Popular belief says taking antioxidant lowers the risk of cancer.
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The researchers wrote in the study that treating cancer patients with pro-oxidants may be a better path because oxidative stress limits metastasis, based on the results of work with melanoma cells in the lab. “Administration of antioxidants to the mice allowed more of the metastasizing melanoma cells to survive, increasing metastatic disease burden”. It seemed that the number of cancer cells had increased and the nearby normal cells were also getting affected by the cancerous cells, by showing growth of lesions as seen during the growth of cancer cells.
Free radicals steal electrons they require from living cells, due to their lacking one of the subatomic particles.
Antioxidants are molecules that posses special ability to neutralize free radicals.
According to the press release, since the spread of cancer, also known as metastasis, is the leading cause of death in most cancer patients, the finding was significant.
Morrison was quoted as saying the findings may lead to further research on how pro-oxidants, as opposed to anti-oxidants, could help kill cancer cells.
The researchers conducted the experiment on lab mice by giving doses of common antioxidant, N-acetylcysteine (NAC), which is used in nutritional and bodybuilding supplements and it has also been used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS and certain genetic disorders too in a few children. Mice that were given NAC suffered from higher levels of cancer in the blood, more tumors and they even grew large.
They are produced naturally by humans and found in leafy greens, vegetables or fruit. “The team observed that cancer spread faster in mice that were administered antioxidants than it did in mice that were not”.
To know more about the latest study, read the recent edition of journal Nature. Thus, high amounts of antioxidant in the blood will ensure that free radicals will run into antioxidants, without the need to steal electrons from neighbor molecules. When antioxidants supplements are given, the paper hypothesizes, they may give new life to those cancerous cells that are on the edge of dying. With more Rho and less Rac, the cells become rounder.
The researchers, through this study, aimed to find out what could prevent the spread of cancer from primary tumor to another location in the body. “One potential approach is to target the folate pathway that melanoma cells use to survive oxidative stress, which would increase the level of oxidative stress in the cancer cells”.
Dr. Morrison said that the claim of antioxidants being beneficial for health is so strong that clinical trials have never been carried out in which cancer patients were given antioxidants. As a result, the mice given antioxidants died twice as fast the ones in the control group.
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During an interview, Morrison said researchers are beginning to learn there can be cancerous cells, which appear to benefit more from the antioxidants that normal cells do.
