Cancer is a very severe disease that has caused many complications and death to individuals all across the world. According to Medical News Today, cancer is the number 2 cause of death in the United States. Due to its complexity, high mutation rate, and rapid growth it has been difficult to treat or even find a cure for cancer. It also has been found that some cancer cells rely heavily on glucose for cell growth. Base on this information, scientist have been researching on a method to starve cancer cells of glucose, however, the challenges is that healthy cells require glucose to function as well.
A new research was conducted by adding mannose sugar into the drinking water of cancer mice and found that tumor cell growth were halted. Mannose sugar is normally taken up by glucose transporter into the cell and becomes mannose-6-phosphate. This impairs the metabolism of glucose through glycolysis, as well as other pathway involved in metabolism. Since mannose essentially is not required for healthy cells to survive and normally can be synthesize through glucose, these scientist predicted that mannose sugar can be used to treat cancer. They decided to administered chemotherapy in combination with mannose sugar and found that it affected anti-apoptotic proteins, which resulted in tumor cells sensitivity to cell death.
This is definitely a breakthrough on how we treat cancer. Hopefully, we can one day develop an effective method to combat all types of cancer and decrease the rate of human death.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323786.php
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180126095312.htm
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0729-3
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