D2 vitamin represents a food supplement for preventing and treating deficiency of vitamin D both for adults and children. If the patient desires to extend the duration of his or her D2 treatment for let`s say a period of just one week after the first decisive two months up to six years after them, the person just prevents the deficiency of vitamin D but with no adverse side-effects that could threaten his or her health.

The investigation undergone by researchers from Boston University School of Medicine is released on the Internet in the Archives of Internal Medicine journal. The research was led by Michael Holick who is the director of the Bone Healthcare Clinic Vitamin D, Skin and Bone Research Laboratory within the Boston University School of Medicine

Vitamin D is an important element in developing stronger bone mass due to the fact that it stimulated the organism to assimilate phosphorus and calcium from the food one eats or from exposure to the natural sunlight. The deficiency of vitamin D may trigger rickets in kids and the osteomalacia condition which represents a very painful illness in adults. This type of deficiency may also stimulate the appearance of osteoporosis and has also been associated with an enhanced predisposition of heart disease, autoimmune diseases, cancer, diabetes and viral illnesses comprising influenza.

The team of investigators focused on a sample of 86 patients. 41 of the people with vitamin D deficiency had to take for a period of two months 50,000 International Units of vitamin D2 on a weekly basis before commencing maintenance treatment. For this group, the average prior to treatment level of 25(OH)D (25-hydroxyvitamin D status) was of 19 ng/ml. After the two months of treatment, this initial level increased to 37 ng/ml. After this, this group of patients received a treatment of 50,000 International Units of vitamin D2 once every two weeks and recorded an average final level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D status of 47 ng/ml.

The remaining 45 people took just maintenance treatment comprising intakes of 50,000 International Units of vitamin D2 once every two weeks. They recorded a prior-to-treatment average level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D status of 27 ng/ml and afterwards, a final average of 47 ng/ml.

As Michael Holick who is director of the General Clinical Research Unit and teacher of medicine, physiology and biophysics within Boston University School of Medicine, also, states taking vitamin D2 brings a positive outcome because it increases the levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D status if it is taken in physiologic and pharmacologic dosage. In treatments against deficiencies of vitamin D, if patients take lager doses of vitamin D2 they should stay calm because they have no adverse effects.

This investigation represents the first of its kind that proves just how effective the treatment with vitamin D2 in counteracting vitamin D deficiency, over the long-term and as a continuous practice.

The study focusing on this theme was released on the 8th of October this year in San Francisco at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Breast Cancer Symposium.

The research focused on a sample of 166 females that were under therapy against breast tumors. It was discovered that almost 70% of the women suffered from a deficiency of vitamin D according to blood tests.

As Luke Peppone from the department of Radiation Oncology at the Rochester’s James P. Wilmot Cancer Center states, this supplement is a key agent in improving and keeping the bone mass at a healthy level and females suffering from breast tumors encounter an aggressive loss of the bone mass due the various treatments and chemo against the malign illness. The researcher advises both women and medical doctors to collaborate and have a good understanding of the fact that the female needs to take high doses of vitamin D to prevent eventual fractures.

The National Cancer Institute financed the study of the researchers in order for them to examine the levels of vitamin D in the blood of every female. It was established that the mean level of vitamin D was 27 nanograms per milliliter, meaning than over two thirds of the females suffered from low levels of this supplement. The investigators gave each woman a weekly dose of the vitamin of about 50,000 units and it their supplement level grew.

For those who do not know, the United States Institute of Medicine recommends a level of almost 32 nanograms per milliliter of vitamin D in the body. This is rather logical because, as the team of scientists state older researches proved that almost a half of the total number of both men and women suffer from vitamin D deficiency, their blood testing uncovering levels under the 32 naongrams per milliliter recommended value.

The D vitamin can be acquired by the organism through milk and fortified cereals consumption and by exposure to the natural light of the sun. This food supplement represents a key agent in cellular development, enhances the immune properties of the human body and makes the bones more powerful.

People suffering from low levels of vitamin D present muscular pain, low bone mass which may trigger fractures, are not very energetic and are tired and have problems with their immune system. Moreover, they present depressions and strange mood changes, have problems with sleeping. All of the above symptoms are present in females that suffer from breast tumors and are under therapy.

