Cancer breakthrough: Disease depends on surrounding normal

[amigocabal]

Cancer breakthrough: Disease depends on surrounding normal cells to spread, study finds

In a major breakthrough, Toronto scientists have discovered a new approach to cancer treatment that would target the “normal” cells embedded around tumours.

In a study released Thursday, researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital show that it’s the non-cancerous cells that grow in and around a tumour that actually coax it to spread to other parts of the body.

“Basically the normal cells and the cancer cells are engaged in a dialogue which is controlling (spread),” says Dr. Jeff Wrana, the study’s senior author.

“The tumour cells are tweaking the normal cells, causing them . . . to misbehave a little bit and causing those normal cells to produce signals, words if you will, that flow back to the tumour cells and promote the tumour cell’s growth.”

Continue reading...

Here is one thing I do not understand.

All it takes is for one cell to become cancerous to lead to metastasis without treatment.

The body has trillions of cells. So either the odds of a particular cell becoming cancerous in, say, forty years is less than one in a trillion, or there is an internal mechanism that keeps us from dying of cancer if a cell becomes cancerous. (If no such mechanism existed, and the odds of a cell becoming cancerous within forty years was only one in a million, the vast majority of unborn feti would die of cancer before birth.)

[lord Martiya]

I know that cells becomes potentially cancerous relatively often, and under normal conditions self-destructs before they can do any damage. How the failing of this mechanism relates to the surrounding cells, that beats me.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Any number of things can go wrong with a cell, causing it to potentially become cancerous. What usually stops this is a "killswitch" that every cell has. If things go wrong beyond a certain point the switch activates, causing cell death. I don't think anybody knows what all can cause the killswitch to not function, though. We do know that damage to a cell (radiation, poisoning, etc) can damage the killswitch itself so that if something does go wrong the cell doesn't die like it should. But there are so many variables that affect such things that I doubt we'll ever know what causes the malfunction, preventing apoptosis to not occur. Yes, Wikipedia, but you can scour the sources for more detailed information.

In a nutshell, cancer is when a cell doesn't die like it should after something else has gone wrong. We know some but not all causes. Stuff that can lead to cancer usually results in cell death. When it doesn't you get cancer. It's part of what makes treating cancer hard, the damn cells don't die as easily.

[PainRack]

Here is one thing I do not understand.

All it takes is for one cell to become cancerous to lead to metastasis without treatment.

The body has trillions of cells. So either the odds of a particular cell becoming cancerous in, say, forty years is less than one in a trillion, or there is an internal mechanism that keeps us from dying of cancer if a cell becomes cancerous. (If no such mechanism existed, and the odds of a cell becoming cancerous within forty years was only one in a million, the vast majority of unborn feti would die of cancer before birth.)

Ok, cancerous cells are cells which have achieved a couple of characteristics.
1. They grow without coordination with the body normal restrictions, such as contact inhibition and etc.
2. They achieve cell immortality, namely, they do not die when they 'should'.
3. They may then find means to spread and grow beyond their normal tissue.
http://www.insidecancer.org/

So, to become cancerous, your cancer cell has to actually achieve 2 seperate characteristic. It has to turn on its grow button oncogene), it has to switch off the gene that suppress growth as well as following other signals your body will have(tumour suppressor) and lastly, it has to do so without appearing abnormal to your body own immune system(NK cells).

But even so, there are a couple of mutations that can go wrong. For example, for colon cancer to take place, there are four separate stages before it becomes cancerous. There are.... different genetic pathways to achieve each stage, such as APC, P53 are the common mutations in their respective stage but there are equally other valid genetic mutations which can occur which confers on the cell that specific characteristic which can lead it to becoming cancerous. Its not a case of if your APC gene doesn't get switched on, you're not going to get a cancer. Rather, its a case of a lot of colon cancers out there are a result of this oncogene being turned on, but there are other pathways available(errr...... I think this is accurate. I can't recall where the clinical pathway is found online and the separate genetic mutations that can occur... I know its from wikipedia but I have no idea WHERE.....Nevertheless, even if I'm wrong, it should still illuminate the general point)

Some of the body common 'defence' mechanisms are
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P53
Something, which earned its the moniker guardian of the genome. To put it simply, its a tumour suppressor, something that prevents a cell from dividing if something is wrong genetically. You have to disable this for your cell to achieve runaway growth. Its role is primarily that as a kill switch... it stops the cell from going further in the cell divide cycle until the genes gets it act together, or it starts cellular death.

