From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…
Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast
cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites,
journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and
share them with you. Today: http://www.breast-cancer-research.com/content/17/1/62
In May, a
technical article published in the journal Breast
Cancer Research gives some indication that Omega 3 Fatty Acids may assist
in the prevention of and recovery from breast cancer.
So – what does “Omega
3 Fatty Acid” MEAN exactly?
First off, the “omega”
in this is there for one reason only: as part of the name, it indicates to
people “in the know” (now that you’ve read this, YOU), where the first double
carbon-carbon hook up is in the chain of atoms that make up the structure of
the chemical. (Make no mistake, a fatty acid IS a chemical!) Omega – as in “I
am the alpha and omega”, or more English-ee, “I am the ‘a’ and ‘z’”.
The double bond
is at the end of the molecule.
The molecule of
what?
The molecule of
a fatty acid. Uh…that’s sort of complicated, but let me give it a try. “…a
carboxylic acid, with a long unbranched hydrocarbon tail.”
All of this has
to do with how atoms hook up. So for starters, most of the stuff that makes up
a Human is either carbon, oxygen, or hydrogen. The “carbs” that are bad for me,
is a shortened form of the biology word, “carbohydrate”. This means that the
molecules in bread that don’t help my figure are made up ALMOST exclusively of
carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
“Hydrocarbons”,
like gasoline and motor oil, are made up of ALMOST all carbons and hydrogens
(with NO oxygen atoms).
A fatty acid
then is a molecule that STARTS with a group of atoms that are called an acid: a
carbon, two oxygen, and a hydrogen attached like this: COOH. This group is
hooked on to a long chain of carbons and hydrogens, or as Wikipedia puts it, “a
chain of four to 28 carbon atoms (usually unbranched and even numbered)”. The
length of the attached chain determines which one of the fatty acids it is. The
double bonded (or hooked up to the carbon twice) molecule is in the last
(omega) spot.
An omega 3 fatty
acid then, has the COOH followed by somewhere between four and twenty-eight
carbons that are hooked on to hydrogen atoms until the very end, where there’s
a double bond.
OK – now that we
have that cleared up, let’s get into the why of this. WHY would Omega 3 fatty
acids do anything to breast cancer cells? Does it dissolve the cells, the way
stomach acid dissolves food or battery acid dissolves blue jeans?
No. As the
article says, “The net effect if EPA and DHA are present in sufficient amounts
relative to AA is anti-inflammatory or inflammation resolving…a reduction in
oncogenic protein signaling through disruption of plasma membrane lipid rafts;
a reduction in cytokine production; and an increase in apoptosis following
activation of plasma membrane...”
A definition of
some phrases:
EPA and DHA = marine
omega-3 fatty acids [eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)]
AA = proinflammatory omega-6 arachidonic acid
(AA)
“anti-inflammatory/inflammation
resolving” = makes swelling/irritation go down
“reduction in
oncogenic protein signaling” = doesn’t let cancer cells communicate
“reduction in
cytokine production” = see the essay I wrote here: http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2014/12/encore-3-hold-on-there-baba-louie.html
that details what cytokines are and what they do.
Apoptosis = the natural death of cells
To clarify then,
let me replace all the high-falutin’ talk with my definitions here:
“Marine omega-3
fatty acids present in sufficient amounts relative to proinflammatory omega-6 makes
swelling/irritation go down …a reduction in cancer cells communicating and ends
with a reduction in cytokine production; and an increase in the natural death
of [cancer] cells…”
I hope this
helps to clarify the role of the Omega-3 fatty acids that you can take in the
form of fish oil pills!
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