How Does Ellagic Acid Exert An Anti-Cancer Effect On Pancreatic Cancer Cells?

"Ellagic acid was previousely shown to have anticarcinogenic, antioxidant and antifibrosis properties. The anticarcinogenic effect of ellagic acid was shown in several types of cancers including skin, esophageal, and colon cancers. However the mechanisms mediating anti-cancer effect of ellagic acid, in general, remain unknown.

A research article published on 21 June 2008, in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The research team led by Dr. Edderkaoui from West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center showed that Ellagic acid increases programmed cell death and decreases proliferation of pancreatic cancer cells. They showed that the mechanism through which ellagic acid causes cell death is through decreasing the activity of the pro-survival transcription factor NF-kB. The compound does not affect mitochondria. The results presented in this article show for the first time how this polyphenol regulates cancer cell proliferation and resistance to death and may help surpass the resistance of these cells to radio and chemotherapies. "

"Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal human cancers and continues to be a major unsolved health problem. The overexpression of the epidermal growth factor receptor and its ligands correlates with rapidly progressive disease and resistance to chemotherapy."

Austin Texas DUI

Austin Texas DUI

Tech Startups 3.0

Tech Startups 3.0

cancer of the prostate

"Numerous media reports followed a federal task force's announcement this month that there is insufficient medical evidence to assess the risks and benefits of prostate cancer screening in men younger than 75 and that doctors should stop testing men over age 75.
It's important to note that consideration was not given to the overwhelming body of emerging evidence that screening with PSA tests and digital rectal exams saves lives. Rates of death from prostate cancer and rates of diagnosis at advanced stages have decreased markedly since testing became widespread.
As a physician and a researcher specializing in prostate cancer, I worry that this recommendation will result in delays in potentially lifesaving treatment and possibly the unnecessary loss of life.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force did not even recommend screening for men at higher risk because of race or family history. The task force reasoned that screening might harm more men than it helps and that in men over 75 there was moderate certainty that the harm outweighs the benefits.
Physicians and patients who are concerned about preventing prostate cancer deaths choose to screen with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests because an inconclusive but increasingly compelling body of evidence shows that the screening reduces suffering and death from prostate cancer — the second-leading cause of cancer death among men in the United States."

In an Aug. 26 story about a new TV ad linking hot dogs with cancer, The Associated Press, relying on figures provided by a nutrition adviser to the American Institute for Cancer Research, erroneously reported average risks for colon cancer and how eating hot dogs affects those risks. Karen Collins said she misstated the average adult's lifetime risk for getting colorectal cancer, which is about 5 percent, not 5.8 percent.

She said she also miscalculated population-level risks of eating one hot dog a day for several years. That would increase the number of Americans who get colorectal cancer each year from 50 per 100,000 to 60 per 100,000 people — not from 58 per 100,000 to 70 per 100,000, as she had stated.

She said the level of risk is smaller for eating a hot dog once or twice a month but that it can't be precisely quantified. It would not mean up to a 1.4 percent increase in colon cancer risk, as she had indicated.

What makes pancreatic cancer so deadly?: Scientific American

"Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the National Football League Player's Association—the union for NFL players—died late Wednesday evening of pancreatic cancer while vacationing in California's Lake Tahoe. Doctors diagnosed the 63-year-old Hall of Fame offensive lineman with the disease just four days earlier.

Upshaw was a guard for the Oakland Raiders from 1967 to 1981. He played in seven Pro Bowls and three Super Bowls. He served as head of the NFL player's union for 25 years.

According to Bloomberg News, Upshaw's wife, Terri, took him to a hospital on Sunday, August 17th, because he was having trouble breathing. A biopsy revealed, much to everyone's surprise, that he had advanced pancreatic cancer.

In March, actor Patrick Swayze—star of the hit 1980s film Dirty Dancing—revealed he had been diagnosed with the illness in January. Doctors' reports indicated they had caught his cancer relatively early.

The pancreas secretes hormones and enzymes to digest our fats. One of those hormones is insulin, which prompts the body to use sugar in the blood rather than fat as energy. Its levels are low in diabetic patients, who suffer from abnormally high blood sugar."

Happiness may protect against cancer

"YOUNG women exposed to tragic events may be at a higher risk of breast cancer and being optimistic can help protect against the disease, a study has found.

A team of researchers say they may have found a link between a women’s outlook on life and the risk of breast cancer.

After questioning more than 600 women – include 255 breast cancer patients – about life experiences, happiness and depression, researchers found optimists were 25 per cent less likely to develop the disease.

Women who suffered two or more traumatic events in their life, such as losing a loved one, had a 62 per cent greater risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer, the research said.

“Young women who were exposed to a number of life events, should be considered as a risk group for breast cancer and treated accordingly,” the researchers said.

“We can carefully say that experiencing more than one meaningful life event is a risk factor for breast cancer among young women. "

starbucks a savior

"When Howard D. Schultz in 1985 founded the company that would become the wildly successful Starbucks chain, no financial adviser had to tell him that coffee was America’s leading beverage and caffeine its most widely used drug. The millions of customers who flock to Starbucks to order a double espresso, latte or coffee grande attest daily to his assessment of American passions."

