The effect of a specific diet on brain cancer . In the latest research, it has been found that a special diet causes self-destruction of brain cancer cells in mice.
The effect of a specific diet on brain cancer
Researchers have found that by removing certain amino acids from the diet of rodents suffering from a deadly form of brain cancer called glioblastoma, the malignant cells began to die through a process called ferroptosis.
In addition, mice fed restrictive diets were also more receptive to drugs that stimulated the same type of cancer cell death, making the findings a potential resource for fighting the disease in humans.
Glioblastoma is the most common primary malignant tumor of the central nervous system that occurs in the spinal cord or brain.
Cell death in our body is a natural part of our body’s functioning. Normally, through a process called apoptosis, cells that are abnormal or simply no longer needed are destroyed and reabsorbed.
However, this process can become blocked in cancer cells, making it harder for the body to get rid of them, allowing them to multiply and pose a serious threat to our health.
Ferroptosis is another type of cell death that has been discovered almost recently and iron plays a key role in it. Its activation has already been linked to a possible way to fight cancer.
Now, in a new study, a research team from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine and Columbia University has discovered that cells involved in the formation of glioblastoma are particularly susceptible to ferroptosis death.
This finding is significant, as glioblastoma has a 100% mortality rate with no known cure. It is also a rapidly spreading cancer and the average survival period is only 16 months.
In their study, the researchers put mice on a special diet that restricted the intake of cysteine and methionine, two sulfur-containing amino acids, amino acids that have previously been linked to ferroptosis and cancer cell death in lung and pancreatic cancer, as well as Sarcoma was associated.
Cysteine is an alpha amino acid that is used in the human body in the composition of various proteins. The appearance of this chemical compound is in the form of powder or white crystals. This amino acid is not essential in the human diet and can be produced from the metabolism of compounds such as methionine. Cysteine is found in animal sources such as eggs, dairy, and chicken meat and plant sources such as onions, broccoli, and grains and in human and pig hair.
Methionine is also one of the important amino acids in the diet of livestock, poultry, and fisheries, which is effective in converting food into protein, and as a result, the speed of weight gain, health and safety of their bodies, and re-feathering in poultry. Methionine is one of the most important imported rations for poultry and livestock feed, which can affect the price of meat and protein products in people’s food baskets.
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Not only did the researchers find that this diet made the glioblastoma cells more susceptible to death by ferroptosis, but they also noted that it made the cells more exposed to chemotherapy drugs, meaning they could be administered at lower doses. The body delivered.
Finally, all the mice that followed this special diet had longer survival periods than the mice that ate the normal diet. Meanwhile, the mice that had a combined diet and chemotherapy showed the best performance.
Cysteine is abundant in whole grains, beef, eggs, and poultry. While foods rich in methionine include nuts, fish, and pork, as well as beef, eggs, and poultry.
It’s unclear whether human patients with glioblastoma will fare as well as the mice in the present study if they follow a diet that restricts these two amino acids, something the University of North Carolina senior researcher Dominic Higgins plans to explore.
“Now we have to find a way to remove these components (cysteine and methionine) through dietary requirements, while still meeting the energy needs that a patient might have, especially cancer patients who have different needs than normal patients,” says Higgins.
He is working with his colleagues to design a human study in which patients with glioblastoma will undergo this diet before surgery and removal of the tumor.
The researchers will then analyze the tumors after surgery to see how the diet affected them.
This research was published in the journal Nature Communications.