemical reaction went into overdrive as resistance developed. Scientists said drugs were already on the market which interfered with the process. Cancer Research UK said the field offered "tremendous optimism". An international team of researchers were investigating the cancer drug cetuximab, which is used to treat colorectal cancer, head and neck cancers and some lung cancers. It targets a protein - epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) - which drives tumour growth. They said "all patients will ultimately develop resistance to cetuximab" but that little was known about how the resistance developed.

Alternative route

Experiments showed the cancerous cells acted like cars in a traffic jam - when one route was blocked, they found an alternative. In this case, the tumours replaced the EGFR route with one involving a different protein - ERBB2 - and continued to grow. Dr Pasi Janne, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said: "ERBB2 activates a critical signalling pathway that is not normally blocked by cetuximab, and in this way subverts cetuximab's function. "Because ERBB2 isn't affected by cetuximab, this is an easy way for cancers to become resistant to the drug." The researchers said several drugs which target ERBB2 had already been approved so "the findings from the current study can be used to design potential clinical therapies".

However, they caution that there are likely to be other ways that cancers can develop resistance. Henry Scowcroft, science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: "Unfortunately, patients' tumours can become resistant to treatment, and understanding why this happens is a major challenge in cancer research. "This new study is a great example of how researchers are uncovering the molecular tricks cancer cells use to evade treatment, and finding out how to stop them doing so. "Research like this gives us tremendous optimism that we're on the cusp of a real revolution in cancer, although there's a lot more work to do to make this a reality."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14824309

Fish oils may block cancer drugs...

Fish oils block chemotherapy drug
12 September 2011 - Fats found in fish oil supplements can stop chemotherapy drugs working, according to researchers.

Writing in the journal Cancer Cell, they advise cancer patients not to take the supplements. The two fatty acids involved, which are also produced by stem cells in the blood, lead to tumours becoming immune to treatment. Cancer Research UK advised patients to ask their doctor whether they would be affected. Scientists in the Netherlands were investigating how tumours develop resistance to treatments.

Fat shield

Experiments on mice showed that stem cells in the blood responded to the widely-used cancer drug cisplatin. The cells started producing two fatty acids, known as KHT and 16:4(n-3). These fatty acids begin a series of chemical reactions, which mean cancerous cells become resistant to chemotherapy. Using drugs to block the production of the fatty acids prevented this form of resistance which "significantly enhances the chemotherapy," the study says. However, researchers warned that these fatty acids were "abundantly present in commercially available fish oil products". They showed that off-the-shelf fish oil supplements, given to mice, could stop chemotherapy working against some tumours.

Prof Emile Voest, lead researcher at University Medical Centre Utrecht, said: "We show that the body itself secretes protective substances into the blood that are powerful enough to block the effect of chemotherapy. "These substances can be found in some types of fish oil. "Whilst waiting for the results of further research, we currently recommend that these products should not be used whilst people are undergoing chemotherapy."

Jessica Harris, health information manager for Cancer Research UK, said: "This interesting study suggests one possible option for stopping cancers becoming resistant to treatment, but it is at an early stage and much more research would be needed to develop ways to halt resistance. "The results also suggest that fish oil preparations may reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs. "Cancer patients who are taking or thinking of taking these supplements should talk to their doctors to find out whether they could affect their treatments."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14882108

Success in trial of cancer drug...

Alpha radiation treats prostate cancers
23 September 2011 - Alpha particles can damage cells

A trial of a new cancer drug, which accurately targets tumours, has been so successful it has been stopped early. Doctors at London's Royal Marsden Hospital gave prostate cancer patients a powerful alpha radiation drug and found that they lived longer, and experienced less pain and side effects. The medics then stopped the trial of 922 people, saying it was unethical not to offer all of them the treatment. Lead researcher Dr Chris Parker said it was "a significant step forward". Cancer Research UK said it was a very important and promising discovery.

Radiation has been used to treat tumours for more than a century. It damages the genetic code inside cancerous cells. Alpha particles are the big, bulky, bruisers of the radiation world. It is a barrage of helium nuclei, which are far bigger than beta radiation, a stream of electrons, or gamma waves. Dr Parker told the BBC: "It's more damaging. It takes one, two, three hits to kill a cancer cell compared with thousands of hits for beta particles." Alpha particles also do less damage to surrounding tissue. He added: "They have such a tiny range, a few millionths of a metre. So we can be sure that the damage is being done where it should be."