Great News: New Prostate Cancer Test is Ready for Commercialization

New Prostate Cancer Test is Ready for Commercialization Following Successful Completion of Final Clinical Trials
Health Discovery Corporation's New Molecular Diagnostic Test for Prostate Cancer Successfully Performs at 90% Sensitivity and 97% Specificity in Double-Blind Clinical Trial

Prostate cancer screening not recommended for men over 75_English_Xinhua

Prostate cancer screening not recommended for men over 75_English_Xinhua: "The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that men over 75 should stop the routine prostate cancer screening since the risks involved pose more immediate danger than the cancer itself, according to media reports Wednesday.
The task force said that screening can detect some cases of prostate cancer, but the benefits of treatment in men over 75 'are small to none, because the treatment often causes 'moderate-to-substantial harms,' without evidence it saves the lives of these elderly men.
The panel did not recommend for or against prostate screening of men under 75 but suggested that doctors discuss the potential benefits and harms of the test with their patients.
'We carefully reviewed the available evidence to measure the benefits and harms of screening for prostate cancer and could not find adequate proof that early detection leads to fewer men dying of the disease,' said task force chairman Ned Calonge."

Tech Startups 3.0: Private Equity HUB: In Memoriam: Keith Benjamin

"Venture capitalist Keith Benjamin has passed away, four days after suffering a major brain hemorrhage while at the gym. He was 49 years-old.
Keith had been a managing partner with San Francisco-based Levensohn Venture Partners since 2002, where he focused on software and digital media investments. He previously had been a general partner with Highland Capital Partners and, before that, was a sell-side analyst at Robertson Stephens.
Like many of his Silicon Valley peers, Keith also was a blogger — discussing both the personal and professional at SF Venture. In the past, he has graciously permitted us to reprint certain pieces at peHUB."

pancreatic cancer: The uplifting 'Last Lecture' man dies at 47

"The cause of his death was metastasised pancreatic cancer, said a spokesman for Carnegie Mellon University. He had survived for A federal eating mugs and judge has given the state of Texas until January to improve its education programs for intensive secondary data school students learning English more than twice as long as.."

Tech Startups 3.0: NYTimes.com: Randy Pausch, 47, Dies; His ‘Last Lecture’ Inspired Many to Live With Wonder#links

ABC News: Cancer Prof Warns Against Cell Phone Use

"The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer. The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don't find a link between cancer and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Herberman is basing his alarm on early..."

Effective Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer Remains Elusive

"Although therapeutic strategies have advanced for many common gastrointestinal cancers, significant progress in the treatment of pancreatic cancer remains elusive. The eagerly anticipated results of randomized trials that evaluated gemcitabine-based combination regimens have proven to be disappointing, researchers report in a review paper that discusses the use of systemic therapy in advanced pancreatic cancer. Whereas 2 recent trials have demonstrated a modest survival benefit with combination therapy, some consider the improvement to be too small to justify the risk of toxicity or added cost.
The article appears in the July issue of the Annals of Oncology.

"Not many trials have been promising, unfortunately, as this is a difficult disease," said coauthor John R. Zalcberg, MD, PhD, professor and director of the division of haematology and medical oncology at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, in Melbourne, Australia. "The new biologics have really not, at this point, been as hopeful as we would have liked or expected."

One disappointment has been the negative results from trials combining bevacizumab (Avastin, Roche) and gemcitabine (Gemzar, Eli Lilly), especially because an early-phase study showed a survival benefit. "We were hoping that it would be the opening of a new treatment era for pancreatic cancer, but unfortunately, that hasn't happened," Dr. Zalcberg told Medscape Oncology.

Pancreatic cancer is the eighth most common cause of cancer death; even with treatment, less than 5% of patients survive 5 years. This disease presents a number of challenges that the clinician has to consider and that make effective therapy so difficult, the authors point out. It is frequently diagnosed at a late stage, often after it has metastasized, and disease-related symptoms, including pain and cachexia, negatively affect performance status and limit the safe delivery of treatment.

The disease is highly resistant to chemotherapy, and systemic treatments produce only modest benefits. Only about 10% to 15% of patients have tumors that can be surgically resected; even then, the risk for recurrence is high. However, it is possible that adjuvant therapy will improve outcomes in this population as new strategies are developed."

Fat stomachs 'raise risk of pancreatic cancer in women' - Telegraph

Obese women who carry much of their excess weight around the belly are 70 per cent more likely to develop pancreatic cancer, a study has found. The study published in the British Journal of Cancer found a link between waist-to-hip ratios and the cancer while monitoring more than 138,000 post-menopausal women for seven years.

Dr Juhua Luo, of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who led the research said: "We found that the risk of developing pancreatic cancer was significantly raised in obese postmenopausal women who carry most of their excess weight around the stomach. Researchers believe that obesity could increase the risk of pancreatic cancer, one of the most difficult forms to treat, by affecting insulin levels.

TG2 identified as potential therapeutic target in chemo-resistant

For example, TG2 overexpression causes the degradation of the tumor-suppressing protein PTEN in pancreatic cancer, Mehta and colleagues reported in Clinical ...

Nanoparticles Stops Spread Of Kidney And Pancreatic Cancer Without ...AHN - Jul 11, 2008... that deliver drug agents to stop pancreatic and kidney cancer from spreading in mice but have fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy.

Cancer claims White House aid

"Cancer claims White House aid

Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 15 hours agoSnow joined the Bush Administration as press secretary in 2006, a year after he was diagnosed with cancer and his colon was removed."