Another is this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK_cells
These guys go up to your cells and if they think its not the norm(too old, damaged, infected with "others" genetic code usually viral), they send a suicide call.

[PainRack]

I know that cells becomes potentially cancerous relatively often, and under normal conditions self-destructs before they can do any damage. How the failing of this mechanism relates to the surrounding cells, that beats me.

Its not that...... new actually. The science is already there in the sense that we know metastasis requires manipulation of the cellular matrix so as to escape, evade the body immune defence and then migrate to a new site, invade and then establish its own network of blood vessels and etc.

Some of this include angiogenesis, which formed the basis of some targeted anti cancer drugs...

I don't know the significance of this study of course, but it sounds like its saying that the tumour cells are causing the normal cells to generate signals that cause feedback.... The article seems to be saying that the difference is that apart from the common view that its the cancerous cells that sending out the signals to cause the external change, it might also be the normal cells sending out signals that encourage cellular growth and metastasis........Not that novel in idea but I'm sure the exact details probably are, and its definitely way beyond my limited understanding

[cosmicalstorm]

I've been trying to follow a Chemo-preventative diet for a few years now. This includes 5-10 cups of coffee and green tea per day. I eat several grams of raw tumeric root, Curry powder, Curcumin-powder, cocoa, flax seeds, ginger raw and powdered, pomegranate seeds and black pepper every day. In a good scenario this would put me at a much lower risk of being the host of a cancer caused by environmental factors. There seems to be a lot of backing up evidence to suggest that populations with some larger source of polyphenols in their diet, green tea in Asians and curry/curcumin in Indians, are at a lower risk from several chronic diseases.

Recently, the "Old Friends" hypothesis has also become more popular, stating that the natural state of the human body is to have a number of parasites living inside of it, causing the immunesystem to calm down just a bit. Google Helminitich therapy.

[PainRack]

That must taste pretty awful......

Why don't you try the guidelines found here instead?
http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/cid/do ... 77-pdf.pdf

I'm sure you can still kick in a dose of coffee, curries and the like there.... I mean, I do know the data is suggestive that they are helpful, but there isn't any data out on dosing yet outside of cell models, right? Life is way too short to be drinking 10 cups of coffee, green tea, or yeech, raw tumeric and curry.....

[cosmicalstorm]

I have it set up in a way that makes it alright. No bad taste. The coffee and tea I enjoy. I have reviewed that document but in the end guides like that are like every other guideline. More Research Is Needed. Science today is too clumsy to be sure about anything except the extreme factors like smoking, obesity and sitting down. Most high quality, cash intensive research seems to be aimed at finding patentable substances. Not looking at methods that are not patentable.

[Sela]

This is actually a fascinating article! I wonder if the results are generalizable outside of breast cancer. Copy/pasted the abstract below:

Exosomes Mediate Stromal Mobilization of Autocrine Wnt-PCP Signaling in Breast Cancer Cell Migration.

Abstract
Stroma in the tumor microenvironment plays a critical role in cancer progression, but how it promotes metastasis is poorly understood. Exosomes are small vesicles secreted by many cell types and enable a potent mode of intercellular communication. Here, we report that fibroblast-secreted exosomes promote breast cancer cell (BCC) protrusive activity and motility via Wnt-planar cell polarity (PCP) signaling. We show that exosome-stimulated BCC protrusions display mutually exclusive localization of the core PCP complexes, Fzd-Dvl and Vangl-Pk. In orthotopic mouse models of breast cancer, coinjection of BCCs with fibroblasts dramatically enhances metastasis that is dependent on PCP signaling in BCCs and the exosome component, Cd81 in fibroblasts. Moreover, we demonstrate that trafficking in BCCs promotes tethering of autocrine Wnt11 to fibroblast-derived exosomes. This work reveals an intercellular communication pathway whereby fibroblast exosomes mobilize autocrine Wnt-PCP signaling to drive BCC invasive behavior.

