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Kill Prostate Cancer Cells Naturally

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Drug Requires Low Glucose Levels

Prostate Cancer Treatment

The researchers suggest that the vulnerability that their findings have identified in PTEN-deficient cells may pave the way for highly selective targeting of incurable prostate cancer using mitochondrial inhibitors.

Metformin, the widely prescribed diabetes drug, is also a mitochondrial inhibitor and is already being tested in clinical trials as an anti-cancer treatment.

The authors note that in the case of prostate cancer, treatment with metformin seems to reduce disease deaths but not incidence.

This suggests, they add, that metformin may preferentially target aggressive , and there are currently trials trying to find this out. They propose that their new findings contribute to these efforts.

However, they note that their study also suggests that one of the conditions necessary for mitochondrial inhibitors to have maximal selective killing power is depletion of tumor cell glucose supplies.

This would indicate the need for a treatment scenario that is opposite to that of diabetes, in which metformin is taken just after a meal when blood glucose levels are high.

The authors conclude:

Our results instead suggest that greater selectivity might be achieved if drugs are given when blood glucose levels are low.

Deguelin Stopped Cancer Progression

Prof. Trotman and colleagues suggest that, of the 3 million men in the U.S. who have prostate cancer, roughly 100,000 carry cancers with co-mutation of .

This prompted them to look for drugs that might work specifically against prostate cancers that carry mutated PTEN and p53.

However, because several studies have shown that loss only of p53 does not give rise to prostate cancer, they decided to focus on PTEN.

The researchers began the study by running a series of experiments using cells with and without PTEN.

They found that deguelin had the capacity to kill both types of cell, but the dose required to kill cells with PTEN was 500 times higher than the dose required to kill cells without PTEN .

They also discovered that the drug had a much stronger effect on the cells without PTEN because their mitochondria were consuming ATP instead of producing it.

Thats the exact opposite, Prof. Trotman says, of what mitochondria are supposed to be doing. Mitochondria are supposed to generate ATP for the rest of the cell.

Finally, when they then tested deguelin in their mouse model of lethal metastatic prostate cancer, the researchers found that it stopped the cancer progressing.

Diet Tips For Prostate Health

  • Eat Fruits and Vegetables
  • Fruits and vegetables contain large amounts of cancer-fighting and inflammation-reducing substances like vitamins, polyphenols, antioxidants, minerals and natural fiber. Most men and women do not consume the recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables. If you are working to change the way you eat, aim to make manageable changes. Try to include a variety of fruits and vegetables in your diet.
  • Cruciferous vegetables have phytochemicals that reduce Oxidative stress or oxygen free radicals in the body which means a lower risk of prostate cancer and its aggression
  • Carrots are rich in nutrients and contain antioxidants beta-carotene and falcarinol that reduce the risk of cancer
  • Tomatoes are a rich source of a phytochemical called lycopene which attacks free radicals helping the body lower the risk of prostate cancer and its aggression
  • Mushrooms help fight cancer by building the immune system with a supply of compounds called beta glucan and proteins called lectin which have shown to attack cancer cells
  • Pomegranates, particularly pomegranate juice, have been shown to slow PSA doubling time and may help prevent prostate cancer recurrence after primary treatment
  • Grapes and grape juice are rich sources of resveratrol, a type of natural phytochemical that belongs to a larger group of phytochemicals called polyphenols that possess potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties
  • Limit Consumption of Animal Protein
  • Seek Plant Protein
  • Recommended Reading: Does Chemo Work For Prostate Cancer

    How Is Prostate Cancer Treated

    Lorenzo asked his doctors about survival and side effects and talked to friends and family members before deciding on treatment. He shares his story in this blog post.

