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Laron dwarfs in South America may hold secrets to cancer cure
Brazil News.Net
Monday 18th August, 2008 (ANI)
London, Aug 18 : A community of Laron dwarfs in Ecuador, who are believed to be immune to cancer, may hold secrets to a cure for the disease.
The community of only 100 dwarfs, living in remote area of Ecuador, South America, lack a hormone called Insulin-like Growth factor 1 (IGF1), too much of which in ordinary humans can lead to breast, prostate or bowel cancer at an early age.
These dwarfs grow to an average height of 4ft, are perfectly proportioned, live-longer, and appear immune to cancer in all its forms.
Scientists believe that having less IGF1 would mean less DNA damage, which promotes cancer in certain cases.
Cancer Research UK has appreciated the findings, and called for more research.
"Laboratory work in mice, flies and worms shows that if IGF1 is removed, the animals tend not to get cancer," the Daily Express quoted Professor Bass Hassan, a Cancer Research UK oncologist and scientist at Oxford University, as saying.
"This is now mirrored in research into small humans who turn out to have no IGF1, as in Laron dwarfs.
"It might be possible to reduce it and so live longer with a reduced risk of cancer. This might lead us into to an important aspect of cancer prevention but it needs more research," Hassan added.  Email this story to a friend
Comments on this story
Anonymous
01-14-09, 05:39 AM |
Laron dwarfs in South America may hold secrets to cancer cure
cancer is what makes us evolve.
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waltky
07-01-09, 08:11 PM |
Kinda reminds me of the experiment in Daniel 1.8-15...
:cool:
Vegetarians 'avoid more cancers'
Tuesday, 30 June 2009 - Vegetarians are generally less likely to develop cancer but this does not apply to all forms of the disease, a study concludes.
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The study involving 60,000 people found those who followed a vegetarian diet developed notably fewer cancers of the blood, bladder and stomach. But the apparently protective effect of vegetarian did not seem to stretch to bowel cancer, a major killer.
The study is published in the British Journal of Cancer. Researchers from universities in the UK and New Zealand followed 61,566 British men and women. They included meat-eaters, those who ate fish but not meat, and those who ate neither meat nor fish.
VEGETARIANS GOT NOTABLY FEWER OF THESE CANCERS:
Stomach
Bladder
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Multiple myeloma
Overall, their results suggested that while in the general population about 33 people in 100 will develop cancer during their lifetime, for those who do not eat meat that risk is reduced to about 29 in 100.
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/health/8127215.stm:
Special protection?[/url]
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