In non-medicalese: One way cancerous breast cells transform so they can expand is to gain "planar-cell-polarity" signaling. The ability is in the cells natively (after all, they are breast cancer cells to begin with), but is't necessarily expressed as the need didn't arise. Like having a lamp in your closet, but never using it. Now, via the Cd81 exosome (a signaling molecule/protein) we believe the cell can be instructed to produce that PCP-signaling, effectively making a less-metastatic breast cancer cell more mestatic.

To prove it, breast cancer cells were put into rats, along with the Cd81+ fibroblasts. Tumors ensued at a greater rate than the control. I would need to see the actual paper to know more, but I find this quite intriguing.


With any luck, they'll find a way to be able to target the Cd81 molecule or its receptor and then (hail-mary) target it to just the breasts.

[Coop D'etat]

I have it set up in a way that makes it alright. No bad taste. The coffee and tea I enjoy. I have reviewed that document but in the end guides like that are like every other guideline. More Research Is Needed. Science today is too clumsy to be sure about anything except the extreme factors like smoking, obesity and sitting down. Most high quality, cash intensive research seems to be aimed at finding patentable substances. Not looking at methods that are not patentable.

While your statements are technically correct you would be well advised to consider it from another angle.

Let me put it this way, if modern biomedical science isn't powerful enough to detect an agents effect on cancer, that agents effects are most likely not going to have an appreciable effect on your life-expectancy. The effective benefits to your lifespan probably aren't very large.

Which is not to say there aren't compounds with strong carcinogenic or anti-carcinogenic properties out there as yet unknown to science. There obviously are. The point is that the likelihood that you've identified a truly efficacious technique rather than a new subset of woo is small. Without large and expensive studies, separating the signal from the noise in these matters is frightfully difficult, Mammalian Biochemistry being absurdly complicated. The impression I'm getting is you have a self-administered regimen that is based on studies of correlation rather than an understood model of what each does and how it works. If that is the case then I don't think the Bayesian probabilities are in your favour here.

Not to mention cancer isn't a singular disease. Its a group encompassing many types of potential diseases, with their own risk factors.

I'd say avoid the obvious problems and live with the fact that we are all time bombs with regards to cancer. Eventually a cell will have the ~5 mutations (varies from cell line to cell line and their are often numerous mutation pathways per line) necessary to turn cancerous and also evade detection and metastasize. In the modern context its not whether you can avoid cancer so much as whether you'll die of something else before you get it.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I've been trying to follow a Chemo-preventative diet for a few years now. This includes 5-10 cups of coffee and green tea per day. I eat several grams of raw tumeric root, Curry powder, Curcumin-powder, cocoa, flax seeds, ginger raw and powdered, pomegranate seeds and black pepper every day. In a good scenario this would put me at a much lower risk of being the host of a cancer caused by environmental factors.

Jesus Christ. It's like you found every ingredient that somehow mentions in its Wikipedia page that it might be healthy and mixed it all together, without any knowledge of how they interact, why if at all they might be good for you, etc.

I mean, 5-10 cups of coffee and tea is just ... bizarre. Just in terms of the caffeine ingestion, ignoring all other factors, it usually isn't recommended you have more than 3 cups of coffee. How much water do you drink? Do you drink coffee or tea instead of water at times? Because that's unhealthy in and of itself.

As for all the other stuff ... well, let me just quote the University of Maryland Medical Center:

The use of herbs is a time-honored approach to strengthening the body and treating disease. Herbs, however, can trigger side effects and may interact with other herbs, supplements, or medications. For these reasons, you should take herbs with care, under the supervision of a health care provider.

