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Is Zinc Good For Breast Cancer

Assessing Zinc Signalling Mechanisms In Anti

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Having demonstrated a significant increase in ZIP7 activation in the TamR cells using Western blotting, we next wanted to examine whether this represented a moderate increase of activated ZIP7 in all cells or a large increase in a sub-population of the cells. Using fluorescent microscopy, we compared the staining for pZIP7 in the different cell lines using immunofluorescence. We observed that 80100% of TamR and TamRL cells stained positively for pZIP7 consistent with a location on the endoplasmic reticulum membrane as demonstrated in a previous study. We also observed much stronger staining in a proportion of the TamR cells, in accordance with the Western blotting showing particularly prominent ZIP7 activation in this model. In contrast, the FasR cells had a much lower percentage of pZIP7 positive cells that was very similar to the 1020% positivity observed in the antihormone responsive MCF-7 cells. Interestingly, there were patches of FasRL cells that were more highly positive for pZIP7 surrounded by areas that were relatively pZIP7 negative . This more obvious increase in the FasRL compared with FasR cells again reflected the Western blotting findings for pZIP7.

Tumor Cells Cause Subtle Changes In Zinc Composition

For the study, the team analyzed the composition of zinc in the blood and blood serum of 10 people – five patients with breast cancer and five healthy controls. They also studied samples of healthy breast tissue from both groups and samples of breast cancer tumors from the breast cancer patients.

They found that the breast cancer tumors had a significantly lighter zinc isotopic composition than the blood, serum and healthy breast tissue of both the breast cancer patients and the healthy controls.

The team suggests the subtle differences in zinc composition occur because tumor cells process the metal differently to normal cells. They also found similar changes in copper in one of the breast cancer patients.

Lead investigator Dr. Fiona Larner, of Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences, says they hope their “research is the beginning of a whole new approach.”

She explains we have known for over 10 years that breast cancer tissue carries high levels of zinc, but the underlying processes that cause this are not well understood.

Dr. Larner says their study “shows that techniques commonly used in earth sciences can help us to understand not only how zinc is used by tumor cells but also how breast cancer can lead to changes in zinc in an individual’s blood.”

Breast Cancer Patients Advised Not To Use Supplements During Treatment

  • Researchers say vitamins and other supplements taken during breast cancer treatment can cause a higher risk of recurrence.
  • Experts note that chemotherapy and radiation are designed to cause damage to cancer cells, while supplements main job is to repair cell damage.
  • They recommend that people undergoing breast cancer treatment get their nutrients through a healthy, well-balanced diet.

When youre in treatment for breast cancer, nutrition can be a challenge.

In an effort to get essential nutrients, you may think its a good time to add dietary supplements to your regimen.

But some supplements, particularly antioxidants, may interfere with cancer treatment.

A recent study suggests that people with breast cancer taking certain supplements before and during chemotherapy may be at increased risk for recurrence of the disease and earlier death.

The study is published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The American Institute for Cancer Research is advising people with cancer to use caution with dietary supplements.

We do not recommend supplements for cancer prevention or in the treatment setting, so this study supports that approach, Nigel Brockton, PhD, the AICR vice president of research, said in a column on the organizations website.

Not only is there no benefit, but they may be harmful. Our best recommendations remain to obtain nutritional requirements from a plant-based, whole foods diet, he added.

The researchers said they found:

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Are There Any Vitamins Or Supplements That You Would Strongly Suggest A Person With Breast Cancer Doesnt Take

I advise against taking dietary supplements that may have strong effects on levels in the body. This includes DHEA, red clover and licorice. Any that is labeled to naturally support a womans hormones or as a natural option are also things that I advise against using for anyone with a history of breast cancer.

For women with breast cancer, whole soy foods are safe and healthy to include in the diet and several studies suggest women with breast cancer who eat soy foods have a lower risk of breast cancer compared with women who do not eat these foods. But concentrated soy supplements are not well studied, so I advise women to stick with foods tempeh, miso, tofu, edamame, soy milk and to avoid soy-based dietary supplements.

Also consider what types of cancer treatments you are receiving. Some dietary supplements may be fine for some patients, but may need to be avoided during treatment for other patients. For example, there is some evidence that the dietary supplements berberine and quercetin may interact with . For someone on taxane medications, these would need to be avoided. For a woman who is not taking these drugs, these supplements may be perfectly safe.

The most important thing is to discuss your use of dietary supplements with your doctor or . These people will know your full medical history and your planned course of treatment. They will be able to advise you best on which dietary supplements may or may not be safe for you to use.

Criteria For Including And Excluding Studies In The Review

Using Zinc to Detect Breast Cancer Early

Inclusion and exclusion criteria are listed in Table Table11 based on a PICO model. Generally, all original studies with a randomized controlled design or systematic reviews, which cover studies with a randomized controlled design, were included, if they reported patient-relevant outcomes after treatment of adult cancer patients with any oral or intravenous intervention containing zinc. All cancer entities were included because of the wide range of application fields. Criteria for rejecting studies were primary prevention, grey literature, other publication types than primary investigation/report , other study types and study population with only precancerous conditions. Also, studies with more than 20% children or if results of adult patients with cancer were not reported separately. Additionally, studies were excluded if they reported no patient centered outcomes . Language restrictions were set to English and German.

