inhibits growth, induces cell death in prostate cancer cells but no effect on normal prostate cells

Please read the information in this thread skeptically. Some of it comes from discredited sources (researchers who have been forced to resign of for fabrication of data), and some of it is quite old by the standards of medical research such that it is unlikely that the authors, were they to write the studies today, would offer the same opinions.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't read the information -- it's an interesting discussion, I think -- but pay attention to the dates on things and bear in mind that in many cases subsequent research has produced surprises and a degree of controversy. I have tried to mark references to studies where one of the principal authors has since resigned under a cloud for fabricating data. The organization of which he was the head is quite large and has hundreds of researcher who work diligently and report their results honestly. It's tragic that their hard work is called into question by the involvement of one man, overeager for positive results, but there it is. Hopefully they can sort it out but they haven't yet. -- PeterDisAbelard

I admit I'm at least a little curious if this will cause a flame war this week. I do think its important enough to give it a try.

Note, I don’t sell or promote anything, I'm not even suggesting anyone take this. I just think it’s vitally important that this situation be monitored closely by prostate cancer patients. Until then a palm full of black walnuts won’t hurt anyone.

From Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130314175659.htm
"This is the first demonstration of a unique mechanism of how vitamin E can have some benefit in terms of cancer prevention and treatment," said lead author Ching-Shih Chen, professor of medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy at The Ohio State University and an investigator in Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center. Professor Chen was forced to resign for fabricating data in multiple studies.
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Chen cautioned that taking a typical vitamin E supplement won't offer this benefit for at least two reasons: === AKA the SELECT study
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This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

More from Rutgers…
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120423132015.htm
Scientists at the Center for Cancer Prevention Research, at Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, believe that two forms of vitamin E -- gamma and delta-tocopherols -- found in soybean, canola and corn oils as well as nuts do prevent colon, lung, breast and prostate cancers.

Yang says, it is important to distinguish between the different forms of vitamin E and conduct more research on its cancer preventive and other biological effects. == AKA the friggin SELECT study!!!!!!

Changing studies here.
Overall, the risk of prostate cancer decreased by 21% for every 25-mg/L increase in blood α-tocopherol level.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0093044

The frustrating part is this goes back to this girl in 2004 with impeccable credentials. But no big clinical trials, why?
https://www.purdue.edu/hhs/nutr/directory/faculty/jiang_qing.html
We have recently showed that gamma-tocopherol, but not alpha-tocopherol, inhibits growth and induces cell death in prostate and lung cancer cells but has no effect on normal prostate epithelial cells. Our study demonstrates that gamma-tocopherol induce cell death by interrupting sphingolipid synthesis.

(Link deleted by Bubba)

more
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3381336/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21400505
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15596715

(Link deleted by Bubba)

Post Edited By Moderator (PeterDisAbelard.) : 9/14/2018 9:54:46 AM (GMT-6)

Thats fine, read and ignore is perfectly ok.
Curious what part of this is of zero interest you -> induce cell death in human prostate cancer cells

Excellent points, however I think I covered each of them?

"My only question is.....how does this material help the men on this forum at this point."
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It doesn't, I said its a situation that needs to be monitored. The first link talks about a patent application so a study is coming but sadly may be several years away. One of the links talks about the natural form, which is preferred.

mattamx said...
Keep posting bub, people can choose to read or not. If one does choose to ignore it, I don’t see how leaving a snarky response is helpful.

Absolutely, Bubba! We are smart enough to figure out whether it is useful or even interesting info or not. And we can see when a study is a high quality human RCT or just some hypothesis generating preliminary work. In the mean time, I find such as this, at least some of it, something I'd like to be informed of. A post such as this should NEVER start a flame war, assuming all respondents, including those with differing opinions, remain respectful and friendly. And also assuming that the OP, when reading opinions that might disagree with him, remains respectful and friendly to the former when they present their differing opinions. Presented, of course, in a respectful and friendly way. And I hope and believe that applies to all of us.

And I sure do agree with you about "Until then a palm full of black walnuts won’t hurt anyone.".

Thanks for the links, I have already read a couple and find some of it of interest.

The Select study used synthetic vitamin E, which is not good and actually depletes the good forms. We've learned a thing or two about it since then.
This link is annoying but it gives some good info all in one place.

Later in this thread it was agreed that this link is not worth visiting.
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/dl-alpha-tocopherol-acetate

Luckily we have a clinical pharmacist in the thread.
PDL17 any opinion on synthetic vitamin E?

Post Edited By Moderator (PeterDisAbelard.) : 9/13/2018 10:41:53 PM (GMT-6)

Q Jiang has a new study coming out on the subject. Here's a link to the abstract:

Natural Forms of Vitamin E as Effective Agents for Cancer Prevention and Therapy.

The abstract starts: Initial research on vitamin E and cancer has focused on α-tocopherol (αT), but recent clinical studies on cancer-preventive effects of αT supplementation have shown disappointing results, which has led to doubts about the role of vitamin E, including different vitamin E forms, in cancer prevention. However, accumulating mechanistic and preclinical animal studies show that other forms of vitamin E, such as γ-tocopherol (γT), δ-tocopherol (δT), γ-tocotrienol (γTE), and δ-tocotrienol (δTE), have far superior cancer-preventive activities than does αT.

So, Bubba. Her review found very encouraging results with cell cultures in pitri dishes and a few mice. Some of the supplements in my daily fist-full-o-pills have similar support in research. I'm a sucker for mouse studies. But I'm not sure I would identify any of them as something that it is vitally important for prostate cancer patients to monitor. I mean, surely it doesn't take all of us to monitor the research on alternate forms of vitamin E. It's not a very fast changing body of evidence. I'm not sure I see the urgency.