The team of scientists conducting this research came from from the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York. One of the authors of this research concerning the effects of vitamin A over the human body, Ulrich Hammerling stated that his team of researchers focused both on the positive effects this supplement has over the human body as well as on the negative side-effects an overdose with this type of vitamin may inflict on a person. Even though there are few cases in our nowadays community of insufficiency of vitamin A, people tend to think that large amounts of this vitamin represent no harm. However, overdosing on vitamin A may lead to deregulations in the cellular energy production process with negative outcomes such as uncontrollable cellular growth or a high cell mortality rate.

As stated previously in the article, vitamin A represents an important nutritional agent for the human body and even more for the fetal growth. However, until these days the negative effects of overdosing from vitamin A remained vaguely known and even unnoticed. This recent research presented the potentially negative effects of this type of overdose or insufficiency such as organ damages, for example.

The research conducted by the team from the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research showed the causes for the appearance of these negative effects and also, the positive role vitamin A plays in counteracting cancer. For their study, the scientists underwent research on various cellular cultures coming from mice and human beings. The team of researchers strived to observe the genetic transformations involved in the energy production process at the mitochondrial level. The cellular samples were bred on the one hand with vitamin A embedded in them and on the other hand without its presence. The researchers studied the effects and modifications that took place at several levels of the energy production process. Outcomes proved that retinol which is an important element of vitamin A is also a key agent in the metabolic process of mitochondria and also plays the role of some kind of a food sensor in the process of cellular energy production. If there is either an insufficiency or an overdose of vitamin A in the organism, the mitochondria does not metabolize as it should properly do causing damage to the body`s organs.

As the chief editor of the FASEB Journal Gerald Weissmann stated as a conclusion for the presented study, it seems that the negative effects of vitamin A go deep in the human body affecting the nuclei of the cells and at the same time the state of one`s health due to the organ damage it may cause. Those who make over-use of beauty products rich in vitamin A should be aware of the overdose negative effects which may lead in the long-run to deadly effects.

The conclusions of the study can be found in Nature Chemical Biology issue. The study comprises observations regarding T cells of the immune system which act as regulators between the immune cells that show a particular aggressive behavior and their environment through a chemical reaction. Professor Ruma Banerjee is the study`s senior author and activates in the Vincent Massey Collegiate Professor of Biological Chemistry and associate chair of biological chemistry at the U-M Medical School. He explains: “Now we know that the redox environment outside the cell is a very important dynamic. It regulates cell function.” These redox chemical processes represent the milestones in the manner cells produce and consume energy.

The T-cells have a regulatory role in the aggressive behavior of the aggressive immune cells also known as auto-reactive T cells. The normal T-cells act in two way, they either stop the aggressive cousin cells or make them to increase in number. The proliferation of aggressive immune cells triggers the inflammation of the intestine entitled IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) and also causes ulcerative colitis.

Researchers on Professor Banerjee`s team want to deepen the studies about the regulatory T cells and plan to experiment on animals. Due to the fact that this type of cells influences the response of the body to diseases, pregnancy and organ transplant, scholars wish to find out more about the way the aggressive T cells can be counteracted by their normal variant.

Background

The immune system contains cells that confuse the own body`s components and treat them as threats and start attacking them. Auto-reactive T cells trigger multiple sclerosis, Crohn`s disease, lupus, and so on and so forth. These represent immune diseases caused by the fact that the cells in the human body attack each other. This is why scholars desire to discover the way in which normal T cells can stall or stop the activity of aggressive auto-reactive T cells. Furthermore, researchers want to find a way to make auto-reactive T cells recognize and try to destroy the cancer cells.

It has been discovered that the redox chemistry has an important part in the mechanism of regulation of immune cells. Even if this is still an emerging field in medicine, it is not least important due to the fact that redox can help cure many diseases. The researchers believe that their observations and discoveries will bring in the future the knowledge to regulate the T regulatory in order to cure diseases and stop the body`s cells from aggressive behavior against one another. The first author of this study, graduate student Zhonghua Yan states: “Redox chemistry is a mechanism that is fundamentally important in understanding T regulatory cell actions.” says

Conducting research and future plans

The team of researchers studied the immune system of mice by looking at culture dishes with immune cells. They discovered that between dendritic cells and auto-reactive T cells there is redox communication. The first represent the immune cells that are the prime ones in detecting foreign bodies in the human body and they change the chemical environment in order to stimulate the activation of the T cells. However, these immune regulatory cells get involved in the redox communication and minimize the effect.

