Aspirin may double the chances of survival for patients with gastrointestinal cancers, according to the results of a new study recently presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna, Austria.



This research, led by Dr. Martine Frouws of Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, adds to growing evidence suggesting aspirin may be useful in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Last month, Medical News Today reported on a study suggesting aspirin may reduce the risk of colorectal cancer, while a more recent study claims aspirin may help boost treatment response in patients with breast, skin and bowel cancers.

For their study, Dr. Frouws and colleagues set out to determine how aspirin impacts the survival of patients with tumors in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract - namely the rectum, colon and esophagus. This is the first time a study has simultaneously assessed survival data by different GI locations, according to the authors.

The study included 13,715 patients who received a GI cancer diagnosis between 1998 and 2011. They were followed up for a median of 48.6 months. Of these patients, 42.8% had colon cancer, 25.4% had rectal cancer and 10.2% had cancer of the esophagus.

To determine how aspirin use after a GI cancer diagnosis impacted the overall survival of these patients, the researchers linked patient data with drug dispensing information from the PHARMO Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

"In this study we analyzed each separate prescription per patient, and therefore we were able to achieve a more exact estimate of the effect of aspirin on cancer survival," notes Dr. Frouws.
Post-diagnosis aspirin users twice as likely to survive GI cancer

Overall, around 30.5% of patients used aspirin prior to GI cancer diagnosis, 8.3% only used aspirin after their diagnosis, while 61.1% did not use aspirin.


Across all cancers, around 28% of patients survived for at least 5 years.

Compared with patients who used aspirin before their cancer diagnosis and those who did not use the medication, patients who used aspirin after their diagnosis were twice as likely to survive, according to the results.

This finding remained even after the team accounted for potential confounding factors, including age, sex, cancer stage, cancer treatment and the presence of other medical conditions.

While the exact mechanism underlying the anticancer effect of aspirin is unclear, the researchers suggest it could be down to its antiplatelet properties. They explain that circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are believed to use platelets - a component of blood - to shield themselves from the immune system. Because aspirin blocks the function of platelets, this may expose CTCs, leaving them open to attack.

Though the optimal dosage and duration of aspirin use and its effect on GI cancers need to be investigated in further research, the team believes they have uncovered a potential treatment option that could reach a wide number of patients.

"Given that aspirin is a cheap, off-patent drug with relatively few side effects, this will have a great impact on health care systems as well as patients," says Dr. Frouws, adding:

A diet consisting of a variety of raw fresh vegetables is the best prevention and also a potential cure for cancer, depending on how far the cancer has progressed and how easily the body can digest and properly assimilate nutrition. Berries, grapes, broccoli, leafy greens, sprouts, avocados, red and yellow peppers, red cabbage, dandelion, beets, and many more foods have been proven in numerous scientific studies to not only prevent, but to also destroy, cancer cells. If we did research on every single piece of produce we eat, we'd probably find that most of them, if not all of them, prevent and fight cancer in some way or another. This is what the modern diet is missing, fresh raw produce. Early humans ate pounds of it a day, all day, every day. Whether you have cancer now, or are just trying to prevent it, cut out the refined and processed foods, and eat more produce.

Herbs and Spices
Garlic, oregano, cloves, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and ginger have been shown in multiple studies to fight cancer. Spice up your meals, especially those big salads. Fresh raw produce works synergistically with herbs and spices. In other words, the combination of garlic, oregano, and a bunch of vegetables is more powerful than garlic and/or oregano alone. Make big salads with lots of vegetables and add in fresh herbs and spices.Speaking of combinations, turmeric and black pepper make for a powerful cancer-killing duo. Most of you have heard of the incredible benefits of turmeric and it's cancer-killing properties. Turmeric is known to actually outperform many pharmaceutical drugs for various diseases. The only problem with turmeric is that the beneficial component to which all the hoopla is about, curcumin, is not easily absorbed by the body. Black pepper contains piperine, a chemical with powerful antioxidant properties. Pepper and turmeric together allow the body to absorb more turmeric. Reports range from a 200% increase to over 2,000%! It's no coincidence that two of the main ingredients in curry powder are black pepper and turmeric. Come to think of it, ginger and cinnamon, two other powerhouse herbs known to fight cancer, are also almost always found in curry spice blends as well. It's no wonder...

Herbal Supplements, Vitamins, and Minerals
Getting a wide range of vitamins and minerals should be easy when you're eating lots of produce, but it's not always that simple. Our soil is so degraded, even organic produce doesn't have the nutrition it used to have. If you cannot grow your own produce in the most optimum conditions with the best soil, we recommend a primarily food-based nutrition powder from a source you know and trust. That's not "whole food sourced"; we mean actual food, like rose hips, lemon peels, chlorella, etc. And when these nutrition formulas are done right, the enzymes are left intact. There are a ton of herbal tinctures, extracts, and other supplements that kill cancer cells. Echinacea, oil of oregano, clove oil, goldenseal, barberry, astragalus, pau d'arco, red clover, and skullcap are a few of the many plant based herbal supplements that kill cancer cells. Study after study shows that many of the right plants and plant extracts have more power to kill off cancer cells than conventional treatments. Wormwood is a very powerful herb that is often used to kill parasites and Candida. Wormwood, more specifically, wormwood extract, kills cancer cells.

