calcium – Oral Cancer News

“Gates of Heaven” – the protein fueling oral cancer’s pain and progression

Source: scitechdaily.com Author: New York University Protein ORAI1 fuels oral cancers—and may provide a promising therapeutic target. An essential protein that acts as a gatekeeper for calcium entering cells promotes the growth of oral cancer and generates pain, according to a new study published on September 5 in the journal Science Signaling led by researchers at NYU College of Dentistry. Targeting this protein—the ORAI1 calcium channel—could provide a new approach to treating oral cancer, which causes persistent pain that worsens as it progresses. “Our results show that the ORAI1 channel fuels the growth of oral cancer tumors and produces an abundance of molecules that, once secreted, interact with neurons resulting in an increased sensitivity to pain,” said Ga-Yeon Son, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular Pathobiology at NYU College of Dentistry and the study’s first author. The Keepers of the Gates of Heaven ORAI calcium channels—named after the three sisters in Greek mythology who guarded the gates of heaven at Mount Olympus—play an important role in controlling how much calcium enters cells. “These calcium channels can be a source of good or bad for cells,” said Rodrigo Lacruz, professor of molecular pathobiology at NYU College of Dentistry and the study’s senior author. “Calcium entering cells is necessary for many good things, but too much calcium for a long time has the opposite effect.” Calcium channels have been linked to various cancers, especially cancer progression, but few studies have looked at the role of ORAI1 in cancer and pain. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-09-08T07:19:50-07:00September, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Food preservatives don’t preserve oral cancer

Source: bigkingken.wordpress.com Food preservatives are a common part of everyday life for those Americans who don’t go to extremes to avoid them. Twinkies will be around for thousands of years despite the dissolution of Hostess and I’m pretty sure there’s an unspoiled Big Mac somewhere that’s been hanging out for several decades. Besides grossly keeping the hamburger on the left untarnished for more than a decade, food preservatives might be an untapped resource in the fight against cancer. In short, food preservatives work by killing off any and all microbial life forms that come along to munch on the food before us humans have a chance to send it down to our bellies. Now, if these food preservatives are so effective at killing off unwanted bacteria in our food supplies, could they perhaps also be effective at killing off other unwanted life forms? This is a question being asked by a lot of medical researchers at the moment, with at least one group finding an answer in the affirmative. Recently, researchers at the University of Michigan found that the common food preservative Nisin also does an excellent job of holding off – and even shrinking – the most common and deadly form of oral cancer, squamous cell head and neck cancer (HNSCC). HNSCC is a particularly nasty form of cancer, seeing as it accounts for more than 90 percent of oral cancers yet hasn’t had its mortality rates improved in the past several decades. On the other side, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-11-30T06:02:23-07:00November, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Food preservative may halt tumor growth

Source: www.foodproductdesign.com The common food preservative nisin may stop or slow squamous cell head and neck cancers, according to a new study published in the journal Cancer Medicine. The findings may accelerate new cancer therapies since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) approved nisin as safe for human consumption decades ago. Oral cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, and oral squamous cell carcinoma accounts for more than 90% of oral cancers. However, survival rates for oral cancer haven't improved in decades, according to the study. Yvonne Kapila, the study's principal investigator and professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, said antibacterial agents like nisin alter cell properties in bacteria to render it harmless. However, it's only recently that scientists began looking to antibacterial agents like nisin to see if they altered properties in other types of cells, such as cancer cells or cells in tumors. "The poor 5-year survival rates for oral cancer underscore the need to find new therapies for oral cancer," she said. "The use of small antibacterial agents, like nisin, to treat cancer is a new approach that holds great promise. Nisin is a perfect example of this potential because it has been used safely in humans for many years, and now the laboratory studies support its anti-tumor potential." The study, which looked at the use of antimicrobials to fight cancerous tumors, suggests nisin, in part, slows cell proliferation or causes cell death through the activation [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-11-01T15:17:35-07:00November, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Vitamin D for cancer prevention: global perspective

