“Mounting evidence indicates that the amount and type of fat in the diet can have important effects on bone health. Most of this evidence is derived from animal studies. Of the few human studies that have been conducted, relatively small numbers of subjects and/or primarily female subjects were included. The present study assessed the relation of dietary fat to hip bone mineral density (BMD) in men and women … ”

“Models were adjusted for age, sex, weight, height, race, total energy and calcium intakes, smoking, and weight-bearing exercise. Data from women were further adjusted for use of hormone replacement therapy. Including dietary protein, vitamin C, and ß-carotene in the model did not influence the outcome.”

“Saturated fat intake was negatively associated with BMD at several hip sites. The greatest effects were seen among men below 50 y old (linear trend P = 0.004 for the femoral neck). For the femoral neck, adjusted mean BMD was 4.3% less among men with the highest compared with the lowest quintile of saturated fat intake … These data indicate that BMD is negatively associated with saturated fat intake, and that men may be particularly vulnerable to these effects.

Abstract and link to full article: American Society for Nutrition J. Nutr. 136:159-165, Corwin et al. January 2006

Dr Debra L. Bemis of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, seems to be promoting an herbal mix called Zyflamend on the basis of lab tests even while she is running a Phase I trial of the same commercial product.

Bemis’s press release about her preclinical study of Zyflamend has created a lot of buzz (Google calculates 598 references). Some media (like the UK Daily Mail) are touting Zyflamend with the headline “Olive Oil Pill Can Cut Prostate Cancer Risk.” The study was published this month in Nutrition and Cancer 52(2):202-12. Zyflamend, a unique herbal preparation with nonselective COX inhibitory activity, induces apoptosis of prostate cancer cells that lack COX-2 expression.

Bemis’s lab found that Zyflamend “suppresses the growth of prostate cancer cells and induces prostate cancer cells to self-destruct.” She says Zyflamend “in culture at least,” had the ability “to reduce prostate cancer cell growth by as much as 78 per cent.”

“Together, these results suggest that Zyflamend might have some chemopreventive utility against prostate cancer in men,” Bemis says.
(full story…)

December 27, 2005 -Taking 1,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D3 daily appears to lower an individual’s risk of developing certain cancers – including colon, breast, and ovarian cancer – by up to 50 percent, according to cancer prevention specialists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center. The researchers call for prompt public health action to increase intake of vitamin D3 as an inexpensive tool for prevention of diseases that claim millions of lives each year. Full story

$50m pledge will help Therion develop drug

By Stephen Heuser, Globe Staff | December 26, 2005

In an unusual effort by a single wealthy investor to keep a medical idea alive, a German billionaire is promising $50 million to Therion Biologics Corp., a small Cambridge company trying to develop the first-ever therapeutic vaccine for cancer. ….

ts lead product, Panvac-VF, is a series of injections designed to fight pancreatic cancer, which strikes 30,000 Americans each year and is almost always fatal.

Early tests of Panvac showed it extended the lives of patients with late-stage pancreatic cancer, and the company expects results from a larger trial on 250 patients early next year. If it shows significant benefits, the company will apply for FDA approval.

‘’We’re all figuratively holding our breath waiting for the results of this trial,” said Leuchtenberger.

Like shots for flu or measles, cancer vaccines are designed to train the body’s immune system to fight a specific disease.

Unlike a traditional vaccine, however, the drug being tested by Therion is not preventive. Rather, it is given to people who already have cancer, in the hopes that their immune cells can learn to recognize and attack the cancer as it tries to grow and spread in the body.

A success in the trial would let Therion enter the lucrative niche of last-chance cancer therapies, among the most expensive drugs in modern medicine.

Full story at the Boston Globe’s boston.com business section

John Isaacs in an overview this month in BJU of “New strategies for the medical treatment of prostate cancer” brings up:

novel treatments that target prostate-specific antigen (PSA), human glandular kallikrein-2, or prostate-specific membrane antigen. An inactive prodrug with a thapsigargin analogue, a sesquiterpene lactone from the plant Thapsia garganica, is currently under investigation specifically for the targeted therapy of HRPC. Preclinical data suggest the PSA-targeting abilities of this novel therapy are associated with a nearly complete cessation of tumour growth with minimal toxicity.