    Different types of treatment are available for prostate cancer. You and your doctor will decide which treatment is right for you. Some common treatments are

    • Expectant management. If your doctor thinks your prostate cancer is unlikely to grow quickly, he or she may recommend that you dont treat the cancer right away. Instead, you can choose to wait and see if you get symptoms in one of two ways:
    • Active surveillance. Closely monitoring the prostate cancer by performing prostate specific antigen tests and prostate biopsies regularly, and treating the cancer only if it grows or causes symptoms.
    • Watchful waiting. No tests are done. Your doctor treats any symptoms when they develop. This is usually recommended for men who are expected to live for 10 more years or less.
  • Surgery. A prostatectomy is an operation where doctors remove the prostate. Radical prostatectomy removes the prostate as well as the surrounding tissue.
  • Radiation therapy. Using high-energy rays to kill the cancer. There are two types of radiation therapy
  • External radiation therapy. A machine outside the body directs radiation at the cancer cells.
  • Internal radiation therapy . Radioactive seeds or pellets are surgically placed into or near the cancer to destroy the cancer cells.
  • Herbal Extracts For Prostate Cancer

    Natural Ways To Kill Prostate Cancer  Secrets to A Healthy Life

    Like our recommendation for dietary supplements, we do not recommend that you take herbal supplements by themselves if you have prostate cancer because the contents of these supplements can interfere with your treatments or medications.

    Herbal supplements are a natural treatment for prostate cancer although there is no current study that gives it the credit that it can cure nor can it prevent prostate cancer. The only possible potency of these herbal supplements is lowering your risk of developing prostate cancer.

    However, due to several studies that support the benefits of herbal supplements in treating prostate cancer, more people now have chosen to include herbal supplements on their treatment plan. You need to be careful though, because negative interaction between medicinal properties may be dangerous to your health. For instance, the plant named St. Johns wort can negatively impact the liver by igniting the cytochrome P450 enzymes that metabolize drugs.

    Subject to your doctors supervision, here are some notable plants that are considered natural remedies for prostate cancer:

    Saw Palmetto

    Pomegranate

    According to a study conducted by UCLA, men who drank an 8-ounce glass of Pomegranate juice a day had slowed down the increase of their PSA levels. When your PSA levels are kept to a minimum, you dont need a treatment involving synthetic medications that can potentially block your testosterone which can lead to bone loss and sexual dysfunction.

    Other foods

    Also Check: What Foods Can Prevent Prostate Cancer

    Your Cancer Care Team

    People with cancer should be cared for by a multidisciplinary team . This is a team of specialists who work together to provide the best care and treatment.

    The team often consists of specialist cancer surgeons, oncologists , radiologists, pathologists, radiographers and specialist nurses.

    Other members may include physiotherapists, dietitians and occupational therapists. You may also have access to clinical psychology support.

    When deciding what treatment is best for you, your doctors will consider:

    • the type and size of the cancer
    • what grade it is
    • whether the cancer has spread to other parts of your body

    Extra Virgin Olive Oil

    Extra virgin olive oil contains a class of bioactives known as secoiridoids, which represent up to 46 percent of the total polyphenols present in olive oil. These natural chemicals are absorbed in the small intestines and can be detected in the blood plasma and in urine, proving their presence and availability in the body.

    Scientists from Spain showed in the lab that olive oil secoiridoids could dramatically reduce the growth of breast cancer stem cells. When mice were injected with breast cancer stem cells that were exposed to secoiridoids, as many as 20 percent of the mice did not develop tumors. In the 80 percent that did develop tumors, the tumors were fifteen times smaller and grew at a much slower rate than untreated breast cancer cells. This result is consistent with the suppression of breast cancer stem cells.

    The power of the olive oil secoiridoids on stem cells was evidenced at the genetic level: after the breast cancer stem cells were exposed, the bioactives changed the activity of 160 genes involved with controlling stem cells. One gene was reduced in its activity fourfold, while the activity of another gene that antagonizes cancer stem cells was increased thirteen-fold. The health-protective power of extra virgin olive oil now extends to targeting dangerous stem cells.