Kill 98% Of All Cancer Cells In Less Than 24 Hours
A new study shows that a derivative of the wormwood plant, artemesinin, turns deadly in the presence of iron. Breast cancer cells have high levels of iron. When artemesinin senses these higher than usual levels of iron, it destroys the cancer cells with little damage to the surrounding healthy cells. This results in an herbal killing machine that killed 98% of the breast cancer cells present within 16 hours! Although this study is in its first phase in a lab with petri dishes, artemesinin tablets are "widely and successfully" used to fight malaria for the same reason, the parasite responsible for malaria uptakes a large amount of iron, just like the breast cancer cells. Artemesinin zeros in on the iron and destroys the parasite.Wormwood is known to be one of the best herbs for killing a number of parasites, and it is anti-microbial and anti-fungal, making wormwood a great addition for people who need to heal their gut.

n a new study published in The American Journal of Pathology, scientists say they have identified a biomarker in patients with stomach cancer that starves tumors of their blood supply and reduces the ability of cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body.
[stomach cancer]
In the US, around 24,590 cases of stomach cancer will be diagnosed in 2015.

The new research from China shows that stomach cancer patients whose cancer lesions show high levels of the biomarker microRNA 506 (miR-506) have far longer survival times compared with stomach cancer patients with lower levels of miR-506. Thus, miR-506 is a valuable biomarker to predict stomach cancer survival.

Other benefits of miR-506 include its ability to suppress tumor growth, blood vessel formation and the spread of cancer cells to other parts of the body.

Lead investigator Dr. Xin Song, of the Cancer Research Institute of Southern Medical University and the Cancer Biotherapy Center of The Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University - both in China - says that "these findings indicate that miR-506 is necessary and sufficient for angiogenesis suppression during gastric cancer progression."



By way of introducing their research into stomach cancer, the authors begin by explaining that Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in cancer cells is associated with an increased capacity to invade into surrounding tissue and migrate to distant sites.


Learn more about stomach cancer

EMT is a key step during normal embryo formation (embryogenesis), but EMT is now also recognized to be involved in processes within the body that result in functional changes associated with cancer (cancer pathophysiology).

While tumor-specific factors that drive EMT are not completely understood, it is known that various biochemical changes take place through EMT to produce "healing-type cells" called mesenchymal cells (MSCs).

In turn, it is MSCs that play an important role both in normal tissue repair as well as disease-causing processes, including tumor growth and the spread of cancer cells.

These transformed cells have the ability to migrate away from the tissues that line the cavities and surfaces of blood vessels and organs throughout the body, invade other tissues and stave off normal programmed cell death (PCD).

One of the several mechanisms that may initiate an EMT is the change in the expression of a specific class of small noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression. It was one of these - miR-506 - that was identified by the researchers as a useful marker that enabled them to organize the patients they were studying in order of the severity of their stomach cancer.

Dr. Song says the research team considered the hypothesis that miR-506 acts as a suppressor of how cancer cells spread using a system level and integrative approach.
Tumor samples taken from people who had undergone cancer surgery

In a blind test, the researchers used a form of genetic analysis called polymerone chain reaction (PCR) to detect miR-506 in human gastric samples taken from 84 people who had undergone cancer surgery. The researchers analyzed the miR-506 levels in each of these samples, and patients were allocated to different groups based on whether they were above or below the mean miR-506 level.

This is when the team found that survival among patients with signs of high miR-506 was significantly longer.

At 60 months, for example, cumulative survival was approximately 30% in the low-miR-506 expression group, compared with 80% in the high-expression group.

The research team then looked at signs of miR-506 in seven stomach cancer cell lines. Here, it was found that stomach cancer cells had lower levels of miR-506 than normal stomach tissue.

Analysis of cells grown in vitro then showed that miR-506 levels were lowest in the cell lines that had the highest invasive activity, and the highest levels were seen in cell lines with the lowest invasive activity.

Further research and experiments strengthened the hypothesis that miR-506 acts as a suppressor of how cancer cells spread.

 The tests were more likely to identify mutations in a subgroup of children with certain physical anomalies, making clinical examination an important way of selecting those children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who could benefit most from genetic testing.

"It is incontrovertible that precise diagnoses pave the way to better medical care, improved surveillance, better functional outcomes, and informed genetic counseling, often with the possibility of prenatal or preimplantation diagnosis," says an editorial in the same issue of the journal.