In 90% of patients with advanced prostate cancer, the tumour will have spread to the bone. At this stage there are no treatments which affect survival. The study looked at patients with these secondary cancers, as the source of radiation - radium-223 chloride - acts like calcium and sticks to bone. Half were given the radium-223 chloride drug alongside traditional chemotherapy, while the other patients received chemotherapy and a dummy pill. The death rate was 30% lower in the group taking radium-223. Those patients survived for 14 months on average compared to 11 months in the dummy group. The trial was abandoned as "it would have been unethical not to offer the active treatment to those taking placebo", said Dr Parker. He added: "I think it will be a significant step forward for cancer patients".

Researchers also said the treatment was safe. Curiously there were fewer side-effects in the group taking the treatment than those taking the dummy medicine. The findings are being presented at the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress but they have not yet been peer-reviewed by other academics. Prof Gillies McKenna, Cancer Research UK's radiotherapy expert and director of the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, said: "This appears to be an important study using a highly targeted form of radiation to treat prostate cancer that has spread to the bones. "This research looks very promising and could be an important addition to approaches available to treat secondary tumours - and should be investigated further."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15039216

If you eat three almonds a day, you will never get cancer.

Granny says Uncle Ferd better quit messin' with dem fats girls or his thang gonna fall off...

Is oral contraceptive pill fuelling prostate cancer?
14 November 2011 - The Pill became publicly available in the 1960s and remains a popular choice of contraceptive

Scientists say research is needed to ascertain if oral contraceptive pill use could be fuelling rising prostate cancer rates. Canadian investigators told the BMJ that they have found a possible link. But experts stress this is not proof that one causes the other and it might be a fluke finding. The researchers believe oestrogen by-products excreted in the urine of pill-users may have contaminated the food chain and drinking water. The hormone is known to feed the growth of certain cancers. The latest investigation looked at data from 2007 for individual nations and continents worldwide to see if there was any link.

The researchers found a significant association between contraceptive pill use in the population as a whole with both the number of new cases of, and deaths from, prostate cancer. This link was irrespective of the nation's wealth, suggesting it might not be down to better disease detection in more affluent countries that also tend to have higher rates of oral contraceptive use. And it was strongest in Europe. Additionally, they found no link between prostate cancer and other forms of contraception, like the coil, suggesting it is not something that is sexually transmitted or associated with intercourse itself.

'Thought-provoking'

Drs David Margel and Neil Fleshner, from Toronto University, fear that contamination of the food chain with hormones originating from the pill are the likely culprit. They stress that their work merely suggests a link and is not proof. "It must be considered hypothesis generating and thought-provoking," they say in their BMJ Open report. They said more investigations are needed and recommend close monitoring of environmental levels of oral contraceptive by-products or endocrine disruptive compounds (EDCs). Dr Kate Holmes, of The Prostate Cancer Charity, agreed that more research was warranted. "While this study raises some interesting questions about the presence of EDCs in the environment, it does not contribute to our overall understanding of the development of prostate cancer."

Jessica Harris, of Cancer Research UK, said uncertainty about the disease remained. "Comparing the rates of two apparently unrelated issues across countries is a notoriously unreliable way of establishing whether they are truly linked, because so many things vary between different countries that it's impossible to say whether one thing is causing the other. "It has been difficult to identify factors that affect the risk of prostate cancer, but we know that men are at higher risk as they get older, or if they have a strong family history of breast or prostate cancer. The disease is also more common in black men than white or Asian men."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15720478

Using stem cells to provide a 'shield' for cancer patients...

Stem cell shield 'could protect cancer patients'
9 May 2012 - The trial is being conducted on patients with brain cancer

It may be possible to use "stem cell shielding" to protect the body from the damaging effects of chemotherapy, early results from a US trial suggest. Chemotherapy drugs try to kill rapidly dividing cancer cells, but they can also affect other healthy tissues such as bone marrow. A study, in Science Translational Medicine, used genetically modified stem cells to protect the bone marrow. Cancer Research UK said it was a "completely new approach".

