The Gary Null Show - 04.14.21

 

 

Study identifies specific antioxidants that may reduce oncogenic HPV infection in women

Louisiana State University, April 12, 2021

A study led by Hui-Yi Lin, Ph.D., Professor of Biostatistics, and a team of researchers at LSU Health New Orleans Schools of Public Health and Medicine has found that adequate levels of five antioxidants may reduce infection with the strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) associated with cervical cancer development. Findings are published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Although previous studies have suggested that the onset of HPV-related cancer development may be activated by oxidative stress, the association had not been clearly understood. This study evaluated associations between 15 antioxidants and vaginal HPV infection status -- no, low-risk, and oncogenic/high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) -- in 11,070 women aged 18-59 who participated in the 2003-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. 

Study results showed that lower levels of serum albumin and four dietary antioxidants - vitamins A, B2, E, and folate -- were associated with a higher risk of HR-HPV infection. Albumin is the most bountiful circulating protein in plasma, and decreased serum albumin was found to be associated with increased systemic inflammation and impaired immune response. Based on the four dietary antioxidants, the researchers developed a nutritional antioxidant score. 

"Our results showed that the women with the lowest quartile of the nutritional antioxidant score had a higher chance of both high-risk and low-risk HPV infection compared with the women with the highest quartile score after adjusting for other factors such as age, race, smoking, alcohol, and the number of sexual partners in past 12 months," notes the paper's lead author Hui-Yi Lin, PhD, Professor of Biostatistics at LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health. 

Human Papillomavirus is a well-known risk factor for cervical cancer, which is the fourth most common female cancer and contributed to 7.5% of cancer deaths for women worldwide in 2018. Certain HPV strains are more likely to trigger precursor events leading to cancer development. These strains are called oncogenic or high-risk [HR] HPV strains. Almost all cervical cancers are directly linked to previous infection with one or more HR-HPV infections.

"Currently, there is no effective antiviral therapy to clear genital HPV infection," adds Dr. Lin. "It is important to identify modifiable factors, such as antioxidants, associated with oncogenic HPV infection in order to prevent HPV carcinogenesis onset."

 

 

Exercise benefit in breast cancer linked to improved immune responses

Tumors grew more slowly and responded better to immunotherapy in mice that exercised compared with sedentary mice.

Massachusetts General Hospital, April 12, 2021

Exercise training may slow tumor growth and improve outcomes for females with breast cancer - especially those treated with immunotherapy drugs - by stimulating naturally occurring immune mechanisms, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) have found.

Tumors in mouse models of human breast cancer grew more slowly in mice put through their paces in a structured aerobic exercise program than in sedentary mice, and the tumors in exercised mice exhibited an increased anti-tumor immune response. 

"The most exciting finding was that exercise training brought into tumors immune cells capable of killing cancer cells known as cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CD8+ T cells) and activated them. With more of these cells, tumors grew more slowly in mice that performed exercise training," says co-corresponding author Dai Fukumura, MD, PhD, deputy director of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratories in the Department of Radiation Oncology at MGH.

As Fukumura and colleagues report in the journal Cancer Immunology Research , the beneficial effects of exercise training are dependent on CD8+ T cells; when the researchers depleted these cells in mice, tumors in mice that exercised no longer grew at a slower rate.

They also found evidence that recruitment of CD8+ T cells to tumors was dependent on two chemical recruiters (chemokines) labeled CXCL9 and CXCL11. Levels of these chemokines were increased in mice that exercised, and mice that were genetically engineered to lack the receptor (docking site) for these chemokines did not recruit CD8+ T cells and did not have an anti-tumor benefit.

"Humans whose tumors have higher levels of CD8+ T cells tend to have a better prognosis, respond better to treatment, and have reduced risk of cancer recurrence compared with patients whose tumors have lower levels of the immune cells, effects that were echoed by a reduced incidence of metastasis, or spread, of the cancers in mice that exercised," says co-corresponding author Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, director of the Steele Labs at MGH and Andrew Werk Cook Professor of Radiation Oncology at HMS.