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What This Means For You

  • Some dietary supplements can interfere with breast cancer treatments and prescription medicines. Its very important to talk to your doctor about any and all supplements youre considering.
  • Dietary supplements are not regulated by the U.S. government because theyre not classified as medicine. This means you have no guarantee that the supplement contains only the ingredients on the label. Look for reputable manufacturers you can trust to produce consistently high-quality supplements. Prescription and over-the-counter medicines available in the United States must, by federal law, meet the standards of the U.S. Pharmacopeia . The USP also has created a set of standards for dietary supplements. But supplement makers are not required to follow these standards it’s voluntary. A good rule of thumb is to look for a supplement with the USP notation on the label.
  • Just because its natural doesnt mean its safe. Many people believe that any food or supplement in its naturally occurring, unprocessed state is better or safer than something that is refined or manufactured. This is not necessarily true. Some of the most toxic substances in the world occur naturally.
  • Most doctors and dietitians recommend getting the nutrients you need from food, not supplements. This study supports that recommendation.

Written by: Jamie DePolo, senior editor

Nutritional Intake And Weight

Oral mucosa, mild improvement of taste and dry mouth could lead to better nutritional intake and weight. Watanabe et al. have described higher consumption of food if the patient received zinc substitution. Nevertheless, the authors concluded that zinc does not appear to have sufficient influence on the possibility of oral food intake.

The majority of the studies, therefore, suggests that zinc does not have a positive influence on the weight or food intake of the patients .

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Vitamins Minerals And Their Link To Breast Cancer

Dr Kostas Tsilidis is a Senior Lecturer in Cancer Epidemiology at Imperial College London. He also holds an Associate Professor position in Epidemiology at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece. Since January 2020, he is the co-Principal Investigator of the World Cancer Research Fund Continuous Update Project at Imperial College London.

Patients Characteristics Of Included Studies

STOP CANCER Cell Growth By GETTING Concentrations of Zinc REGULARLY! Destroy Cancer Tumors with ZINC

Concerning all relevant studies, 1180 patients were assessed. Due to drop-outs, only 1120 of 1180 patients were included into our systematic review. The mean age of patients in the individual studies was 2963 years with a range over all studies from 18 to 88 years. 420 participants were female and 760 males. The patients suffered from head and neck cancer , leukaemia or lymphoma , colorectal cancer , other gastrointestinal cancers , lung , breast or prostate cancer or other cancer types .

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What Is A Good Amount Of Vitamin C To Shoot For Daily Should Someone With Breast Cancer Be Getting More Or Less Vitamin C Than Other People

There is no research evidence to support that a woman with breast cancer would need extra vitamin C, but a healthy diet will provide well beyond the basic recommended dietary allowance for this nutrient. The current RDA for vitamin C is 75 mg per day for women and 90 mg per day for men. There is some evidence that smokers require more vitamin C than non-smokers, and it is recommended that people who smoke get an additional 35 mg of vitamin C per day for best health. Of course, to truly improve health, quitting smoking is the single best thing a current smoker can do! But assuming you dont smoke, 75 mg per day is a good place to start.

Fact Sheet on Vitamin C, adult women get an average of 84 mg of vitamin C per day. This means that if your diet is varied and healthy, and includes plenty of vegetables and fruit the best source of vitamin C you are easily meeting your basic vitamin C needs. Its also worth noting that if you eat a healthy plant-based diet, which is recommended as one of the best ways to get the most cancer risk reduction benefit from your food, you will get a lot of vitamin C as a . According to the NIH, consuming five varied servings of fruits and vegetables a day can provide more than 200 mg of vitamin C daily.

Are You Consuming Enough Zinc

Zinc deficiency is a serious problem. Its needed for many of the proteins and enzymes in the body, and a lack of zinc can prevent cells from functioning properly, leading to the development of not only cancer but also other diseases. Zinc is also important for immune function and proper wound healing.

Zinc is an essential mineral, which means the body is unable to produce it and people must get it from food to maintain the right amounts. According to the National Institutes of Health , adult men need 11 milligrams per day, while women need 8 milligrams. Its important not to go overboard, however the NIH reports that zinc toxicity can cause adverse health effects, such asvomiting, diarrhea, headaches, and nausea.

Some groups are particularly vulnerable to zinc deficiency. For example, people with certain digestive and gastrointestinal diseases can struggle with zinc absorption. Those with chronic liver or renal disease, diabetes, sickle cell disease, and chronic diabetes are also at risk.

Experts say that vegetarians must also make a point of getting enough zinc as this group tends to miss out on some of the best sources of zinc, like meat. Compounding the issue is the fact that vegetarians tend to consume high amounts of whole grains and legumes, which contain phytates that inhibit the absorption of zinc soaking beans before cooking them can help alleviate this issue to some extent.

