Colon cancer is a life threatening disease caused by ‘deactivated hormones’. The good news is properly administered hormone therapy should fix the problem of the affected individual. This is what the recently published study in the journal of Gastroenterology reported.
How colon cancer is formed:
According to an article published on August 1st, scientists discovered that two hormones could solve the colon cancer puzzle. Known as GCC, a protein receptor on the surface of the intestinal epithelial cells guanylin and uroguanylin can prevent tumor formations.
During the early stages of the cancer, the growth of these hormones are deactivated. As a result of which, GCC causes cancerous symptoms.At least this is what Scott Waldman, chair of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at Jefferson Medical College believes:
When you eliminate GCC from cells, they develop a level of genomic instability, where they start accumulating more mutations and lose pieces of genetic material. The loss of GCC signals are brought on by a loss of the two hormones in one of the earliest events that occurs in tumor development, and it’s a recipe for colon cancer.
A new way of looking at the disease:
According to Dr.Waldman, this is a completely different and a new way of looking at the disease. Dr.Waldman’s team of researchers discovered two aspects of GCC. GCC maintains cell growth as well as regulates genomic integrity. This is what the researchers discovered after observing couple of separate mouse models. Although, I sometimes wonder if the same theory could be applied to the human body.
Result:
The results of the study proved that the increase in tumor is mainly due to loss of GCC expression. According to the study, exposure to carcinogen, combined with spontaneous mutations with APC results in the development of colon cancer. I think this is a great development in the history of medical research. Hopefully, the researchers will apply this study on a human model.
Image Credit: Yahoo