Researchers recognize the fact that many more studies are needed in order to better understand the way these processes work. Moreover they wish to do experiments on animals suffering from inflammatory bowel disease or any other immune disease. Professor Ruma Banerjee states: “We are keen to move this into a disease model.” The researchers` desire is an accomplishable one due to the fact that past studies made it easy to understand the way in which regulatory T cells interfere in the redox chemistry.

This study is published in journal Science in the September issue. The research team was composed of: Nitai Hait, Jeremy Allegood, Michael Maceyka, Graham Strub, Kuzhuvelil Harikumar, Sandeep Singh, Tomasz Kordula, Cheng Luo, Ronen Marmorstein, Sheldon Milstien. They were led in their studies by Professor Sarah Spiegel from Virginia Commonwealth University, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department. The costs of the research were supported in the form of a grant received from the National Institutes of Health.

Professor Spiegel is well-known for innovative work regarding newly discovered lipid mediators, even though the scope of S1P concerned with cellular development was discovered almost ten years ago. The nuclei of the cells produce and comprise Shingosine-1-phosphate. Knowing that the nucleus of a cell also contains DNA which encrypts the genetic material of every being, S1P also plays a great role in regulating some specific genes. The researchers uncovered the methods by which cancer infected cells generate Shingosine-1-phosphate and discovered the lipid`s role in regulating the gene expression.

Conducting their research, the scientists proved that Shingosine-1-phosphate is produced by sphingosine kinase type 2 found in the nucleus of a cell. The bioactive lipid behaves like a chemotherapeutic drug and fights against cancer by regulation of the genes. S1P has the characteristics of histone deacetylase inhibitors. These complexes of enzymes have the capacity to regulate a large number of gene expressions that encrypt the proteins concerned with cancer and a significant number of other diseases in human beings. Even though the physiological regulators of the histone deacetylase inhibitors are unknown, these families of enzymes can be found in some clinical trials. As Professor Spiegel, lead author of the study states: “Our work shows that S1P is a physiologically important regulator of histone deacetylases. We believe that our studies will help in the development of a new class of histone deacetylase inhibitors that might be useful for treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases.”

The team of researchers discovered before this study that type 1 sphingosine kinase also produces Shingosine-1-phosphate but unlike type 2 sphingosine kinase, the type one variant produces the bioactive lipid outside its nucleus. Moreover, this type of sphingosine kinase has disappointing results when it comes to numerous types of human cancers. The researchers managed to develop an inhibitor for type 1 sphingosine kinase which, during clinical trials, proved to be very effective in mice. The inhibitor was very efficient in counteracting brain cancer tumors and leukemia, and the scientists believe it to be the same in the case of human illnesses.

Biologist Michael Cosgrove was the leader of the research team. During their experiments on the Mixed Lineage Leukemia (MLL) protein complex, they discovered that the MLL was not the single molecular mechanism in the protein. In fact, there were two molecular switches present in the complex, one of which no one ever knew before. They named it W-Rad.

Healthy cells contain MLL which comprises four proteins that include the second molecular switch discovered by the research team. Their role is to control the DNA pack activities needed to create white blood cells. If this switch is broken, the white blood cells develop in a bad manner which causes abnormal cells to form. Same as the Mixed Lineage Leukemia, if the proteins forming the W-RAD complex grew in large numbers they would determine the appearance of various types of cancer cells. However, researchers do not properly know which the functions of these proteins are.

The research team studied this processes and discovered that the newly found W-RAD proteins created a brand new molecular switch which was never known before their study. A switching process of the W-RAD complex leads to an overproduction of abnormal cells. This is why Cosgrove`s team hopes that they would be able to find a method to stop the W-RAD`s mechanism in order to stall of prevent the multiplication of the cancer cells and maybe transforming them into healthy ones.

Cosgrove`s scientific team discovered many interesting and important things in the field of leukemia. They managed to approach a damaged Mixed Lineage Leukemia switch with an artificial peptide. This synthetic peptide is thought to have the ability to program the way DNA is wrapped in leukemia infected cells in order to transform the ill cells into normal ones.

