2017/01/04

We can fight several types of cancer by eating healthy food

Unbalance of epigenetic factors is the most significant reason for cancers - Healthy diets help us prevent cancers

A 3,000-year-old medical claim surprises modern scientists.


Excerpt: "UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists have uncovered the chemical process behind anti-cancer properties of a spicy Indian pepper plant called the long pepper, whose suspected medicinal properties date back thousands of years.

The secret lies in a chemical called Piperlongumine (PL), which has shown activity against many cancers including prostate, breast, lung, colon, lymphoma, leukemia, primary brain tumors, and gastric cancer.
Using x-ray crystallography, researchers were able to create molecular structures that show how the chemical is transformed after being ingested. PL converts to hPL, an active drug that silences a gene called GSTP1. The GSTP1 gene produces a detoxification enzyme that is often overly abundant in tumors.

"We are hopeful that our structure will enable additional drug development efforts to improve the potency of PL for use in a wide range of cancer therapies," said Dr. Kenneth Westover, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Radiation Oncology. "This research is a spectacular demonstration of the power of x-ray crystallography."

The long pepper, a plant native to India, is found in southern India and southeast Asia. Although rare in European fare, it is commonly found in Indian stores and used as a spice or seasoning in stews and other dishes. It dates back thousands of years in the Indian subcontinent tied to Ayurveda, one of the world's oldest medical systems, and was referred to by Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician known as the father of medicine.

"This study illustrates the importance of examining and re-examining our theories. In this case we learned something fundamentally new about a 3,000-year-old medical claim using modern science," said Dr. Westover." "

My comment: This finding points out the importance of healthy diet helping prevent cancers and diseases. Good quality food helps balancing our epigenome, especially correct methylation levels of the DNA. Mutations are not the true reason for cancers, they are consequences followed by unbalanced epigenome. Because epigenetic factors are in response of cellular differentiation and specialization, it's by logic that 
unbalanced methylation levels and patterns of the DNA and histones lead to erroneous cellular differentiation.
http://www.rd.com/health/conditions/10-foods-to-help-prevent-cancer/

Diet changes the genome. Lack of vitamins, minerals and other important dietary elements also change the genome, sometimes into wrong direction. These epigenetic mechanisms are not able to create new genomic information or new genes for gene regulatory networks. That's why the evolutionary theory is a major lie.