[PainRack]

I have it set up in a way that makes it alright. No bad taste. The coffee and tea I enjoy. I have reviewed that document but in the end guides like that are like every other guideline. More Research Is Needed. Science today is too clumsy to be sure about anything except the extreme factors like smoking, obesity and sitting down. Most high quality, cash intensive research seems to be aimed at finding patentable substances. Not looking at methods that are not patentable.

No disrespect to your chosen lifestyle, but I found it.... strange that you claim the guidelines require more research as a reason against following it.

The guidelines actually have twenty years of evidence supporting them, from epidemiological evidence from Italy, France and Japan to Japanese Americans and Japan...

Of course, the question is whether new evidence shows that the older studies are flawed or that humanity is a moving target but I leave that to the actual experts in the field.

Which is eat more plants, including fruit and vegetables in your diet.
Reduce consumption of red meat.
Reduce consumption of processed foodstuff.
Moderate consumption of fat.
Moderate consumption of alcohol.


Now, if anyone can teach me how to make a sandwich easily without the use of processed meats such as sausages/ham, I would love it if you could give me a recipe. I'm just too lazy to give up the current ease of slapping a breakfast ham or sausage into the frying pan/pot and then slapping two pieces of bread on it.


I'm also been working on a way to incorporate more oatmeal/wholemeal bread so as to meet the whole grains bit, but fruit and vegetable consumption is still a huge problem.... Working shifts mean that I don't really cook often enough that I find myself throwing away large amount of yellow vegetables after a while.

[PainRack]

Just posting this with regards to Green Tea.

Green Tea anti cancer effects is linked to the fact that it is a strong topoisomerase inhibitor, which has been exploited in other cancer drugs such as etopopside.

However, that also suggests that it might itself be carcinogenic and the argument that bioflavonoids might cause childhood leukemia. Similarly, increased tea/coffee consumption during pregnancy is an increased risk factor for brain cancers for infants .


So, it might not be advisable for pregnant women to drink the same copious amount of green tea that cosmicalstorm does...

[Korto]

Now, if anyone can teach me how to make a sandwich easily without the use of processed meats such as sausages/ham, I would love it if you could give me a recipe. I'm just too lazy to give up the current ease of slapping a breakfast ham or sausage into the frying pan/pot and then slapping two pieces of bread on it.

Have you considered frying or boiling an egg? Onto the bread, bit of pepper... Boiling's better because there's no cookware to wash, but frying gives a more convenient sandwich shape.

I'm also been working on a way to incorporate more oatmeal/wholemeal bread so as to meet the whole grains bit, but fruit and vegetable consumption is still a huge problem.... Working shifts mean that I don't really cook often enough that I find myself throwing away large amount of yellow vegetables after a while.

Stew a big batch, veges already included, and stick 'em in containers in the freezer. Pull one out before you go to work, microwave it when you get back. Done.

[Korto]

(Ghetto edit)
And while I'm thinking about it, beat some eggs into some leftover stew, throw in some herbs and spices, and fry it up as an omelette that you can cut up and slap between two pieces of bread.
Yeah. I've got a lot of eggs.

[PainRack]

Hmm....... Veggie stew... That's an idea........Thanks.

i'm not sure what you mean in that second post though......... Fry an omelette made up of stew???

[Korto]

Basically, yes. Take your leftovers, into a bowl, mix in enough egg to hold it all together (the egg is like a cement for this), and into the fry-pan. The more solid the stew is for this, the better. Doesn't work that well with a runny stew. You may have to add more egg.
With little kids, we tend to have a lot of leftovers hanging around, so I've had stew omelette, rice omelette, chicken stir-fry with vegetables omelette, spaghetti bolognese with vegetables omelette,...
Basically, you'd be amazed what you can turn into an omelette just by throwing a few eggs in and some spices.

[cosmicalstorm]

Thanks for the critique. I'm switching towards a diet where my consumption of these compounds continue, but is more varied. For instance, one "coffee-day", one green tea day, one day with a lot of indian spice, and every day lots of fruits and vegetables. Its easy to become crazy doing this stuff.