Can antioxidants prevent prostate cancer?
The scientists have identified a molecular pathway in one mice that makes prostate cells vulnerable to cancer-causing oxygen damage. The pathway, which is also involved in human prostate cancer, may help determine how and whether antioxidants, such as certain vitamins or their products that reverse the damage, can prevent prostate cancer.
It looks like cells with functioning Nkx3.1 are making oxidative free radicals appropiately, but cannot manage oxidative injury, that`s why their DNA gets damaged and that leads to some mutations that can bring about cancer.
Nkx3.1 must prevent oxidative damage by regulating the expression of other genes. Oxygen may also cause cellular degeneration through oxidative free radicals. Free radicals are produced as a result of normal body metabolism, and are widely known to be intimately involved in aging, as well as cancer development.
It seems to be a relationship between loss of protection against oxidative stress and prostate cancer. It means that the defects in the oxidative response pathway occur early in prostate cancer development.
The study made on a mice with malfunctioning Nkx3.1incorrectly expressed 638 genes, including those that created a signifiant reduction in some antioxidant enzymes vital to oxidative damage prevention.
These alterations occurred in mice as early as four months of age - well before cellular changes are visible in the mouse prostate. The mutant mice also displayed a fivefold increase in the amount of cancer-related DNA damage, called 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine.
As the progression to prostate cancer that occurs in mice lacking Nkx3.1, it also revealed another tumor suppressor, Pten, correlated with additional deregulation of antioxidants and more profound accumulations of oxidative damage to DNA and protein.
This study provide a valuable tool for preclinical studies to test whether antioxidants might be useful for prostate cancer prevention, because this the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and ranks second to lung cancer as the leading cause of cancer death among American men.
More than 232,000 cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed and treated annually in the United States, and close to 30,000 men die each year of the disease. Most men over the age of 50 will have some experience with prostate disease — with either an enlarged prostate or cancer.
Prostate cancer can be discovered by physical examination or by screening blood tests.The most important blood test in discovering the prostate cancer seems to be PSA, the prostate specific antigen, but the PSA cannot confirm if the pacient has or has not prostate cancer. All it can do is to indicate the probability the desease in your body. It is helpful because it is a signal that guides the pacient in knowing if he needs a further tests or not. The suspected prostate cancer is often confirmed by biopsy (removing a piece of the prostate and examining it under a microscope). Further tests like X-rays or bone scans are useful to determine if the prostate cancer has spread.
It can be treated with surgery, radiation or hormone therapy, chemotherapy or combination of these.