The body constantly churns out new blood cells in the hollow spaces inside bone. However, bone marrow is incredibly susceptible to chemotherapy. The treatment results in fewer white blood cells being produced, which increases the risk of infection, and fewer red blood cells, which leads to shortness of breath and tiredness. Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle, said these effects were "a major barrier" to using chemotherapy and often meant the treatment had to be stopped, delayed or reduced.

'Protective shields'

They have tried to protect the bone marrow in three patients with a type of brain cancer, glioblastoma. One of the researchers, Dr Jennifer Adair, said: "This therapy is analogous to firing at both tumour cells and bone marrow cells, but giving the bone marrow cells protective shields while the tumour cells are unshielded." Bone marrow was taken from the patients and stem cells, which produce blood, were isolated. A virus was then used to infect the cells with a gene which protected the cells against a chemotherapy drug. The cells were then put back into the patient. The lead author of the report, Prof Hans-Peter Kiem, said: "We found that patients were able to tolerate the chemotherapy better, and without negative side effects, after transplantation of the gene-modified stem cells than patients in previous studies who received the same type of chemotherapy without a transplant of gene-modified stem cells."

The researchers said the three patients had all lived longer than the average survival time of 12 months for the cancer. They said one patient was still alive 34 months after treatment. Cancer Research UK scientist Prof Susan Short said: "This is a very interesting study and a completely new approach to protecting normal cells during cancer treatment. "It needs to be tested in more patients but it may mean that we can use temozolomide [a chemotherapy drug] for more brain tumour patients than we previously thought. "This approach could also be a model for other situations where the bone marrow is affected by cancer treatment."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18007789

New test for Galectin-3 protein...

New Test Identifies Disease-Promoting Protein
August 24, 2012 : Strong scientific evidence suggests high levels of a protein in the body may increase the risk of heart attack, cancer and other diseases. U.S. regulators have approved a test for the protein that could be useful in determining the risk of these diseases and their prognosis.

Galectin-3 is a molecule normally found in small amounts in cells, tissues and circulating blood. It works with the immune system to promote tissue repair, but too much of the protein can cause harmful inflammation that is involved in heart disease, cancer and kidney disease. U.S. regulators have approved a blood test to check for elevated blood levels of galectin-3. It has only been approved for heart failure. But Isaac Eliaz, who supplements his medical training with alternative therapies, predicts the galectin-3 test will soon be used by doctors as frequently as a routine test that checks for levels of c-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation.

Eliaz believes the galectin-3 test will warn physicians of serious health problems brewing in their patients years before they develop. “You can see galectin-3 [levels] high in patients who are completely healthy, but you know that it is a time bomb," said Eliaz. "And if you watch them for a few years, if you do not take care of them, they will start showing up with rising with c-reactive protein and serious illnesses.”

Studies have shown that galectin-3 can promote cancer development and growth by helping cancerous cells create colonies or tumors. The protein, Eliaz explains, leads to angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels that feed the original cancer colony and allow it to spread. But there is a compound that can block the effects of galectin-3 and improve treatment of cancer and other chronic diseases, according to Eliaz. It is the tough pulp inside orange rinds and other citrus fruit called citrus pectin.

While the pectin molecules are too large to be absorbed by the body and are normally eliminated through the digestive tract, Eliaz says a modified form of the pectin can be absorbed, limiting the harmful effects of galectin-3. “So if you can block galectin-3, you are taking away this inflammatory marker," Eliaz noted. "If you can prevent the scarring of the tissue, you are preventing aging, definitely.” He says, if taken as part of a healthy lifestyle, the modified pectin will help prevent many diseases of aging, as well as cancer and heart disease, and improve cancer treatment. Modified pectin is available as a supplement at health food stores. Isaac Eliaz’s comments were made at the American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Source

Mebbe dey could use it to kill rats...

Rat study links GM corn, cancer
Sept 19, 2012 - France’s government on Wednesday asked a health watchdog to carry out a probe, possibly leading to EU suspension of a genetically-modified corn, after a study in rats linked the grain to cancer.

Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll, Ecology Minister Delphine Batho and Health and Social Affairs Minister Marisol Touraine said they had asked the National Agency for Health Safety (ANSES) to investigate the finding. “Depending on ANSES’ opinion, the government will urge the European authorities to take all necessary measures to protect human and animal health,” they said in a joint statement. “(The measures) could go as far as invoking emergency suspension of imports of NK603 corn to Europe pending a re-examination of this product on the basis of enhanced assessment methods.”Preview

Earlier, French scientists led by Gilles-Eric Seralini at the University of Caen in Normandy unveiled a study that said rats fed with NK603 corn or exposed to the weedkiller used with it developed tumours. NK603 is a corn, also called maize, made by US agribusiness giant Monsanto. It has been engineered to make it resistant to Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup. This enables farmers to douse fields with the weedkiller in a single go, thus offering substantial savings. Genetically modified (GM) crops are widely grown in North America, Brazil and China but are a hot-button issue in Europe.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, says it is the first to look at rats over their normal lifespan of two years. “For the first time ever, a GM organism and a herbicide have been evaluated for their long-term impact on health, and more thoroughly than by governments or the industry,” Seralini told AFP. “The results are alarming.” Two hundred male and female rats were split into 10 groups of 10 animals. One was a “control” group which was given ordinary rat food that contained 33 percent non-GM corn, and plain water. Three groups were given ordinary rat food and water with increasing doses of Roundup, reflecting various concentrations of the herbicide in the food chain.

The other six were fed rat food of which 11, 22 or 33 percent comprised NK603 corn, either treated or not with Roundup when the corn was grown. The researchers found that NK603 and Roundup both caused similar damage to the rats’ health, whether they were consumed together or on their own. Premature deaths and sickness were concentrated especially among females. At the 14-month stage of experiment, no animals in the control groups showed any signs of cancer, but among females in the “treated” groups, tumours affected between 10 and 30 percent of the rodents. “By the beginning of the 24th month, 50-80 percent of female animals had developed tumours in all treated groups, with up to three tumours per animal, whereas only 30 percent of controls were affected,” it said. Males which fell sick suffered liver damage, developed kidney and skin tumours and digestive problems.

More http://www.thejournal.ie/france-gene...01499-Sep2012/

See also:

$3 billion shot at common cancers
Friday, September 21, 2012 - 'The only way we're going to make dramatic progress is a large-scale concerted effort'

The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center on Friday will announce an ambitious initiative to dramatically reduce the death rates of eight common and difficult cancers. The $3 billion effort, dubbed the Moon Shots Program, will bring together large teams of researchers and clinicians to mount attacks in the next decade on cancers that annually account for nearly 750,000 cases and more than 260,000 deaths. Those figures represent nearly half of the nation's totals in both categories.

"The Moon Shots Program signals our confidence that the path to curing cancer is in clearer sight than at any previous time in history," M.D. Anderson President Dr. Ronald DePinho said in a statement. "Thanks to what we've learned over the past decade, we now have many of the tools we need." The initiative sounds like the sort of effort that might come from the White House or National Cancer Institute. But DePinho said M.D. Anderson's 19,000 employees, 100,000 patients and 10 million diagnostic procedures a year make it a logical place to undertake such an enterprise.

The targets are lung, prostate and ovarian cancer, a particularly aggressive type of breast cancer, melanoma, two common types of leukemia and another blood cancer - all diseases for which there is little treatment, newfound molecular understanding and considerable M.D. Anderson expertise. They were selected by committees of internal and external reviewers after a year of discussions. The program is the follow-up to a pledge DePinho made in his inaugural speech to faculty and staff last year, soon after he was selected as M.D. Anderson's fourth president. In that speech, DePinho said he wanted M.D. Anderson to develop "a bold and ambitious plan for curing several cancers." Press materials for the initiative, however, shy away from that bold a promise.

But the initiative is likely to raise big hopes. Its Moon Shots title is a nod to President John F. Kennedy's famous speech at Rice University 50 years ago declaring the United States would "go to the moon in this decade." It also recalls President Richard Nixon's 1971 remark, upon signing the National Cancer Act, that "the time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease."

'A marathon'