Taking popular commercial supplements such as nicotinamide riboside (NR), a form of vitamin B3, may actually increase the risk of serious diseases, including: cancerA new study has found.
The team of researchers found that high levels of NR may not only increase a person’s risk of developing triple-negative Breast Cancer But it also causes the cancer to spread to the brain, the study said.
Triple-negative breast cancer is considered more aggressive than other types of cancer because it grows faster, is more likely to spread by the time it is detected, and is more likely to come back after treatment.
“Once the cancer reaches the brain, the consequences can be fatal because no viable treatment options exist at this time,” said Elena Gone, lead author of the study, published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.
“Some people take them (vitamins and supplements) because they automatically assume that Vitamins And while supplements only have positive health benefits, little is known about how they actually work,” Gone said.
“Because of this lack of knowledge, we were inspired to study basic questions about how vitamins and supplements work in the body,” Gone said.
After being diagnosed with a colon just three months after the death of his 59-year-old father cancerGone was inspired by his passing to pursue a better scientific understanding of cancer metabolism, or the energy through which cancer spreads in the body.
Since NR is a known supplement to help increase cellular energy levels, and cancer cells nourish that energy with their increased energy metabolismGaun wanted to investigate the role of NR in the development and spread of cancer.
“Our work is particularly important given the wide commercial availability and the large number of ongoing human clinical trials where NRs are used to reduce the side effects of cancer therapy in patients,” Gone said.
The researchers used this technique to compare and examine how much NR levels were present. cancer cellsT cells, and healthy tissue.
“While NR is already widely used in people and is being investigated in many ongoing clinical trials for additional applications, understanding how NR works is a black box. I don’t come,” said Gone.
“It therefore prompted us to come up with this novel imaging technique based on ultrasensitive bioluminescent imaging that allows the quantification of NR levels in real time in a non-invasive manner. The presence of NR is shown with light.” , and the brighter the light, the more NR is present.” Gone said the study’s findings emphasize the importance of carefully examining the potential side effects of supplements like NR before their use in people who may have a variety of health conditions.
In the future, Gaun wants to provide information that could potentially lead to the development of certain inhibitors to help create cancer therapies. chemotherapy More effective in the treatment of cancer.
The key to this approach, Gone said, is to look at it from a personalized medicine perspective. “Not all cancers are the same in every person, especially from the point of view of a metabolic signature,” Gone said. “Sometimes cancer can change its metabolism even before or after chemotherapy.”
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