Mannose suger slows the growth of tumor cells and can synergize with chemotherapy.

A series of experiments revealed that mannose + drug worked by inducing programmed cell death (called apoptosis). Specifically, it altered the levels of three proteins that regulate a cell death pathway, which they do by controlling how easily things can get into and out of the mitochondria. Further experimentation indicated that fewer of these proteins are made in the presence of mannose + drug.

The authors wondered if these effects that they’d seen in tissue culture dishes could be recapitulated in vivo. They fed mannose to mice with tumors, and it slowed tumor growth and enhanced chemotherapy in the mice, too. It did not cause weight gain or otherwise impact the health of the mice.

They went on to probe why some tumor cells are more sensitive to mannose than others. They found that mannose sensitivity was inversely proportional to the levels of an enzyme that helps metabolize mannose. Knocking down the enzyme in tumor cell lines made any cell sensitive to mannose. The researchers looked at a panel of human cancers—ovarian, renal, breast, prostate, colorectal—and saw that the enzyme varied among them, but had no prognostic significance (probably because there’s usually not that much mannose around, especially relative to glucose). Colorectal tumors tend to have especially low levels so might be good candidates for initial treatments with the sugar.


https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/sugar...one-sugar-may-help-chemo/

Scientists may have found a way to treat cancer without chemotherapy by replicating our body's own self-destruct system

Every day, millions of cells in our bodies "kill" themselves and are quickly removed.

While the mechanism may sound dramatic, it's for our own good. The process ensures that potentially harmful cells destroy themselves and protects us from diseases.

Cancer cells, however, can protect themselves from self-destruction by ignoring our immune system's cell-death signals — and that's precisely what makes them so dangerous.

https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-ma...a&utm_medium=referral

Researchers find potential 10 minute test for all cancers -- 90 per cent success rate.

Researchers have discovered a curious difference between the DNA from cancer cells and that from healthy cells, and this finding could lead to a new blood test for cancer.

The difference? Cancer DNA has a rather strong affinity for gold, according to a new study. This feature appears to be common to cancer DNA in general, regardless of the type of cancer, the researchers said.

Taking advantage of this finding, the researchers designed a new test that uses gold nanoparticles to detect cancer. The gold particles change color depending on whether or not cancer DNA is present. The result was a simple and fast [color change] test that could detect cancer in just 10 minutes, according to the study, published today (Dec. 4) in the journal Nature Communications.

"You can detect it by eye — it's as simple as that," study senior author Matt Trau, a professor and senior group leader at the University of Queensland's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, said in a statement.

However, the work is preliminary, and much more research is needed before this test could be useful for patients, outside experts told Live Science.

https://www.livescience.com/64234-cancer-dna-gold-new-test.html

Australian researchers are leading an international project to test if the use of some anesthetic gases in surgery for colorectal and lung cancer dramatically increases the likelihood of relapse, as opposed to intravenous anesthetics. Apparently there have been experiments on mice plus clinical observations leading to these suspicions.

The increase in relapses could be as high as 50%, so it shouldn't take long for a test with a control group to see an effect, if true.

I just accessed a search engine to get references on this and apparently much information on the affects of different anesthetic types on different cancers is already known and discussed.

Some anesthetics actively suppress the immune system and thereby assist metastasis. Anyone needing to go in for cancer surgery should access The Duck or Mr Google before surgery and discuss this with your surgeon and anesthesiologist.

l_mckeon

Unlikely drug pair combine to cut off cancer's energy supply

Molecular scientists at the University of Basel actually discovered two years ago that a commonly used diabetes drug could be combined with a 50-year-old hypertension medication to inhibit tumor growth. Named metformin and syrosingopine, respectively, the scientists knew beforehand that the former had some anti-cancer properties, but only by mixing it with the latter did it seem to have any meaningful effect.

They have now carried out follow-up experiments in mice to better understand how this process slows cancer growth, and it centers on a molecule called NAD+ that is central to converting nutrients into energy. NAD+ is produced through two cellular pathways, one of which metformin was known to block. The other, it has now been found, can be shut down by syrosingopine's ability to cause bottlenecks in some very key areas.

[Previous concentrations of metformin alone required to have an anti-cancer effect are at least an order of magnitude above dosages for diabetes. It's hoped the synergy with the second drug will allow the metformin dose to be greatly reduced.]

More at:

https://newatlas.com/drug-pair-cancer-energy/57623/