When a researcher offers this kind of review you can guess it is a pet project. In this case Isaacs ostensibly talks about all available strategies for treating HRPC, but then he zones in on one rather obscure-sounding novel therapy.
(full story…)

PSAD is determined by dividing the PSA number by the prostate volume (its size as measured by transrectal ultrasound). Johns Hopkins doctors recommend this measurement “to help differentiate between cancer and BPH in men with moderately high PSA levels (4 to 10 ng/mL) and normal DRE results.”

The theory is that cancer causes a greater elevation in PSA per prostate volume than BPH. If so, PSA density should be higher in men with cancer. To find PSA density, doctors divide the PSA results by prostate volume (as estimated by transrectal ultrasound). This method is imperfect, according to the Hopkins experts; but, they add, “studies showing that PSA density levels over 0.15 indicate a high risk of cancer have led doctors to use PSA density tests for men with PSA levels between 4 and 10 ng/mL.”

Some recent studies have shown however that PSA density is not a very useful measurement.
A Spanish teams a couple of years ago said: “We conclude that PSAD and PSADTZ are not excessively useful for adequately discriminating between patients with prostate cancer and those with non-malignant disease, particularly when digital rectal examination is normal.” (Garcia Sisamon F, et al, 2003). Now a study in Kuwait, published this month, has found similarly:
(full story…)

Fish is protein rich and contains Omega-3 essential fatty acids, which are heart-healthy and may protect against some cancers. But many fish are contaminated, in short supply and endangered through overfishing. Farmed fish is no simple solution. Farmed salmon, for example, contains high levels of PCBs.

Oceans Alive is a non-profit organization offering a list of best and worst seafood choices. Their guide claims to show “which fish are healthy for the oceans” and offers to help consumers “choose fish that are safe to eat.”
(full story…)

Pizza has been accepted as one food which perhaps helps protect men against the risk of prostate cancer in North America.

But according to cancer researchers in Italy, pizza’s home territory, not much information exists about pizza-eating and risk of other sex-hormone related cancers (breast and ovarian).

Nor is much known, these researchers say in an article to be published in February 2006 European Journal of Cancer Prevention, about how pizza eating affects risk of cancer in people beyond the USA.

Using data from 4864 patients and the same number of people without cancer in three hospital-based case-control studies conducted in Italy between 1991 and 2002, they found no strong link.

People who ate one or more slices of pizza a week were counted as “regular eaters.”

“Our results do not show a relevant role of pizza on the risk of sex hormone-related cancers.,” the authors write in their summary. “The difference with selected studies from North America suggests that dietary and lifestyle correlates of pizza eating vary between different populations and social groups.”

An earlier study from this group (European Journal of Cancer Prevention. October 2004.) found that “Regular consumption of pizza, one of the most typical Italian foods, showed a reduced risk of digestive tract cancers. Pizza could however simply be an indicator of a typical Italian diet.”

Blinded by the light: Irofulven chemotherapy trials

By JACQUELINE STRAX December 16, 2005 /PSA Rising/ The chemotherapy drug Irofulven, a drug based on a poison in the jack o’lantern fungi, is in clinical trials in the USA, Canada and Europe for prostate, ovarian, hepatic and other cancers. A surprising side effect is retinal damage.

Higher Vitamin D Daily Dose Could Halve Colon Cancer Risk, UCSD researchers say

December 20, 2005 - Taking 1,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D 3 daily appears to lower an individual’s risk of developing colorectal cancer by 50 percent, according to cancer prevention specialists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center. Full story

Latest Business News and Financial Information | Reuters.co.uk
Body backs Sanofi’s Taxotere in prostate cancer

LONDON (Reuters) - A cost-effectiveness watchdog said on Friday it was provisionally recommending that Sanofi-Aventis SA’s chemotherapy drug Taxotere should be used to treat prostate cancer on the state health service.

A spokesman for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence said final guidance was likely to be issued around July next year, covering the use of the drug in men with advanced hormone refractory prostate cancer.

