That’s because not only is it challenging to treat, but also the fact that chemotherapy and targeted therapies can often only be used to control symptoms and slow the cancer progression, rather than cure it.

Unfortunately, rates of liver and bile duct cancer have skyrocketed in recent years, with one in 125 men and women expected to be diagnosed with hepatocellular cancer over the course of their lives.

Luckily, researchers at the University of Delaware may have just made a breakthrough in liver cancer care, using a molecule found in a tropical fruit that could provide a low-cost, powerful treatment.

Here are the details…

Pioneering new cancer treatment pathways

Guava may be tropical, but chances are you can find it in a local grocery store. It’s sweet or tangy, depending on ripeness, and even the seeds are edible.

But its real claim to fame is its anticancer potential…

In 2010 and 2013, studies found that guava extracts helped reduce tumor size in prostate cancer. In 2022, a study identified guava leaf extract as a potential candidate for liver cancer therapy.

But extracting enough of guava’s cancer-fighting molecules to mass-produce a treatment is no easy task.

“The majority of clinically approved medicines are either made from a natural product or are based on one,” explains associate professor William Chain, associate professor in the University of Delaware’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “But there aren’t enough natural resources to make enough treatments.”

So, he and his team found a workaround that opens the door to more effective — and cheaper — treatments for liver cancer.

Using a process called natural product total synthesis, they have developed a pathway that utilizes widely available chemicals to synthesize the cancer-fighting molecules found in guava.

“Now chemists will be able to take our manuscripts and basically follow our ‘recipe’ and they can make it themselves,” Chain said.

And now, not only can guava molecules be synthesized to improve liver cancer treatment, the team is also working with the National Cancer Institute to pit the molecule against other types of cancers.

Guava’s secret: Powerful nutrition

When a food comes to the forefront in the fight against cancer, you can delve into its nutritional content and uncover chemopreventive clues as to why…

The leaves of the guava fruit contain potent polyphenols that exhibit strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. The seed, fruit and leaves are also rich in vitamins, folic acid, fiber, carotenoids and fatty acids.

Known cancer-fighting nutrients found in guava include:

• Vitamin C — a potent antioxidant that acts upon free radicals and helps in body detoxification.
• Apigenin — reported to inhibit the cell proliferation of various cancer lines.
• Lycopene — a free radical scavenger, it also acts as an anti-proliferative, anti-metastatic and apoptotic agent. Guava contains more lycopene than watermelon.
• And Kaempferol, which possesses potential anti-carcinogenic and anti-proliferative properties.

Guava has been used medicinally in countries such as India, Malaysia and China. In those countries, it’s not uncommon to boil the leaves to create a liquid extract, also called a decoction. However, it may cause stomach upset and temporary pain and shouldn’t be taken in large quantities.

Eating a guava a day, even a few slices in yogurt or a smoothie, may be more enjoyable.

Sources:

Guava’s secret molecule could fight liver cancer – ScienceDaily

Antitumor effect of guava leaves extract on Ehrlich Ascites carcinoma in mice in vitro and in vivo — Biochemistry Letters

Guava: A potent anticancer fruit—ADMAC Oncology

Liver Cancer – Cleveland Clinic

The post Guava’s secret liver cancer-fighting molecule appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Metabolic dysfunction, such as that caused by type 2 diabetes or obesity, could increase your odds of developing MASLD. Also, MASLD can lead to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), which can cause cirrhosis or severe liver fibrosis, a condition characterized by bands of scar tissue in your liver.

If you’re not careful, MASLD can set off a chain reaction that results in severe liver dysfunction or liver cancer, not to mention a higher risk of death from a host of causes — some not even liver-related…

Fatty liver and mortality risk

Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet identified 13,099 patients diagnosed with MASLD in Sweden between 2002 and 2020 and analyzed their risk of death from different causes compared to the general population.

Their findings were sobering. Overall, people with MASLD had almost twice the mortality rate of the general population!

The risk was elevated for almost all causes of death studied — but it was a whopping 27 times higher for liver disease and 35 times higher for liver cancer.

Interestingly, those weren’t the most prevalent causes of death…

The most common causes of death for these patients were cardiovascular disease, at a 54% higher mortality risk, and non-liver cancer, at a 47% higher mortality risk.

“Many people are not aware that they have fatty liver disease because it rarely causes any symptoms in the earlier stages,” says study lead Axel Wester, assistant professor at the Karolinska Institutet and physician at Karolinska University Hospital. “Our study shows that people diagnosed with MASLD have an increased risk of dying from many different diseases, not just liver disease.”

