"Phytates for Rehabilitating Cancer Cells "
The recent observations on phytate as an anticarcinogen
have support from population-based studies
which show lower incidence of cancer
in populations consuming vegetarian type diets.
Because phytate is found in beans, grains, nuts, and seeds,
the average daily intake of phytate in vegetarian diets is about twice
that of those eating mixed diets of plant and animal foods.
Dietary phytate has been reported to prevent kidney stone formation,
protect against diabetes, dental cavities, heart disease,
as well as against a variety of cancers.
Do all these potentially beneficial effects sound too good to be true?
I mean, are there other examples of compounds made by plants
that can have benefits across multiple diseases?
Yes, aspirin, for example,
which is actually found throughout the plant kingdom
and may also account for some plant-based benefits.
But of all the things phytates can do,
the anticancer activity of phytic acid,
also known as also phytate, also known as IP6 or inositol hexaphosphate,
is considered one of the most important beneficial activities.
Dietary phytates are quickly absorbed from the digestive tract
and rapidly taken up by cancer cells throughout the body,
and has been shown to inhibit the growth
of ALL tested cancerous cell lines.
Phytates have been shown to inhibit the growth
of human leukemia cells, colon cancer cells,
both estrogen receptor-positive and negative breast cancer cells,
voice box cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer,
liver tumors, pancreatic, melanoma, and muscle cancers.
At the same time not affecting normal cells.
That’s the most important expectation of a good anticancer agent
is for it to only affect cancerous cells and leave normal cells alone.
And that’s what phytates appear to do.
Leukemia cells taken from cancer patients are killed by phytates,
normal bone marrow cells, however, are spared,
which may explain why bean extracts kill off colon cancer cells,
but seem to leave normal colon cells alone.
Both the in vivo and in vitro experiments
have shown striking anticancer effects.
It was demonstrated that phytate is a broad-spectrum, antineoplastic agent,
meaning anti-tumor agent across different cells and tissue systems.
What are the mechanisms of action by which phytates battle cancer?
How do phytates fight? How don’t they fight?
Look at this. Phytate targets cancer through multiple pathways,
a combination of antioxidant, anti-inflammatory,
and immune-enhancing activities:
detox, differentiation, anti-angiogenesis.
In other words, phytate affects the principal pathways of malignancy.
And not just SOME of them,
apparently, phytate targets and acts on ALL of them.
The antioxidative property is one of the most impressive
characteristics of phytate.
In fact, that’s why the meat industry adds phytates to meat
to prevent the oxidation of fat that begins the moment of slaughter.
Besides affecting tumor cells directly,
phytates can act on our immune functions
by augmenting natural killer cell activity,
the cells in our body that hunt down and dispose of cancer cells,
as well as neutrophils, which help form our first line of defense.
And then starving tumors as more of a last line of defense.
Not only can phytates block the formation of new blood vessels
that may be feeding tumors,
they can disrupt pre-formed capillar tubes,
indicating that phytates may not just help blockade tumors,
but actively cut off existing supply lines.
What’s really remarkable about phytate,
is that unlike most other anti-cancer agents,
it not only causes a reduction in cancer cell growth,
but also enhances differentiation.
Reversion of the appearance of cancer cells back to that of normal,
meaning it causes cancer cells to stop acting like cancer cells
and go back to acting like normal cells.
You can see this with colon cancer cells, for example.
In the presence of phytates, human colon cancer cells mature
to structurally and behaviorally resemble normal cells.
And this has been demonstrated in leukemia cells, prostate cancer,
breast cancer, and muscle cancer cells as well.