Bubbatc said...
The Select study used synthetic vitamin E, which is not good and actually depletes the good forms. We've learned a thing or two about it since then...................

Right. but I wonder what they used in that Finland study that showed very good results? I mean, other than alpha? Natural or synthetic? I do not know, but results were good. Maybe could have been better with natural and some gamma/delta mixed in.

BillyBob said...
Right. but I wonder what they used in that Finland study that showed very good results?

Nicotine?

They were all smokers.

142 said...
I spent a November in Finland once. If you can survive a winter, you are stronger than I am!

Maybe they are just so toughened by those winters that the vitamin E(even Alpha) was unable to make their PC worse, like the SELECT trial? Or, as PDA says, maybe the nicotine, plus maybe combined with the winters, killed their PC?

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 9/12/2018 9:08:52 PM (GMT-6)

Green Med Info?

oops yes sorry, I was leaving work and tried to find something quick.
I never heard of them and they seem kinda shady. Can we strike that one from the record?

I also think we have to be very precise when composing the topic here. The topic should mention whether the results were mice, test tube or human results.
A lot of online news articles have misleading headlines that don't give context.

I would also mention the first article is from 2013, 5+ years ago.
Good luck on your research.

Post Edited (RobertC) : 9/12/2018 7:13:22 PM (GMT-6)

PeterDisAbelard. said...
Candidly, Bubba,

I don't care much about the SELECT study.

Nor do I care much about your encouraging mouse studies from several years ago. There are soooo many things that kill cancer cells in a petri dish or extend the survival of xenograft mice. They have a dismaying habit of not proving out in human trials.

Your title for this thread doesn't mention vitamin E, natural or otherwise, or mice. Instead you lead with "inhibits growth, induces cell death in prostate cancer cells but no effect on normal prostate cells" and yeah, one of your researchers might have said that but they were talking about mouse studies, or in vitro. You seem to want to make natural vitamin E sound like a cure for cancer. That's possible, I suppose, it might turn out to be such but I sort of doubt it and it would be years away.

I don't mind your posting your studies, or your article from a company that sells supplements*, but I don't share your excitement about them.

*I use some of their supplements, by the way. They're a little pricey but when you want a particular form of something (like your natural vitamin E, for instance, which I don't take) they are often one of the few places to get it.

RobertC said...
I also think we have to be very precise when composing the topic here. The topic should mention whether the results were mice, test tube or human results.
A lot of online news articles have misleading headlines that don't give context.

John T said...
Vit E and selenium were big in 2008, in reducing PC risk. Never lived up to the hype.

I would like to mention again that the study I quoted from Finland was an RCT of 29,000 men, which is pretty big, almost as big as SELECT. And the results, EVEN THOUGH USING THE NOW MUCH MALIGNED ALPHA ONLY VIT E, were: “Long-term supplementation with alpha-tocopherol substantially reduced prostate cancer incidence and mortality in male smokers. Other controlled trials are required to confirm the findings.”.

And just as important, the good results were seen more when dealing with actual clinical PC, rather than latent PC.IOW, when the PC was advancing to the int of being clinically evident, the results were more obvious. “The reduction was evident in clinical prostate cancer but not in latent cancer. Mortality from prostate cancer was 41% lower (95% CI = -65% to -1%) among men receiving alpha-tocopherol.”.

What the heck, guys, that was pretty impressive! And it is a flat out, sho nuff, RCT. Every bit as much as SELECT was. I know it is an old trial, but it is still there, the results ar still there, and unless it is proven a fraud, it is still 100% valid.

Does any one know if there was something known about later that proved this study to be tainted? This is the first I’ve heard of this study, I stumbled onto it by accident by following Bubba’s links. But unless this study has been tossed out, it seems the best we have when combined with the SELECT study(which I think does have some limitations) is a great big wash. In fact, I feel there is a slight advantage in favor of Vitamin E use(even Alpha only) since the SELECT trial only showed a 17% increase in PC diagnoses and with no increase in mortalities as far as I know. While the Finland study showed a 32% decease in clinical PC and a 42% lower mortality. So the Finland study was was more better than the SELECT study was bad, so to speak. But worst case scenario is all the SELECT trial did was fail to confirm this earlier study.

But what I’d like to know is why I have heard so much about the SELECT trial and it’s bad news for synthetic Alpha Vitamin E but I have never heard of the Finland RCT and it's good results for Alpha Vitamin E? It seems to me that it is not at all outrageous to believe that there might indeed be some benefits to vitamin E for PC, especially if mixed forms and more natural varieties are used, rather than pure synthetic Alpha. Of course I could be wrong, but it seems to me the worst case is we still need more studies. But considering the conflict in these results- with one as valid as the other IMO, it probably doesn’t hurt to supplement a small amount with some mixed forms of natural vitamin E, or to eat plant of foods that are good sources of natural E. I personally have been doing the later since my surgery. Considering my already high risk, it does not appear to have hurt me any. And after all, I’ve got to eat something. Why not eat some vitamin E until proven unsafe? I think I will continue to do so. I'm even considering looking into a little supplementation, which the SELECT trial had scared me away from.

Do Y'all think I am crazy to consider that Finland trial at least as important as the SELECT trial? If so, why? Any reason not to trust Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Finland? I doubt they are trying to corner the Vitamin E market and hoping to sell more of it. I'd just like to know your thoughts.

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 9/12/2018 10:58:02 PM (GMT-6)