Natural Products for Cancer Prevention/Management (2)

Glutathione

Glutathione is an important small-molecule antioxidant produced in all living beings, including human being.  Glutathione is found in almost all cells but most glutathione is found in the liver and plays an important role in liver detoxification.  It is directly involved in the neutralization of free radicals, reactive oxygen species, and heavy metals.  Some people consider it the most important antioxidant in the body.

As we mentioned before, antioxidants are important in protecting our cells and may slow down the aging process.  However, the protective effect of glutathione on normal cells might also work on cancer cells.  It has been reported that high levels of glutathione may help cancer cells become resistant to chemotherapy

© Jiajiu Shaw, 2016

Disclaimer: This blog is written solely for informational purposes. It does not constitute the practice of any medical, nursing or other medical professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All contents posted are extracted from the book I am writing, "IS CANCER IN US", to be published in about two months.

Natural Products for Cancer Prevention/Management (1)

Many natural products have been used in preventing or treating different diseases.  However, is it possible to prevent or even treat cancer by natural products?  The short answer may be “Yes” but the more practical answer is “Depending on many factors, certain natural products might be helpful in cancer treatment.”  Nevertheless, please keep in mind that before any natural product can be called a drug, it must first be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

As a background of this section, let’s clarify some important points.  First, there is not a single approved drug that works on all types of cancer, not to mention a natural product.  The best one can say is that some natural products might be effective in the prevention or treatment of some cancer under certain conditions.  Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the same drug will work on the same cancer for all patients.  This is because human being is a complex organism and the same cancer in different patients could be somewhat different and the treatment may have to be modified accordingly.

Secondly, every natural product contains multiple ingredients; some are active and most are inactive.  Depending on the manufactures of the natural products, the ingredients could be significantly different.  This is different from the drugs approved by the FDA in that the active ingredient(s) are exactly the same, no matter which companies make the drug products.  Therefore, it is important to distinguish the differences between FDA approved drugs and natural products.  Keep in mind, an active ingredient in certain natural product, as a pure pharmaceutical active ingredient (API), can be developed to become a new drug.  At that time, it will be called a “new drug” and not referred to as a natural product.

Although some natural products may show anti-cancer effects in vitro, there are two important points to keep in mind:

·         Just because something shows positive anti-cancer effect in vitro (i.e., outside a living organism), it does not mean that the compound will be effective in vivo (i.e., within a living organism).

·         Even if some natural compound in certain natural product is effective against the growth of cancer cell in vivo, it may take a lot of the natural product to really show the anticancer effect in real life.

Disclaimer: This blog is written solely for informational purposes. It does not constitute the practice of any medical, nursing or other medical professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All contents posted are extracted from the book I am writing, "IS CANCER IN US", to be published in about two months.

Methods of Cancer Treatment, Summary

Methods of Cancer Treatment - Summary

So far, we have discussed a number of cancer treatment methods, conventional and novel methods.  Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages.  Although significant progresses have been made in some of them in recent years, it seems like there is no perfect way to treat cancer at the present time.  Why? 

Remember that most cancer cells are mutated and transformed from normal/stem cells through problematic mutations; the problematic mutations could be only one out of many thousands of mutations.  Thus cancer cells are just like brothers/sisters of normal cells and similar in many ways.  This is what makes it so difficult to treat cancer.  In addition, any treatment that contravenes the growth of cancer cells might also affect normal cells, thus resulting in side effects.  Fortunately, modern technologies in surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy have made significant progresses in reducing the side effects (i.e., injuries of normal cells).  

If there is a perfect way and it’s easy to deal with, we wouldn’t have many thousands of scientists in the world working day and night on finding better answers.  The way the world is created by nature, we are going to have a difficult time to find a perfect way to treat cancer.  However, researchers are making progress inch by inch; newer and better methods have been developed in the last 50 years or so and there will be more and more improvements discovered in the coming years to fight against cancer.

In my opinion, stem cell related therapies have the best chance to be among the best methods for treating cancer.  Among them, two strategies are most appealing to me; they are (1) potential treatment by exosomes, and (2) reversing cancer cells back to normal cells.  However, a lot of technical hurdles must be overcome before either can become practical.  In any case, I believe this is an exciting period of time for the research and development of cancer treatment. We are also putting some of our efforts in this general area and hope to make some contributions. 

Although there may not be a perfect therapy for cancer treatment at the present time, there are a few good ways to reduce the risk of getting cancer and/or to slow down cancer growth.  Other than the methods described previously, there are other aspects to consider in order to reduce the chances of getting cancer.  We will talk about these later. 

© Jiajiu Shaw, 2016

Disclaimer: This blog is written solely for informational purposes. It does not constitute the practice of any medical, nursing or other medical professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Although some commercial products, publications, and services are mentioned in this blog, the author does not endorse any specific products, publications, or services.  None of the contents in this blog represents or warrants that any of the products, publications, or services is appropriate or effective for their intended purposes. Readers shall always seek the advice of their physicians or other medical practitioners with any questions regarding personal health or medical conditions and shall be solely responsible for their own decisions and/or actions.

Novel/Unconventional Methods for Cancer Treatment (7)

Converting cancer cells back to normal cells (7)

Yet another general strategy in cancer treatment is to convert cancer cells back to normal cells or stem cells.  At first, this may sound strange or even ridiculous.  However, it does make sense if we think it over carefully. 

As we mentioned before, most cancer cells are derived from normal cells and they are like brothers/sisters.  In an analogy, this is similar to the human society in that most criminals were good people before they commit some crimes.  Many times, it is because something bad happens to a person to create a situation for the person to commit a crime.  For example, continued attraction by money or sexual reason can create a situation for someone to commit a crime (i.e., normal cells to become cancerous cells).  However, if the person has been well trained and/or disciplined, many of these people could be re-educated and gradually become normal good people (i.e., cancer cells to become normal cells).  One of the new strategies to treat cancer is based on this principle.  However, this is not an easy task. For example, a number of genes in the nuclei of cancer cells may have to be modulated so that the cells can be “re-educated and/or guided” back to become normal cells.  

Furthermore, if certain drugs can reverse the process and “normalize” cancer cells, why can’t we use the same strategy to prevent normal cells to become cancer cells?  In other words, if one can avoid the cancer causing factors, the chance of getting cancer (risk factor) will be significantly reduced.  This is an important strategy of cancer prevention.

If this strategy, reversing cancer cells back to normal cells, can be successfully developed and used, I think it could become one of the best ways to deal with cancer.  This is just like what the ancient Chinese war strategist, Sun Tze, said, conquering your enemy without a war is the best strategy.  Unfortunately, researchers are still working hard in this area and it could take a while for this strategy to become practical.

Scientists are making real progress in the area of cell-to-cell transition between different types of cells.  For example, a process called epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) converts epithelial cells (differentiated cells) back to mesenchymal stem cells.  EMT occurs in wound healing and other some biological processes.  For another example, Dr. Panos Anastasiadis and colleagues at Mayo Clinic discovered a potential mechanism of reprogramming cancers cells.

© Jiajiu Shaw, 2016

Disclaimer: This blog is written solely for informational purposes. It does not constitute the practice of any medical, nursing or other medical professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Although some commercial products, publications, and services are mentioned in this blog, the author does not endorse any specific products, publications, or services.  None of the contents in this blog represents or warrants that any of the products, publications, or services is appropriate or effective for their intended purposes. Readers shall always seek the advice of their physicians or other medical practitioners with any questions regarding personal health or medical conditions and shall be solely responsible for their own decisions and/or actions.