Vitamin K is found in leafy greens and is essential for blood clotting and calcium synthesis in tissues, but it can also cure prostate cancer.
Not vitamin K specifically, but a precursor called menadione, which in a recent trial was found to interfere with the survival process of tumor cells and ultimately caused them to explode.
Prostate cancer is one of the deadliest in men, and while there are multiple treatments, some varieties are both very resistant and very aggressive. In 2001, a 35,000-patient trial was funded to try to determine whether vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant, could help treat prostate cancer.
However, after just three years, it was found that more men taking this supplement were starting to contract the disease. The trial organizers simply reasoned that if an antioxidant accelerated prostate cancer, could a pro-oxidant prevent it?
Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) tested menadione, a precursor of vitamin K, in mice. In their animal model, menadione was found to deplete a lipid called PI(3)P, which functions as an identification tag. Without it, tumor cells would not be able to continue recycling incoming material. They ended up exploding.
“It’s like a transportation hub, like JFK. If everything that comes in is immediately anonymized, no one knows where the planes should go next. New things keep coming and the hub starts to grow. This ultimately leads to the cell bursting. said Professor Lloyd Trotman, head of research at CSHL.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: New cervical cancer treatment regimen shows ‘largest survival gain since 1999’
Trotman would like to see the results replicated in men who receive an early diagnosis of cancer.
“Our target group would be men who undergo biopsies and are diagnosed with an early form of the disease. We wonder if they start taking the supplement, if we would be able to slow this disease down,” she said.
UNLIKELY CANCER TREATMENTS: Manuka honey reduces breast cancer cell growth by 84% in human cells and mice
Sci-tech Daily reports that menadione may also be effective in slowing the progression of myotubular myopathy, a fatal birth defect in infant boys that prevents them from growing; ultimately leading to death before childhood.
SHARE this unlikely cancer treatment candidate with your friends…