Golden Flax and Cancer. Why Does it Work?

[shinyu_fan]

I came across this blog today (written by Stephen Martin, a PhD in Immunology) and thought it is quite good.

http://grouppekurosawa.com/blog/

[heblaj01]

I often read the articles of this author but I find that he jumps too easily from preclinical studies to human treatment recommandations.
He also tends to assign to natural supplements the merit of efficacy in reports of single case patients subjected to concurrent conventional & complementary treatments when no one can be sure of what is exactly happening.

The basis of the interest in ground flaxseeds comes from two small studies done in Toronto, the last one in 2005.
It is almost certain that the women (whose biopsies were found to show activity related to flaxseeds in muffins consummed for a short period before surgery) were early stage cancer patients not metastatic late stage.
The study may also have a flaw exagerating the benefits of flax seeds because only the placebo muffins were made with 10g canola oil (rich in omega-6 fatty acids) which may have opposite effects to those of flaxseeds(rich in Omega-3).

The author aknowledges in his comments that there is currently no scientific proof that flaxseeds inhibit NF-kappaB (a genetic factor causing resistance to chemo) but he assumes that they do.
I hope more anecdotal cases reports will support this theory since it is unlikely that clinical trials will ever be carried out on a compound that cannot be patented, the requisite condition for interest by pharmaceutical companies.

[Christine MH-UK]

When I did some calculations based on one of Dr Menendez's articles on the effects of polyunsaturates on two her2 positive breast cancer cell lines, canola came out better than all of the common oils except for olive oil (tops because of the omega 9) and flax seed oil. Omega 9 seems to get left out in all of these discussions, but Menendez's work indicates that it is key to the point where he was hoping to do a clinical trial on olive oil, which doesn't have a good omega3:omega 6 ratio, but is extremely high in omega 9. The one source of human evidence is that her2 women in Italy who receive taxanes and anthracyclines actually do better than her2 negative ones in the same circumstances.

You're right, though, that the control is problematic because the amounts of omega 9 and 3 (which lowers) versus omega 6 (raises) will have an effect, but canola is probably the least problematic of the common oils. I guess they couldn't have just given them a muffin without the oil in it. The lead researcher on the study, Dr Paul Goss, is also the fellow who wrote the lapatinib article below, so a credible researcher.

My bigger problem with the trial is the short duration. These women only had it for a month and they were all hormone-receptor positive. At least one of Lillian Thompson's articles suggests that ground flaxseed might work a bit like tamoxifen, which suggests that this strategy might not be good over the long term for the same women.

I think it would be good if the same trial was redone in metastatic women, but perhaps with an olive oil group as well.

[Bev]

Where's RB been lately? BB

[R.B.]

shinu_fan

Please see the posts on fax on this site. You can search by clicking on the purple bar above and enter your search term. There is quite a lot on flax.

It explores the arguments between flax seed and oil.

Flax potentially has benifit in a number of ways it is suggested including;

Improved digestion / elimination (fibre soluble and insoluble etc) Digestion is fundamental to health.

Improving the omega three intake of the omega three mother fat ( and so improving the omega three six balance)

The provision of plant based oestrogen like compunds. There is debate on this and you will have to read and make up your own mind. The subject is covered in the posts quoting those who know more than I do.

Please also look at the posts on balancing the omega threes and sixes.

TRIALS

It is a great saddness that the levels of funding for research into the impact of diet are very limited it appears. Often trials come to a conlusion that an aspect of diet shows great potential and further trials should be done, but do not appear to be followed up.

FOOD AND GENES

Diet does impact on your genetic expression. (How you use the genes you have and how you balance the genetic ingredients)

AWAY

I do keep an brief eye on posts but am afriad I have been temporarily diverted from persuing my interest in reading on diet, so you have been saved my typo's and bad spelling (in the absence of a spell checker).

RB