New research suggests that viruses may contribute to cancer by causing excessive death to normal cells while promoting the growth of surviving cells with cancerous traits. Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, the scientists behind the hypothesis say that viruses may act as forces of natural selection by wiping out normal cells that support the […]
In the presence of fat, vitamin C may actually increase, rather than reduce, certain cancer causing chemicals, says a new study in the journal Gut. The findings were based on an analysis of the effects of fat and vitamin C on nitrite chemistry in the upper (proximal) stomach, which is especially vulnerable to pre-cancerous changes. […]
A Swiss study has linked extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields to certain cancers, a finding that may reignite the debate over the possible health effects of electromagnetic fields in urban environments. The findings, appearing in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, are based on more than 20,000 Swiss railway workers, who were monitored over a 30 year […]
Evidence is mounting that rogue stem cells brandishing epigenetic marks (changes in gene regulation that occur without a change in DNA sequence) are at the heart of some, if not all, cancers, says Maarten van Lohuizen, of the Netherlands Cancer Institute. He recently told a conference that his team in the Netherlands has uncovered a […]
The phenomenal success of the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra (sildenafil) has not been without hiccups. There have been ongoing questions regarding the drug’s safety and concerns about its increasingly widespread recreational use by young men, often in conjunction with illicit drugs. But if new research from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, er, firms up, […]
The dynamics of evolution are as evident in cancerous tumors as in any other ecosystem and oncologists hope that with help from ecologists and evolutionary biologists, they can exploit natural selection to develop radical new cancer treatments. “A tumor cell population is constantly evolving through natural selection,” says Wistar Institute researcher Carlo C. Maley, who […]
A synthetic compound that can initiate suicide in cancer cells could become the future of anti-cancer therapies, say researchers in the journal Nature Chemical Biology. The new technique is tipped to be an effective way to introduce personalized cancer treatments, which scientists believe would be a great improvement on the more generalized methods currently available. […]
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported this week in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute the creation of a virus that forces deadly brain cancer cells to consume themselves. So far, lab experiments using the new cannibal virus have been remarkable, as in addition to working on deadly brain tumors, […]
Cancer detection in the kennel? It just might be the best way to identify cancer if results from a recent study hold up. The researchers involved say that dogs have an uncanny ability to sniff out lung and breast cancer in its early stages of development. Published in the journal Integrative Cancer Therapies, the study […]
The current issue of the journal Nutrition and Cancercontains an interesting case study of a lung cancer patient whose cancer has almost disappeared after dietary intervention with omega-3 fatty acids. The study was not based on a clinical trial; rather, the treatment came about by chance. The patient, identified as D.H., was in fact a […]