Until then, about 800 men in Scotland who could benefit from Taxoterer to releive pain and progression of advanced prostate cancer are on hold. Some of them may die waiting.
(full story…)

“Men with prostate cancer who are initiating ADT have a 5- to 10-fold increased loss of bone density at multiple skeletal sites.” They also lose lean body mass and gain fatty tissue.

Men taking anti-androgen drug therapy to suppress their male hormones are at risk for loss of bone mineral density (BMD) . This puts the men at risk of fractures including of rib, spinal, and/or hip. Until recently, no information was available to patients from the drug manufacturers nor from doctors about how soon after starting after starting on androgen blockade this condition is likely to start.
(full story…)

Forbes has a story this month about a Cox-II inhibitor, Celebrex. While mostly used for arthritis pain, this drug is of high interest to cancer patients as a possible tumor inhibitor (for background on the cancer connection see
Cancer Patients … and Celebrex in Anti-Cancer Trials Nov 2004
(full story…)

Dr. Zvi Fuks, a renowned radiation oncologist, is one of the principal developers of 3-D conformal radiation therapy, a system for delivering radiation that permits precise shaping and targeting of radiotherapy beams. He has worked for many years at MSKCC (memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center).

Last month Dr. Fuks and a friend agreed to pay a total of $2.77 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of insider trading in shares of a pharmaceutical company. The drug involved, ImClone’s Erbitux, was tested in clinical trials at MSKCC. A clinical trial of Erbitux for prostate cancer ran at MSKCC starting in 1996.
(full story…)

By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: December 21, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - Despite promising discoveries and multibillion-dollar investments, cancer research is quietly undergoing a crisis. Federal drug regulators will soon announce several initiatives that they hope will help salvage the field.

Few drugs are being marketed, and most of those that have been introduced are enormously expensive and provide few of the benefits that patients expect. Officials of the Food and Drug Administration suggest that the failures may result from an obsolete testing system.

There is growing evidence that X-rays, long the standard, may not accurately assess a patient’s disease. The drug agency is creating collaborations to develop imaging, blood and other tests that better signal the progression of cancer.

“We need to develop cancer drugs differently,” the chief operating officer of the agency, Dr. Janet Woodcock, said in an interview. “The tools we have to develop these treatments are not what we need in cancer.”
(full story…)

Entrez PubMed
Cancer Biol Ther. 2006 Jan 25;5(1) [Epub ahead of print]
Corticosteroid-Induced Chemotherapy Resistance in Urological Cancers.

Zhang C, et al. Molecular Urooncology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.

Purpose: Glucocorticoids such as dexamethasone are widely used for medication of urological diseases, e.g., as cotreatment of advanced prostate cancer, to improve appetite, weight loss, fatigue, relieve bone pain, diminish ureteric obstruction, to reduce the production of adrenal androgens, as an antiemetic in patients undergoing chemo- and/or radiotherapy together with serving as “standard” therapy arm in randomized studies.

While the potent pro-apoptotic properties and the supportive effects of glucocorticoids to tumor therapy in lymphoid cells are well studied, the impact to growth of prostate and other urological carcinomas is unknown.

Methods: We isolated cells from surgical resections of 21 prostate tumors and measured apoptosis and viability in these primary cells and 17 established cell lines from human prostate, bladder, renal cell and testicular carcinomas.

Results: We found that dexamethasone induces resistance regarding exposure to several cytotoxic agents such as taxol, gemcitabine, cisplatin, 5-FU and gamma-irradiation in 86% of the freshly isolated prostate tumors and in 100% of the established urological cell lines.

No difference in dexamethasone-mediated protection was found in normal, benign and malignant prostate tumors.

Conclusions: These data show for the first time that dexamethasone induced therapy resistance in urological carcinomas is not the exception but a more common phenomenon and implicate that glucocorticoids may have two faces in cancer therapy, a beneficial and a dangerous one.

NOTE from psa-rising editor: This looks like a rather chilling early confirmation of a finding in breast cancer which we were concerned might apply also to prostate cancer. See:

Widely used anti-nausea drug, dexamethasone, may interfere with breast cancer chemotherapy

by J. Strax

Vitamin E and Prostate Cancer Benefits: Not Fully Resolved

BOSTON, Dec. 20 — The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended against routine vitamin use to prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease. The recommendation was based on a series of clinical trials that found that antioxidant supplements do not reduce the risks of these diseases.

