New
Delhi: A team of researchers may have found a herbal way to fight off
colon cancer. The Saint Louis University scientists showed that a
combination of two plant compounds that have medicinal properties -
curcumin and silymarin - holds promise in ...
New Delhi: A team of researchers may have found a herbal way to fight off colon cancer.
The
Saint Louis University scientists showed that a combination of two
plant compounds that have medicinal properties - curcumin and silymarin -
holds promise in treating the disease.
Curcumin is the active ingredient in the
spice turmeric, which is present in spicy curry dishes, and silymarin is
a component of milk thistle, which has been used to treat liver
disease.
The researchers and their students studied a line of
colon cancer cells in a laboratory model. They found treating the cells
initially with curcumin, then with silymarin was more effective in
fighting cancer than treating the cells with either phytochemical alone,
said corresponding author Uthayashanker Ezekiel.
"The combination of phytochemicals inhibited colon cancer cells from
multiplying and spreading. In addition, when the colon cancer cells were
pre-exposed to curcumin and then treated with silymarin, the cells
underwent a high amount of cell death," he noted, adding "Phytochemicals
may offer alternate therapeutic approaches to cancer treatments and
avoid toxicity problems and side effects that chemotherapy can cause."
Scientists next would need to study how the curcumin and silymarin
impact the actions of molecules, such as genetic transcription and
expression, that cause cells to change, Ezekiel said. Then the compounds
would be studied in an animal model, then in humans.
The study appears in the Journal of Cancer.
This drug combo helps soft-tissue cancer survival (Harry Sieplinga/Getty Images)
Adding a novel monoclonal antibody therapy to traditional chemotherapy can help make people more likely to survive advanced sarcoma, a lethal soft-tissue cancer, by nearly a year, suggests a recent study.
Findings from a multicenter clinical trial of the combination therapy,
led by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and
NewYork-Presbyterian, represent the first appreciable improvement in
sarcoma outcomes in decades.
"We estimated from preclinical data that the new
drug--olaratumab--might improve survival in these patients by a few
months, but the extent of the improvement exceeded everybody's
expectations," said study leader Gary K. Schwartz, adding: "While
sarcoma remains a fatal disease, we're encouraged that we're on the
right track and hope to build on this progress."
If caught early, sarcomas can be treated effectively with surgery.
However, if the disease spreads, or metastasizes, treatment with
chemotherapy does relatively little to slow disease progression or
improve survival. The median survival time after diagnosis of advanced
disease is 12 to 16 months.
Schwartz and his colleagues are currently studying other potential
drug targets for arresting the progression of soft-tissue sarcomas.
"Sarcomas are complex. There are, in fact, multiple receptors on the
cell surface. PDGFR-alpha is just one of the receptors that are
overexpressed on sarcoma cells. We now have some ideas about how to
combine drugs that block multiple types of these receptors, which will
probably be more effective that targeting a single type of receptor," he
said.
The study is published online in The Lancet.
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The
human immune system has long been thought to be connected in some way,
shape or form to the neurological system, but a recent study has now
determined that the immune system has more to do with the brain and its
processes than previously thought.
The immune system research that was done at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Virginia has
discovered that the immune system has a direct effect on the social
behaviors of animals like mice. This discovery could now have important
ramifications for human that battle conditions like schizophrenia and
autism-spectrum disorders. [Photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images]As
part of the research conducted at the University of Massachusetts
Medical School and the University of Virginia, scientists keyed in on an
immune system molecule called interferon gamma. This particular immune
system molecule is activated in certain animals – including humans –
when they want to be social. Scientists conducting the immune system
experiments blocked the interferon gamma molecule, inhibiting from
activating, and the results were eye-opening. When the immune system
molecule was blocked, the brains of the mice became ‘hyperactive,’ and
that the mice no longer tended towards socialization with their cage
mates, something that mice – being incredibly social creatures – are
usually prone to do. The conclusions were quickly assessed: manipulation
of the immune system had a direct effect on behavior.
Conversely, when the scientists discontinued their blockage of the
immune system molecule, allowing it to once again operate freely in the
brain, the mice calmed down and returned to their normal, social
behavior.
One of the study’s authors, Johathan Kipnis, chair of the University
of Virginia’s Department of Neuroscience, commented on the findings.
“It’s like a little airport in a small city suddenly
becomes a major hub and so there’s a mess of traffic congestion in the
air. ‘Same thing happens with the brain, so the brain cannot function
properly.”
The question of why our immune systems and our personalities are so
interconnected was also broached by the authors of the study. They have
postulated that the connection may actually be an evolutionary mechanism
built in to help a species survive. The linkage exists, encouraging
social creatures to interact and yet boosting our immune systems at the
same time to protect both the individual and the group.
As of now, the immune system experiment has only been conducted on
mice, but there is a belief that the immune system – personality
connection also exists in humans. This linkage is now leading scientists
to believe that they may be on the verge of breakthroughs in how to
best treat people with neurological disorders like schizophrenia and
autism.
Further study will examine how directly the correlation between the
immune system and behaviors reacts in both directions. That is, the
recent study from the University of Virginia suggested that manipulating
the immune system directly effects behavior. But, does changing one’s
behavior – as has long been postulated by scientists – actually alter
the immune system? The correlation between so-called “happy” individuals
and stronger immune systems, and “sad” or “depressed” individuals and
weaker immune systems has been supposed for years… and it now appears
that the immune system molecule isolated by the authors of this study – published in Nature – could be the smoking gun in that supposition. [(Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images]Dr. Kipnis also spoke about the possible, future implications of the experiments.
“Immune molecules are actually defining how the brain is
functioning. So, what is the overall impact of the immune system on our
brain development and function? I think the philosophical aspects of
this work are very interesting, but it also has potentially very
important clinical implications.”
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