Originally published February 13 2009
Two New Studies Document Natural Breast Cancer Fighters
by Sherry Baker, Health Sciences Editor
(NaturalNews) A couple of words strike enormous fear in the hearts of countless women: breast cancer. And it's no wonder. American Cancer Society (ACS) statistics reveal it's the most common cancer among women in the United States, other than skin cancer. In fact, the ACS says a woman's chance of having invasive breast cancer some time during her life is about 1 in 8 and her chance of dying from the disease is about 1 in 35. However, there is a growing body of scientific evidence that natural substances are formidable weapons to both prevent breast cancer and halt its growth once cells are malignant. In fact, two new studies offer even more proof there are natural ways to fight breast cancer.
In research just published in the journal Crop Science, Colorado State University scientists studied the anti-cancer activity of six kinds of dry legumes: small red, great northern, navy, black, dark red and white kidney beans. Working with laboratory animals, they evaluated how the consumption of beans was related to breast, or mammary, cancer. The results? Consumption of every kind of bean reduced the incidence of cancer and tumor in the animals compared to the control group.
The rate of cancer was reduced significantly, from 95% in the control group to 67% in animals fed beans, and the average number of malignant tumors fell from 3.2 in the control group to 1.4 tumors per animal in the bean-fed group. In a statement for the media, the researchers noted that studies are ongoing at Colorado State University to investigate the mechanisms and molecules that contribute to these anticancer properties of legumes. In addition, clinical trials are also underway to find out if beans in the diets of humans have an impact on cancer incidence.
There's also good news about vitamin D and breast cancer. The vitamin already has been shown in hundreds of studies to have breast cancer-fighting properties and increased serum levels of the vitamin are associated with an improved diagnosis in women with breast cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/025495.html). But now scientists at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)-New Jersey Medical School have discovered how calcitrol, the active form of vitamin D, halts the growth of breast cancer cells. The study is published in the February issue of The Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Researcher Sylvia Chistakos, Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, and colleague Puneet Dhawan, Ph.D., found calcitrol induces a tumor-suppressing protein that can stop the malignant cells in their tracks. "These results provide an important process in which the active form of vitamin D may work to reduce growth of breast cancer cells," Dr. Christakos said in a media statement.
For more information:
Vitamin D Breast Cancer Research:
http://www.umdnj.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/quinnaj...
Legumes and Breast Cancer Research: http://crop.scijournals.org/cgi/content/abst...
American Cancer Society Breast Cancer statistics: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CR...
About the author
Sherry Baker is a widely published writer whose work has appeared in Newsweek, Health, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Yoga Journal, Optometry, Atlanta, Arthritis Today, Natural Healing Newsletter, OMNI, UCLA's "Healthy Years" newsletter, Mount Sinai School of Medicine's "Focus on Health Aging" newsletter, the Cleveland Clinic's "Men's Health Advisor" newsletter and many others.
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