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Just as oxygen allows us all to live, can this super element
also help to combat one of our worst medical enemies, cancer? When first
hearing about how increased levels of oxygen can help to combat cancer, I personally
thought, “is there anything this element can’t do?” So I dove further into
investigation on just exactly how this super element could possibly help to cure
one of our greatest hurdles.
After researching more, I came across a couple of articles
that helped to elaborate more on this new phenomenon. As this sensation is still
in its developing process, with trials and positive feedback this may truly become
a new frontier in medicine.
I first came across an article, “Oxygen Helps Defeat
Cancer-PEMF Therapy” published in November of 2014 posted by Dr. Mark Sircus,
Director of the International Medical VERITAS Association. This article helped
to elaborate on the workings of just how this practice came into play. The most
influential statement came from Researchers at The University of Texas MS
Anderson Cancer Center. Here they realized a most important key to this
developing theory. “They found that important regulatory molecules are
decreased when deprived of oxygen, which leads to increased cancer progression
in vitro and in vivo.” The article further dove into this subject and brought
up the idea of hypoxia, where the body is deprived of oxygen supply, which is
exactly what happens when tumors are developed. Here it showed how tumor
progression increased when deprived of oxygen. As many would think the opposite
would occur because oxygen gives life to us all and with a depletion of its
supply you would think it would kill the molecules. However, on the contrary
intensifying levels of oxygen will actually do the trick to shrink such tumor
cells. Further justifying this, researchers have studied that, “Oxygen makes
cancer cells weak and less resistant to treatment. Cancer cells low in oxygen
are three times more resistant to radiotherapy.” Dr.Dominic D’Agostino whom is
a researcher and assistant professor with the University of South Florida
Morsani College of Medicine, has said based upon his research, with the
diet/ treatments of cancer patients “cancer is starved”, and thus then “oxygen has a further toxic effect on the cancer cells.”
With all doubts of just what pure O2 can do we have now realized that studies,
such as the ones being conducted, may hold the key to knock out cancer.
ABC News has also elaborated on this new therapy. Here based
upon a study of mice and immune cells, researchers were able to see the effects
of increased levels of oxygen on attacking tumor cells. Michail
Sitkovsky, director of the New England Inflammation and Tissue Protection
Institute at Northeastern University described this new phenomenon as removing
“the brake pedal that cancer can put on tumor-fighting immune cells.” The
background of this process was additionally elaborated in the article by pharmacologist
Edwin Jackson of the University of Pittsburgh. Here he described just how tumor
cells work when they are trying to combat cancer. By tumors growing and
enhancing so rapidly they out space their blood supply thus ultimately causing
the low levels of oxygen in their vicinity. With the levels of oxygen lower
than normal this thus then causes cancer cells to develop a molecule called
adenosine, “which essentially puts nearby tumor fighters called T cells and
natural killer cells to sleep.” With the idea that cancer is able to develop
such a molecule that can basically turn off our defense mechanism, it is
exciting to finally possibly enable us to fight back.
With all of this information it was time to put it to the
test, of course not at first on humans, so medical researchers decided to try
it out on mice. With the help of immunotherapy as well, researchers were able
to see the positive effects of such increased levels of oxygen on tumor cells
in the mice. Although this therapy is still in its trial stages the positive
feedback is definitely helping to promote new sightings for cancer research. Additionally
the response by other medical researchers to the optimistic turnout of
shrinking tumors has led to a desire to research more on this therapy.
Who knew that such a simple idea could have led to
discovering new treatments to an impossibly hard disease to cure? With the
trials and errors of combating such a process one may come to wonder if we will
ever be able to find an ultimate cure? I am hopeful after doing research on
oxygen levels fighting cancer that this may be a new therapy that will help to
cure such a devastating and life threatening disease.
Image Citation:
1.) "Oxygen Periodic Table Square." ALMA NEWS. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.< http://almanews.co/oxygen-periodic-table-square/almanews>.
After reading an article that took advantage of the hypoxic characteristics of tumor cells, I thought it was exceedingly interesting that scientists are simultaneously taking advantage of oxygen. I understand that chemotherapy and radiation need an oxygen-rich environment to be most effective; however, in the absence of chemo/radiation I feel as though there must be a strict balance between adding enough oxygen to kill the tumor vs. helping the tumor grow.
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