The study also found people with MASLD had an increased risk of dying from infections, gastrointestinal diseases, respiratory diseases, endocrine diseases or external causes.

“It is important that we do not only focus on the liver when treating patients with fatty liver disease,” says study lead Hannes Hagström, a professor at the Karolinska Institutet and senior physician at Karolinska University Hospital. “A holistic approach and early intervention involving different medical specialties can be crucial to improve the prognosis for these patients.”

Slimming down the liver

The estimates are that 35% of American have MSLD. How do you know if you’re one of them.

Unfortunately, symptoms of MASLD often don’t show up until the damage to the liver is already well underway. But if you have any of the following conditions, it’s safe to assume you may be developing MASLD as well:

• High cholesterol: especially triglycerides and LDL, and low HDL
• Obesity: a condition in which your body mass index (BMI) is 30 or higher (people who carry extra weight in their belly have a higher risk of MASLD)
• Insulin resistance: a condition in which cells in your muscles, fat and liver don’t respond to insulin the way they should
• Type 2 diabetes: a chronic condition that happens when you have perpetually high blood sugar

You may notice the symptoms above add up to metabolic syndrome. It fuels the disease.

If you do think you may be on the path to MASLD, there are a few steps you can take:

• Lose weight. Working to shed excess fat will have the same effect on your liver as the rest of your body. When you’re obese, doctors usually recommend shooting for at least a 10% weight loss, but even losing 3 to 5% of your body weight can make a difference.
• Exercise. An exercise regimen has benefits to the liver unrelated to weight loss. For starters, it enhances the protective capacity of Kupffer cells, which help maintain liver function.
• Manage your blood sugar. Try to avoid added sugar as much as possible, particularly sugary drinks like soda and sweet treats like candy and baked goods.
• Take care of your liver health. If you smoke or drink alcohol, stop. Both these behaviors put a great deal of stress on your liver.

There are also foods you can eat that support the liver:

• Coffee, which lowers abnormal liver enzymes.
• Tofu, which may reduce fat buildup in the liver.
• Fish rich in omega-3s, such as salmon, sardines, tuna and trout, can improve liver fat levels and reduce inflammation.
• Avocados, which contain chemicals that may slow liver damage.
• Low-fat milk and dairy products, which contain whey protein that may protect liver damage from advancing.
• Green tea, which may help shed liver fat.

Sources:

Fatty liver linked to increased risk of death from several diseases — EurekAlert!

Cause-specific mortality in 13,099 patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease in Sweden — Journal of Hepatology

Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD) — Cleveland Clinic

The post The surprising reason fatty liver can double your death risk appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But a full forty percent of cases are not attributable to any of these factors.

Considering that by the end of 2022, about 30,000 people are estimated to die from liver cancer, two public health researchers raised the question of whether the dietary habits of that forty percent might play a role in the development of liver cancer.

Not surprisingly, the answer turned out to be “yes.”

But there was one surprise… the shockingly high risk of liver cancer that came in as little as one drink a day…

Sugary drinks skyrocket the odds of liver cancer

A study of more than 90,000 postmenopausal women found that drinking at least one sugar-sweetened beverage a day was associated with a marked increase in their chances of developing liver cancer, compared with women who drank fewer than three such drinks per month.

“Our findings suggest sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is a potential modifiable risk factor for liver cancer,” said Longgang Zhao, a doctoral candidate at the University of South Carolina, the study’s lead author.

Zhao co-authored the research with Dr. Xuehong Zhang, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

The two study authors evaluated data from 90,504 who took part in the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term study that was started in the early 1990s.

They used food-frequency questionnaires completed by subjects to measure sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, and medical records to confirm liver cancer diagnoses.

The numbers speak for themselves…

Compared with women who never drank sugar-sweetened drinks (or consumed less than three servings per month), women who drank one or more sugar-sweetened beverages per day were 78 percent more likely to develop liver cancer.

Even consuming just one such drink per day increased the likelihood of liver cancer by 73 percent.

Swap for these liver-loving drinks

Even before the present research, we knew that sugary drinks like sodas and fruit drinks could raise cancer risk, particularly for breast cancer. And for years, experts have advised keeping clear of them.

The trend in the last few years shows some people are listening. Sales have started to fall for these cancer drinks. But Dr. Zhao’s research shows the damage that just a few of these drinks can do.

“If our findings are confirmed, reducing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption might serve as a public health strategy to reduce liver cancer burden. Replacing sugar-sweetened beverages with water, and non-sugar-sweetened coffee or tea could significantly lower liver cancer risk.”

So, what are the better choices? Water-based drinks like coffee and tea — which have been found in previous research to offer serious liver protection.