CD8+ T cells are also essential for the success of drugs known as immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as Keytruda (pembrolizumab), Opdivo (nivolumab) and Yervoy (ipilimumab), which have revolutionized therapy for many types of cancer, but have to date had only limited success in breast cancer. The researchers found that exercise-trained mice displayed a much better response to immune checkpoint blockade, while the drugs did not work at all in sedentary mice. 

"We showed that daily sessions of a moderate-to-vigorous intensity, continuous aerobic exercise training, lasting 30-45 minutes per session, induces a profound reprogramming of the tumor microenvironment that rewires tumor immunity, recruiting and activating CD8+ T cells to an unprecedented level with a non-pharmacological approach. Similar exercise training could be prescribed to a patient referred to an exercise oncology program," says Igor L. Gomes-Santos, PhD, lead author and exercise physiologist and post-doctoral fellow in the Steele Labs.

He notes that current clinical guidelines focus on general wellness, improved fitness levels and quality of life, but not necessarily on improved cancer treatment, especially immunotherapy, and that this lack of evidence limits its application in clinical practice.

More convincing, mechanism-based data are needed to motivate oncologists to discuss exercise training with their patients, to motivate patients to become more active and to expand implementation of outpatient exercise oncology programs, the investigators say.

 

 

Higher dietary total antioxidant capacity associated with lower risk of cognitive impairment

National University of Singapore, April 12 2021. 

 

The results of a study reported on April 7, 2021 in The Journals of Gerontology® Series A revealed a lower risk of cognitive impairment among older individuals who consumed more antioxidants.

The study included 16,703 participants in the Singapore Chinese Health Study, which enrolled men and women aged 45 to 74 years between April 1993 and December 1998. Questionnaires completed upon enrollment provided information concerning dietary and supplement intake that was evaluated for antioxidant content using the Comprehensive Dietary Antioxidant Index and the Vitamin C Equivalent Antioxidant Capacity. Disease status and lifestyle factors were updated during follow-up visits conducted every five to six years. Cognitive function was evaluated 20.2 years after the beginning of the study.

Cognitive impairment was detected among 14.3% of the participants. Among those whose Comprehensive Dietary Antioxidant Index Scores placed them among the top 25% of participants, the risk of having developed cognitive impairment was 16% lower than that of participants among the lowest 25%. Those whose Vitamin C Equivalent Antioxidant Capacity was among the top 25% experienced a risk that was 25% lower. When antioxidant nutrients were individually analyzed, greater daily intake of vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenoids and flavonoids was associated with a reduction in the risk of cognitive impairment. Among carotenoids, alpha carotene and beta cryptoxanthin were found to be protective and among flavonoids, anthocyanins, flavan-3-ols, flavones and flavonols were associated with lower risk.

“These findings suggested that higher total antioxidant capacity of midlife diet was associated with lower odds of cognitive impairment in later life,” authors Li-Ting Sheng and colleagues concluded. “The generalizability of results to other populations remains to be confirmed, and future studies with repeated measures of dietary variables and cognitive functions are still needed.

 

 

Beneficial effect of quercetin on ovalbumin-induced rhinitis

Xian Jiao-tong University (China), April 8, 2021

According to news reporting originating in Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China, research stated, “Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease, characterized by reversible goblet cells, smooth muscle hyperplasia, airflow obstruction, hyperactivity enhanced, ultra-structural remodeling, and airway mucus production. The current experimental study was aimed at scrutinizing quercetin’s inhibitory effect on airway inflammation in mice and its possible mechanism of action.”

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Xi’an Jiaotong University, “The mice received varying doses of quercetin from 22-30 days (1, 10 and 50 mg / kg, p.o.) and montelukast (10 mg / kg, p.o.). Intranasal OVA has been instilled on the 21 days. Biochemical parameters, spleen weight, physiological parameters, interleukin (IL-113 and IL-6) parameters and immunoglobin-E (IgE) were calculated at the end of the experimental study. To investigate the potential mechanism of action, Paw edema and mast cell de granulation are estimated. Used to measure immune and inflammatory mediators, qRT-PCR technique. Quercetin significantly (P