STOP CANCER Cell Growth By GETTING Concentrations of Zinc REGULARLY! Destroy Cancer Tumors with ZINC

Zinc may help to prevent, treat esophageal cancer! Research led by the University of Texas at Arlington reveals how zinc can target esophageal cancer cells and halt their growth, thereby bringing us closer to new prevention and treatment strategies for the disease. Zinc is a mineral present in a variety of foods - including oysters, red meat, poultry, beans, nuts, and whole grains - and it is also available as a dietary supplement. Zinc is one of the body's essential nutrients. Not only is it important for fetal and childhood development and sense of taste and smell, but the mineral also aids cell functioning, wound healing, and helps our immune system to stave off infection. Previous studies have identified zinc deficiency in patients with esophageal csancer, indicating that the mineral may also help to protect against the disease. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying zinc's potential anti-cancer effects have been a mystery - until now. Zinc, calcium, and esophageal cancer Study leader Zui Pan, of the College of Nursing and Health Innovation at the University of Texas at Arlington, and colleagues found that zinc targets and blocks a specific calcium channel in esophageal cancer cells, preventing them from proliferating, or growing and dividing. Pan and colleagues recently reported their results in The FASEB Journal. For their study, the researchers assessed how human esophageal cancer cell lines and healthy human cells respond to zinc. They found that in esophageal cancer cells, the mineral inhibits a calcium channel called Orai1. This dampens excitable calcium signaling - a known contributor to cancer cell growth - and prevents cancer cell proliferation. Additionally, the team found that zinc did not target the calcium channel in healthy cell lines. "Our study," explains Pan, "for the first time to our knowledge, reveals that zinc impedes overactive calcium signals in cancer cells, which is absent in normal cells, and thus zinc selectively inhibits cancer cell growth." "It now appears that zinc and calcium can have a cross talk, meaning that they can be linked." A new treatment for esophageal cancer? According to the American Cancer Society, around 16,940 new cases of esophageal cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year, and there will be around 15,690 deaths from the disease. Although esophageal cancer survival rates have improved recently, the prognosis remains poor when compared with many other cancers; only 20 percent of patients will survive for at least 5 years after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Such statistics emphasize the need for new therapies to prevent and treat esophageal cancer, and Pan and colleagues believe that their findings suggest that zinc supplementation could be a feasible option. In future studies, the team plans to find out more about the link between zinc and calcium signaling, and how zinc supplementation could be used to combat esophageal cancer. In the meantime, the researchers believe that their findings highlight the importance of including zinc as part of a healthful diet. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommend that men and women should aim to get around 11 milligrams and 8 milligrams of zinc, respectively, every day. Zinc oxide nanoparticles may help destroy difficult-to-treat triple-negative breast cancer tumors Breast tumors that are so-called triple-negative are largely resistant to existing cancer drugs, giving patients an especially poor prognosis. Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, and collaborators are now exploring a potential therapeutic option for such tumors that is based on the tumor-specific effects of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles. Previous studies have shown that ZnO treatment can kill cancerous cells while leaving healthy cells intact. However, the mechanism is poorly defined; some data suggest that ZnO particles are ingested by and dissolve within tumor cells, while other findings suggest that cells absorb free zinc released when these particles dissolve in the acidic tumor environment. In a study led by Jasmeen Merzaban, KAUST assistant professor of bioscience, and Alexandra Porter from Imperial College London, Ph.D. students Basma Othman and Ayman Abuelela used microscopy to observe what happened when triple-negative breast tumor cells were treated with ZnO. For comparison, they used both untargeted conventional ZnO nanoparticles as well as targeted nanoparticles tagged with a peptide that specifically recognizes a protein found on the surface of cancer cells. The results unambiguously supported a model in which the nanoparticles are consumed by the cells before inducing cell death. "We were able to observe in real time the uptake of both classes of ZnO nanoparticles and confirm the subsequent rise in zinc ion concentrations within cells prior to their death," said Merzaban. The targeted nanoparticles proved substantially more effective