However, just a few weeks later, results from the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta Carotene (ATBC) Cancer Prevention Trial showed that men with high blood levels of alpha-tocopherol (a form of vitamin E) had a lower risk of prostate cancer, reports Harvard Men’s Health Watch.

“The ATBC research provides some support for vitamin E, but it’s not conclusive,” notes Dr. Harvey Simon, editor in chief of Harvard Men’s Health Watch. “Although it was a well-conducted clinical trial, its primary goal was to evaluate lung cancer. More important, all the subjects were smokers.”

A few other studies looked into this matter and found that vitamin E was not consistently beneficial in reducing the risk of prostate cancer in smokers and nonsmokers.

The relationship between vitamin E and prostate cancer has yet another complexity. Vitamin E consists of a family of chemicals known as tocopherols. Alpha-tocopherol
(full story…)

M. D. Anderson Cancer Center - PIKNIC - Cancer-Related Fatigue
Cancer-Related Fatigue
From PIKNIC [M D. anderson’s Patient and Cargiver Support Group]: Partners in Knowledge, News in Cancer 4/3/01
From PIKNIC: Partners in Knowledge, News in Cancer 4/3/01
What Do We Know?
Cancer-related fatigue is receiving lots of attention, but because it’s an emerging field, there is still much for researchers to learn. “The state of cancer-related fatigue today is much like cancer pain was 20 years ago,” says Tito Mendoza, Ph.D., an assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Pain Research Group. “We know it exists and are attempting to measure it, but more studies are needed for a better understanding of who experiences it and why.”

Some tips:
* Sit down to bathe, and instead of wasting energy drying off, wear a terrycloth robe that does the job for you
* When bathing or dressing, minimize leaning down or reaching. “There are many helpful gadgets that can help you with washing yourself, getting dressed or reaching objects,” says Lathem. The Sears Self-Care catalog and the J.C. Penney Special Needs catalog offer these devices for sale.
* Do housework sitting down whenever possible, and delegate heavier tasks to others
* Take frequent rest breaks, and stop working before you become tired
* Use convenience foods that can be prepared in a microwave or other small appliances, which require less effort to use
* Prepare double portions of food and freeze half
* When shopping, make an organized list by grocery aisle to eliminate unnecessary walking
* Let a grocery store worker carry your bags to the car
* Avoid lifting your children whenever possible. When playing with them, choose activities that allow you to sit down
* Use a wheelchair or cane
“Many people won’t leave the house in a chair or with a cane, because they think it makes them look old or feeble,” says Lathem. “My advice is get over it, because wouldn’t you rather save the energy it takes to walk for something you really love to do?”

12/16/2005 9:01:00 AM EST

Direct-to-consumer advertising promoting the use of erythropoietin to alleviate cancer-related fatigue fails to point out that the drug is only effective against fatigue caused by anemia. However, anemia is not a significant cause of fatigue in most cancer patients, according to a study in the December issue (Volume 8, Number 6) of Journal of Palliative Medicine, a peer-reviewed publication of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., and the official journal of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. The paper is available free online at http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/jpm.2005.8.1144

Fatigue is one of the most common and debilitating symptoms for patients with cancer, affecting as many as 80% of patients. It can be devastating–making even routine tasks like going to work, shopping, or doing daily chores exhausting. Fatigue can, in turn, lead to hopelessness and despair. Current direct-to-consumer advertising in the U.S. gives the mistaken impression that anemia is the only cause of fatigue from cancer and chemotherapy. Further, the ads give false hope, implying that a drug to treat anemia will make everything better.
(full story…)

Multigraph
A free service of the Prostate Cancer Research and Education Foundation

MultiGraphs can be simple or complicated. You can preview thumbnails of the two types available free from PCREF.

Sometimes it is useful to see a graphical picture of your medical history, correlating in time the history of your PSA and other data with your tests and treatments. A MultiGraph is a one-page summary of PSA and any other numerical data you may have, other test results, and treatment starts and stops.

There are two ways of getting your first MultiGraph:
1. Enter your data online
or
2. Create a chronological digest file ….