A Rare Genetic Mutation Leads to Cancer. The Fix May Already Be in the Drugstore.
A Rare Genetic Mutation Leads to Cancer. The Fix May Already Be in the Drugstore.
A common dietary supplement may help overcome mutations in the Pten gene. Should patients take it?
When Kelley Oliver Douglass got breast cancer, a genetic counselor posed an odd question: Do you and your children have trouble finding hats that fit?
They did, and that gave the counselor a clue to the source of the cancer: a mutation in a gene called Pten.
In addition to increasing head circumference, this rare mutation markedly raises the risk for several cancers, including prostate and breast cancer (the lifetime risk in carriers is 85 percent), as well as autism and schizophrenia in some individuals.
Ms. Douglass, 51, of Mount Dora, Fla., and her children carry a Pten mutation. Now, researchers have stumbled on a way to counter it — and the treatment may be as close as the local drugstore.
In a study published on Thursday in the journal Science, researchers found evidence that a compound called indole-3-carbinol (i3c) blocks an enzyme that inhibits the activity of Pten. With the gene more active, patients with the mutation may be better protected against cancer.
They could get more i3c simply by eating brussels sprouts, broccoli or other cruciferous vegetables. But to get enough, they’d have to eat a lot: six pounds of brussels sprouts a day — raw.
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Inherited Pten mutations are rare, striking one in 200,000. If the research holds up, however, it could be important to larger numbers of cancer patients. The mutation is not just inherited; the Pten gene is spontaneously mutated in many tumors. When that happens, the patient’s prognosis is poor.
Pten activity is somewhat impaired in the vast majority of human cancers. A drug that reactivates the gene could help curb cancer growth.
Dr. Mustafa Sahin, an expert on the Pten gene at Boston Children’s Hospital, called the new research a “tour de force study.” The result is “a paradigm shift in the field and very exciting in terms of its therapeutic implications,” Dr. Sahin, who was not involved in the research, wrote in an email.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/health/gene-mutation-cancer.html
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I was told by DU experts that supplements are a waste of money, or egad!!! WOO!!!