Rich in antioxidants and minerals, green tea is especially renowned for its benefits related to cancer prevention.

Not only that, green tea has been shown to dramatically reduce liver fat and help guard against non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which can increase your risk for liver cancer.

Prefer coffee over tea? Great news there, too. We’ve heard that coffee is a liver-protecting beverage, but depending on how much you drink, it may lower hepatocellular cancer (which can occur in people with liver disease) by as much as 50 percent — not too shabby!

Now, Dr. Zhao suggests taking your coffee and tea without sugar, but even if you have to add just one teaspoon, that’s certainly much less than the 10-12 teaspoons you get in one can of soda.

But it’s worth trying to cut the amount of sugar down by half to gradually go sugar-free. A tiny pinch of salt can counter the bitterness of black coffee. Better, buy a high-quality coffee since you’ll save lots of money on sugar.

Lastly, drink more water. If you can, install a water filter or use a filtering pitcher, that’s even better. Bottled water, and even tap water, to a lesser degree, have become sources of microplastics that carry a host of health problems we’re just starting to learn more about.

Sources

Harvard Doctor Discovers That Drinking Sugary Drinks Increases Your Risk of Liver Cancer by 73% — Sci Tech Daily

Liver Health: 5 Healthy Drinks To Cleanse Your Liver Naturally — NDTV Food

The post The ‘one a day’ that skyrockets women’s liver cancer risk appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Yet, deaths from this cancer are skyrocketing.

In fact, according to the CDC, from 2000 to 2016 alone, deaths due to liver cancer in the U.S. rose by a whopping 43 percent in men and 40 percent in women. This took liver cancer from its spot as the ninth leading cause of cancer death in our country to number six!

But there is good news…

Researchers have found a simple way to keep your liver healthy and decrease your risk of liver cancer dramatically — and their inspiration came from an ancient Chinese proverb…

How fatty is your liver?

You see, one of the main reasons for the rise in liver cancer is due to a condition known as fatty liver. And it’s pretty much what the name implies — an accumulation of fat in the organ.

The rate of fatty liver has been increasing significantly across the world and in the U.S. in particular. It occurs from taking in excess calories that create more fat in the liver than it can break down. You can think of it as a fatty body causing a fatty liver. People who are obese or have diabetes and high triglycerides are prime targets for fatty liver.

Related: How to stop drinking yourself fat

And the thing is, when fat builds up in your liver, your chances of ending up with a tumor there are far greater.

This got an international research team led by Shinshu University School of Medicine to beg the question: Can eating less suppress liver cancer caused by a fatty liver?

Would it lower the amount of fat in the vital organ — and would that translate to lower cancer risk? And how much less would have to be eaten to see improvements?

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Eating less to suppress liver cancer

Previously, the team was able to show that eating a diet too rich in cholesterol, saturated fats and trans-fats increased the incidence of liver tumors.

This time they wanted to go the other way and prove the truth of an old Chinese proverb that says, “to live a long and healthy life, eat until the stomach is 70 percent full. Then you will live healthy, and it might lead to longevity.”

So, they put mice on a diet.

Over a 15-month period, some of their mice ate normally, while others had their food intake reduced by 30 percent — in order to hit that “70 percent full” target from the proverb.

And the results are in…

The team was able to show that reducing food intake by 30 percent or eating until you are just 70 percent full is effective in reducing the likelihood of developing liver cancer from fatty liver.

In fact, they found that the incidence of fatty liver-related liver tumors fell from a massive 41 percent to just 8 percent in a little over a year, simply by cutting back on the amount of food eaten.

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Why dietary restriction works

According to the researchers, you’re less likely to get cancer when you cut your calories for a number of reasons since reducing food intake:

• Suppresses the cell proliferation that allows cancer to run wild.
• Reduces oxidative stress that damages cells.
• Lowers the inflammation linked to cancer and other chronic diseases.
• Decreases the senescence that alters the cellular environment.
• Combats insulin signaling which promotes cancer.
• Increases autophagy so that your body can clean out damaged cells and reduce the likelihood you’ll develop cancer.

A good way to get there: Switch to using a small plate to make your portions look bigger than they are and eat slowly. That way your brain has time to receive that “I’m getting full” signal from your belly before you’ve eaten too much.

For more tips on reducing your food intake read 2 Old-school Golden Rules for Health and Longevity by Margaret Cantwell.

Sources:

Trends in Liver Cancer Mortality Among Adults Aged 25 and Over in the United States, 2000–2016 — CDC

Eating less suppresses liver cancer due to fatty liver — EurekAlert!

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