Source: Ann Epidemiol. 2009 Jul 1;19(7):468-483 Author: CF Garland, ED Gorham, AR Mohr, FC Garland Purpose: Higher serum levels of the main circulating form of vitamin D, 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), are associated with substantially lower incidence rates of colon, breast, ovarian, renal, pancreatic, aggressive prostate and other cancers. Methods: Epidemiological findings combined with newly discovered mechanisms suggest a new model of cancer etiology that accounts for these actions of 25(OH)D and calcium. Its seven phases are disjunction, initiation, natural selection, overgrowth, metastasis, involution, and transition (abbreviated DINOMIT). Vitamin D metabolites prevent disjunction of cells and are beneficial in other phases. Results/Conclusions: It is projected that raising the minimum year- round serum 25(OH)D level to 40 to 60 ng/mL (100–150 nmol/L) would prevent approximately 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer each year, and three fourths of deaths from these diseases in the United States and Canada, based on observational studies combined with a randomized trial. Such intakes also are expected to reduce case-fatality rates of patients who have breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer by half. There are no unreasonable risks from intake of 2000 IU per day of vitamin D3, or from a population serum 25(OH)D level of 40 to 60 ng/mL. The time has arrived for nationally coordinated action to substantially increase intake of vitamin D and calcium.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-10-18T18:41:45-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Calcium intake may protect against cancer

Source: Author: Laurie Barclay, MD & Hien T. Nghiem, MD Calcium intake may protect against cancer, particularly gastrointestinal tract cancer, according to the results of a prospective study reported in the February 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. "Dairy food and calcium intakes have been hypothesized to play roles that differ among individual cancer sites, but the evidence has been limited and inconsistent," write Yikyung Park, ScD, from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues. "Moreover, their effect on cancer in total is unclear." In the National Institutes of Health-AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) Diet and Health Study, the investigators evaluated the association of dairy food and calcium intakes with incidence of total cancer and cancer at individual sites. A food frequency questionnaire was used to determine intakes of dairy food and calcium from foods and supplements. Linkage with state cancer registries allowed identification of incident cancer cases. Relative risks and 2-sided 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were determined with a Cox proportional hazard model. During follow-up (average, 7 years), 36,965 cancer cases were identified in men and 16,605 in women. In men, calcium intake was not associated with total cancer. However, calcium intake was nonlinearly associated with total cancer in women, with the risk decreasing up to approximately 1300 mg/day but with no further risk reduction above those levels. Dairy food and calcium intakes were inversely associated with cancers of the digestive system in both men and women. Multivariate relative risk [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-03-01T21:37:45-07:00March, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Calcium tied to lower cancer risk in older people

Source: www.gmanews.tv Author: staff A study in nearly half a million older men and women bolsters evidence that diets rich in calcium may help protect against some cancers. The benefits were mostly associated with foods high in calcium, rather than calcium tablets. Previous studies have produced conflicting results. The new research involved food questionnaires from participants and a follow-up check of records for cancer cases during the subsequent seven years. This research method is less rigorous than some previous but smaller studies. But because of its huge size — 492,810 people and more than 50,000 cancers — the new study presents powerful evidence favoring the idea that calcium may somehow keep cells from becoming cancerous, said University of North Carolina nutrition expert John Anderson, who was not involved in the study. The study was run jointly by the National Institutes of Health and AARP. The results appear in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine. National Cancer Institute researcher Yikyung Park, the study's lead author, called the results strong but said more studies are needed to confirm the findings. Duke University nutrition researcher Denise Snyder said the results support the idea that food rather than supplements is the best source for nutrients. Participants were AARP members aged 50 to 71 who began the study in the mid-1990s. A total of 36,965 men and 16,605 women were later diagnosed with cancer. There were more than 10 different kinds of cancer, the most common being prostate, breast, lung and colorectal. Compared with people who [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-02-24T23:19:23-07:00February, 2009|Oral Cancer News|