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Blood Sample Collection And Laboratory Analysis

Venipuncture was done on non-fasting participants at baseline. Serum was extracted within one hour of blood sample collection and afterwards stored at80 °C. In October 2015, the saved serum zinc was analyzed by ALS Scandinavia AB, Luleå, Sweden, as previously described by Sandsveden et al. . Serum samples were analyzed on ICP-SFMS using single-element standard solutions, NIST, traceable to the International System of Units. An amount of 0.15 mL was mixed with an alkaline liquid containing 0.1% ammonia and 0.005% EDTA/Triton-X to at quantity of 10 mL. Seronorm, obtained from Sero AS, Norway , was analyzed together with the serum samples as a reference material. The detection limit of zinc was 10 ng/mL, and the inter-assay coefficient of variation was 3.3%. Albumin had previously been analyzed as part of another study .

Due to insufficient amount of saved serum from 262 women, these women were reported as having missing serum zinc data and were consequently excluded from the analyses using serum zinc as an indicator of zinc status.

Possible Side Effects From Supplements

Zinc blood test could lead to early diagnosis of breast cancer

Selenium, folic acid and probiotics have been found to be safe for use during chemotherapy treatment. However, these supplements still have potential side effects.

  • Selenium: Though its known for being nontoxic, selenium taken at extremely high levels may result in diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, hair loss, nail discoloration/brittleness, or joint pain.
  • Folic acid: There are few adverse effects related to folic acid. Some neurologic issues have been noted in people who have pernicious anemia.
  • Probiotics: Research is ongoing to confirm whether probiotics are safe. Rarely, people taking probiotics have been found to have unexpected fungi or bacteria in their blood, or endocarditis, inflammation of the lining of the heart chambers and valves, typically from a bacterial infection.

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Vitamins And Minerals In Supplements

Your doctor may recommend certain vitamins and supplements to help you stay healthy after treatment.

Calcium.Chemotherapy can weaken your bones. A calcium supplement with vitamin D, which helps your body absorb calcium, may protect your bones from changes due to treatment.

Multivitamin. A regular multivitamin may help you get essential vitamins and minerals to improve your overall health.

Probiotics. Probiotics help boost immunity, says Tara Scott, MD, a womens health specialist in Akron, OH. This may help you stay healthy after your treatment. Probiotics have anti-inflammatory effects, which may help protect against cancer. But there isnt enough research yet to know for sure.

Vitamin D. Experts say theres a link between low levels of vitamin D and breast cancer. Theres no evidence a vitamin D supplement will lower your risk of recurrence, but your doctor may recommend it for your overall health.

Continued

Assessing Zip7 Activity In Anti

We developed an immunohistochemical assay for our pZIP7 antibody as we wished to test paraffin-embedded clinical breast cancer samples. We initially tested this method on cell pellets of our anti-hormone resistant cells to monitor if there was consistency with our Western blotting findings. The investigation on cell pellets of the five cell lines revealed a strong staining for pZIP7 in the TamR cell line compared with MCF7, with all cells staining positively and some showing 3+ intensity staining, consistent with the TamR cells utilising zinc signalling pathways. Furthermore, the TamRL cells were also all positive for pZIP7 but the staining was not as strong as that seen for the TamR, again consistent with activation of zinc signalling at a lesser level than TamR as seen from the Western blotting and fluorescence studies. In contrast, the FasR cells showed more heterogeneous staining with a less prominent increase compared with the MCF-7 cells than seen for the tamoxifen resistant lines. Interestingly, the FasRL cells had some more positive cells for pZIP7 than the FasR cells, agreeing with the Western blotting and fluorescence observations . HScore evaluation of the cell pellet staining confirmed these results with TamR cells showing the highest pZIP7 HScore, confirming that this cell line has active utilisation of ZIP7-mediated zinc signalling and corroborating all previous data.

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Patient To Patient: Statistics Do Not Dictate Your Journey

What has stuck with me during my 16 years of living with metastatic breast cancer is ‘You are a statistic of one.’ I especially think of this when I hear that a friend with my type of metastatic disease has passed away, says Shirley Mertz, chair of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance. The five-year average relative survival rate for MBC may be 27 percent, but how long an individual patient lives depends on a huge number of factors including age, type of tumor, general health, treatments and how much the cancer responds to them, according to the American Cancer Society). Remember, your illness and experience is unique to you.

Can Supplements Prevent Breast Cancer From Coming Back

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So far, theres no proof that any vitamin, mineral, or herbal supplement can treat breast cancer or prevent it from coming back.

To date, there are no studies which demonstrate that certain supplements will lower your risk of recurrence, Johnson says. They may help with symptoms, but there isnt enough research to support using them to prevent breast cancer.

But there are other things you can do to lower your risk of breast cancer coming back. Make these lifestyle changes:

  • Eat a healthy diet.

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