    Also Check: How To Stop Leaking After Prostate Surgery

    What Are The Leading Risk Factors Of Prostate Cancer

    While the word cancer instills fear in most, prostate cancer is actually a very common disease that affects many men. However, some people are at a higher risk than others. Prostate cancer risk factors include:

    • Age: Risk directly increases with age. The average age of diagnosis is between age 66 and 67.
    • Race: African American men are at a higher risk than men of other races.
    • Family history: Those who have a first-degree relative, father or a brother, with prostate cancer are at greater risk. There is a genetic mutation that may make it more likely to occur among family members with breast or ovarian cancer, like in those who have Lynch syndrome or BRCA1 or BRCA2.
    • Geographic location: Prostate cancer is more common in North America, northwest Europe, Australia and the Caribbean. It is unclear whether that is because these areas screen more frequently for prostate cancer.

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    How To Add More Pomegranate Juice To Your Diet

    How Cancer Kills You: Swamp Gas

    You can buy pomegranate juice at most grocery stores. If drinking the juice plain is too intense, consider diluting it with plain water or adding some sparkling water.

    You can also add pomegranate seeds to homemade salad dressing to sweeten up your favorite salad.

    Summary

    Pomegranates are high in antioxidants. Animal and test-tube studies have shown that pomegranate juice could inhibit the production of some prostate cancer cells.

    Read Also: Does Benadryl Affect The Prostate

    Lycopene And Other Components

    One study randomly assigned 79 men before prostatectomy to a nutritionalintervention with tomato products containing 30 mg of lycopene daily tomato products plus selenium, omega-3 fatty acids, soyisoflavones, grape/pomegranate juice, and green/black tea or a control diet for 3 weeks. There were no differences in PSA values between the intervention and control groups. However, a post hoc exploratory analysis found lower PSA values in men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer who consumed the tomato products and in men with the highest increases in lycopene levels.

    Recommended Reading: Homeopathic Treatment For Prostate Cancer

    Debunking The Miracle Diet For Cancer Patients

    A cancer diagnosis can be one of the most stressful events in a persons life. Many patients feel like they have lost control of their bodies. To regain control, some patients look to miracle cures or diets. Much of the advice is well-intentioned, but sometimes these cures and diets are promoted by individuals or companies trying to take advantage of this vulnerable time in a cancer patients life.

    Some of these products sold as cancer-killers include vitamin supplements, drink mixes, or special herbs. Often, these remedies have a history of being used for thousands of years in far-away countries to fight illness. Others are fads. These miracle cures do nothing for the patients except lighten their wallet.

    There is no diet, superfood, vitamin, or drink that can cure cancer. Cancer is generally caused by multiple years of genetic damage to cells. This damage can be caused by environmental factors, including pollution, lifestyle choices, and often, genetic chance. Once cancer is diagnosed, no amount of kale or vitamins will make it go away. Even though some vitamins minimally reduce your risk of getting specific cancers, other vitamins can actually increase your chance of developing a cancer.

    The focus needs to be on cancer prevention eating right and taking care of yourself so that you dont develop cancer. If you do happen to get cancer, follow your physicians advice about the best course of treatment.

    Read Also: How To Stimulate A Man’s Prostate

    Treatment By Stage Of Prostate Cancer

    Different treatments may be recommended for each stage of prostate cancer. Your doctor will work with you to develop a specific treatment plan based on the cancers stage and other factors. Detailed descriptions of each type of treatment are provided earlier on this same page. Clinical trials may also be a treatment option for each stage.

    Early-stage prostate cancer

    Early-stage prostate cancer usually grows very slowly and may take years to cause any symptoms or other health problems, if it ever does at all. As a result, active surveillance or watchful waiting may be recommended. Radiation therapy or surgery may also be suggested, as well as treatment in clinical trials. For those with a higher Gleason score, the cancer may be faster growing, so radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy are often recommended. Your doctor will consider your age and general health before recommending a treatment plan.

    ASCO, the American Urological Association, American Society of Radiation Oncology, and the Society of Urologic Oncology recommend that patients with high-risk early-stage prostate cancer that has not spread to other areas of the body should receive radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy with hormonal therapy as standard treatment options.

    Locally advanced prostate cancer

    Watchful waiting may be considered for older adults who are not expected to live for a long time and whose cancer is not causing symptoms or for those who have another, more serious illness.

    Vitamin E: Questions And Answers

    Natural Treatments for Prostate Cancer
    In This Section
    • Vitamin E and selenium.