Stephen Scherer, PhD, of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, and colleagues used the two newer technologies - chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) and whole-exome sequencing (WES) - to determine the percentage of 258 unrelated children with ASD who possessed a genetic mutation that may contribute to their autistic features.

A molecular diagnosis from CMA was received by 24 (9.3%) of the children, and from WES by 8 of 95 (8.4%) of them. Among the children who underwent both CMA and WES testing, the estimated proportion with an identifiable genetic cause was 15.8%.

The proportion with a genetic mutation was much higher (37.5%) for children who had more complex ASD based on physical examination.

In the linked editorial, Dr. Judith Miles, of University of Missouri Health Care in Columbia, says:

"For ASD, as well as for other behaviorally defined disorders, the results [...] provide clear guidance."

Dr. Miles adds:

    "Foremost, the data indicate that physicians responsible for children with ASD should arrange access to a genetic evaluation using techniques that have the best chance of determining an etiologic diagnosis."

Parents interested in genetic testing

The authors conclude that their study gives a demonstration of genetic differences related to subgroups of ASD children based on clinical examination.

"Our data suggest that medical evaluation of ASD children may help identify populations more likely to achieve a molecular diagnosis with genetic testing," they note, adding:

"It seems likely that genetic testing of children with ASD will continue to increase. In a survey of parental interest in ASD genetic testing, 80% of parents indicated that they would want a sibling younger than 2 years tested to identify ASD-risk mutations even if the test could not confirm or rule out the diagnosis."

"For some children with positive genetic test results," they continue, "treatment plans targeting ASD-associated medical conditions can be offered."

The researchers conclude that if "replicated in additional populations, these findings may inform appropriate selection of molecular diagnostic testing for children affected by ASD."

The editorial points out that karyotyping - profiling the chromosomes - is much less informative than the new methods yet are tests for ASD recommended by geneticists.

Dr. Miles believes "it seems possible that it will not be too long before the evidence presented" by the study "will prompt a similar recommendation to include whole-exome DNA sequencing as a first-tier ASD test, if not for all ASD diagnoses, certainly for children with physical dysmorphology."

According to a recent study from Iran, stinging nettle leaves (Urtica dioica) and walnut leaves (Juglans regia) may have potential in antidiabetic therapy. Diabetes affects over 100 million people worldwide. This disease condition causes blood glucose (sugar) levels to rise, because people with diabetes either do not make enough insulin or are unable to use insulin properly. Normally, Insulin helps glucose from blood enter muscle, brain and liver cells where it is used to generate energy. When glucose levels build up in blood, these cells become starved for energy. Over time, high blood glucose levels also damage the eyes, kidneys, nerves and heart. Carbohydrates are a major component of our daily diet. They are broken down in the gut into simple compounds called monosaccharides by the enzyme alpha-amylase before they are absorbed into the blood. Blocking the activity of alpha-amylase prevents carbohydrate digestion and has been shown to reduce blood glucose levels. In fact, ‘alpha-amylase inhibitors’ have been developed to treat diabetes in this way. While currently available alpha-amylase inhibitors do provide short-term diabetes control, they also cause serious side effects. This is why scientists are studying natural extracts from over 400 traditional medicinal plants with alpha-amylase blocking activity for their exciting potential as effective, and likely safer, antidiabetic therapies. In this study from Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences in Bandar Abbas in Iran, researchers examined the effects of leaf extracts from Urtica dioica and Juglans regia on alpha-amylase activity. U. dioica, known as the common nettle or stinging nettle, has a long history as a medicine and as a source of both food and fiber. J. regia – known as the English walnut, common walnut or California walnut – is a common food. Walnut leaves also have a long history of medicinal use. Extracts of both plants strongly blocked alpha-amylase activity. Nettle caused a 60% inhibition of the enzyme with 2 mg/ml of the extract, and walnut leaf extract required only 0.4 mg/ml for the same inhibition. This effect increased with time and dose of extract. In conclusion, the medicinal plants Urtica dioica and Juglans regia may have potential as antidiabetic therapies.   Technical Summary

    Aqueous extracts of U. dioica and J. regia showed time- and concentration- dependent inhibition of alpha-amylase. The extracts consisted of 100 g of powdered dried leaves in 100 ml of water, freeze dried to powder. The extracts demonstrated 60% inhibition of alpha amylase activity with 0.4 mg/ml of nettle leaf extract and 2.0 mg/ml of walnut leaf extract. Inhibition increased for both extracts from 40% at 5 minutes and 60% at 30 minutes. “The results showed that the type of inhibition was competitive in which enzyme-inhibitor complex could form.” This research follows the discovery that walnut leaf reduced blood sugar in diabetic rats and other supportive studies. See the full article [LINK] for all the details.