    SELECT results published in 2011 showed that men taking vitamin E alone had a 17% increase in prostate cancer risk compared with men who did not take vitamin E.

    Several factors may have affected study results, including the dose of vitamin E.

    Clinical trials

    • In the Physicians Health Study II, men took either vitamin E supplements, vitamin C supplements, or both and were followed for about 8 years. The overall rates of prostate cancer were similar in the men who took vitamin E supplements and in those who did not. Vitamin E did not affect the number of new cases of cancer or the number of deaths from cancer.
    • A 2011 study of men who took part in The Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial found that, among those who were current smokers, higher blood levels of alpha-tocopherols and gamma-tocopherols were linked with lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer. In another study of men who were current smokers or who recently stopped smoking, higher blood levels of alpha-tocopherol were linked to a lower risk of prostate cancer.
  • Have any side effects or risks been reported from vitamin E?

    In the Physicians Health Study II and the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta Carotene Cancer Prevention Study Group, there was a higher number of strokes caused by a broken blood vessel in the brain in men who took vitamin E than in men who took a placebo.

  • Recommended Reading: Nccn Guidelines Prostate Cancer 2021

    Ketogenic Diets Potential Role

    The ketogenic diet involves eating a high-fat, very low-carbohydrate diet that mimics fasting for the purpose of generating ketones in the body.

    Ketones are created from fat stored in the body when carbohydrates are not available for metabolism to make glucose. The ketones are used as an energy source by cells in place of glucose. This dietary strategy, although difficult to sustain, has been used for decades to help control epilepsy and is being explored to help treat glioblastoma, a deadly brain tumor.

    While normal healthy cells can adapt to use ketones as an energy source, cancer cells cannot adapt the same way because they rely on glucose to keep up with their high energy demands. When glucose is low, tumors have difficulty growing. Ketones also interfere with the ability of cancer cells to obtain energy, making tumors more likely to respond to treatment when the patient is adopting a ketogenic diet. In lab mice with brain tumors, the ketogenic diet can shrink tumors by 50 percent andlengthen survival.

    Glioblastoma was used to study the ketogenic effect, in part because of the importance of cancer stem cells in this disease. Even if this cancer is successfully removed or treated initially, the glioblastoma stem cells help it return aggressively. Avoiding added sugar and adhering to a ketogenic diet are strategies that may be helpful in fighting brain tumors.

    Natural Compounds Inhibiting Invasion

    Metastasis, the spread of cancer cells from the primary tumor to new body tissues and organs, is a key step in PCa growth and progression .

    During cancer development, tumor cells undergo dynamic changes leading to the acquisition of a highly invasive phenotype and to their detachment from the original tissue. Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition is the hallmark of this phenomenon, during which an important change in the expression of adhesion molecules regulating the interaction of tumor cells with the extracellular matrix and their microenvironment occurs. Indeed, a common characteristic of tumors of epithelial origin is an increase in the expression of N-cadherin and a parallel downregulation of E-cadherin, a major component of adherent junctions. This molecular switch is called cadherin switching, and it is generally accompanied by the upregulation of other invasion markers, such as Twist, Snail, and Slug, culminating in the enhanced metastatic potential of the tumor cell . Numerous natural compounds have been shown to revert EMT in PCa cells and xenografts, particularly by modulating the PI3K/Akt and Wnt/β-catenin signaling cascades . In addition, urokinase-type plasminogen activator -, Y-box binding protein-1 – and SPARC/osteonectin, cwcv, and kazal-like domains proteoglycan 1 -mediated suppression of EMT contributed to the anti-invasive activity of quercetin, fisetin, and apigenin, respectively .

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    Top 5 Cancer Stem Cell

    By William W. Li, MD

    Finding ways to kill cancer stem cells has been one of the holy grails in cancer research. While this is a target of biotechnology companies working on cancer treatment, scientists have already discovered dietary factors that have the ability to kill cancer stem cells, at least in some forms of cancer.

    Cancer stem cells are responsible for initiating many cancers, as well as igniting the recurrence of cancers after treatment. Here are the top cancer stem cell-killing foods

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