This new research is also published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Due to these two major studies, the scientific team received from the American Cancer Society a research grant in total value of $720,000 in order to continue their exploration in the field of leukemia.

Resulting from inadequate alimentary intakes coupled with inadequate sunlight exposure, vitamin D deficiency could cause a series of diseases ranging from osteoporosis, rickets and other bone diseases to cancer and cognitive impairment in the elderly. In the conditions of growing awareness of the fact that this condition is becoming more and more present, developing an accurate, reliable set of standards for measuring vitamin D levels in blood proved to be a high priority, since there is no standard laboratory test for measuring vitamin D levels in humans and no universal agreement on what are considered “normal” or “optimal” vitamin D levels, although recent advances were made in this way.

A three year research, involving and funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) Office of Dietary Supplements of the US, recently came up with a standard for measuring vitamin D. Set to be revealed to the public later this year, this development could prove to lead to a better understanding of vitamin D in health and disease.

The main difficulty in developing an accurate testing method being the fact that there are more types of vitamin D of clinical significance (such as 25-hydroxyvitamin D2 and 25-hydroxyvitamin D3) than the 25-hydroxyvitamin D which is the most commonly used indicator of a person’s vitamin D status, NIST developed Standard Reference Material 972 (SRM 972) to account for them.
The material consists of four pools of human blood serum as reference points, each containing different amounts of 25-hydroxyvitamin D2 and D3 to represent vitamin D profiles normally seen in a clinical setting:
1. “normal” serum, containing mostly 25-hydroxyvitamin D3;
2. vitamin D deficient individuals, containing about half as much 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 as the “normal” pool;
3. elevated levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D2;
4. high levels of 3-epi-25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (the form of vitamin D typically found in the blood of small children).

All samples, collected from a wide cross-section of blood donors, were carefully measured using a combination of highly sensitive analytical chemistry tools and by using them as reference points, clinical laboratories can now do more accurate and reliable measurements and patients can be better informed about their vitamin D intakes.

In a development that could help fight osteoporosis, rickets and other bone diseases, scientists are reporting an advance toward an accurate set of standards for measuring vitamin D levels in the blood. Milk (image) is a well-recognized source of the vitamin. (Credit: Max Rubner Institute)

597 women with breast cancer and 966 healthy women of Chinese, Japanese and Filipino descent living in San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles or Hawaii took part in a research in which their mothers who were also living in the US were questioned about their daughters’ frequency of soy consumption in childhood. By dividing soy intake into thirds and comparing the highest and lowest groups, researches concluded that high intake of soy in childhood was associated with a 58 percent reduction in breast cancer and 20 to 25 percent reduction in the adolescent and adult years. The results were conclusive regardless of race, study site and family history. The study lead investigator, Larissa Korde, M.D., M.P.H., a staff clinician at the NCI’s Clinical Genetics Branch, stated:
“Since the effects of childhood soy intake could not be explained by measures other than Asian lifestyle during childhood or adult life, early soy intake might itself be protective. Soy isoflavones have estrogenic properties that may cause changes in breast tissue. Animal models suggest that ingestion of soy may result in earlier maturation of breast tissue and increased resistance to carcinogens.”

While researchers are aware of the fact that this one study is not enough for a public health recommendation, the findings need to be further investigated for their highly potential value in breast cancer prevention.

Although they were primarily conceived as a treatment for osteoporosis and other bone diseases, recent discoveries show that bisphosphonates also have inhibitory effects on enzymes such as FPPS and GGPPS, which leads to killing cancer cells with more efficiency that the drugs aimed at the protein Ras (which presents mutations in a third of human cancer cells and represented a less successful target for drug developers).

Derived from bisphosphonates (and used alongside hormonal treatment) the drug zoledronate proved effective in reducing the recurrence of breast cancer in premenopausal women with estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer and hormone-refractory prostate cancer in men but its efficiency proved diminished by the fact that it binds faster to the bone rather than getting to the tissues where it was needed.

In trying to find a new drug that wouldn’t have this side effect and which would also inhibit more than just one enzyme in the cancer cell’s survival pathway, a new study was carried, led by Professor Eric Oldfield of the University of Illinois. The research team managed to produce drugs that bonded to multiple enzyme targets but not to bone, of which BPH-715 effectively inhibited tumor cell growth and invasiveness and killed tumor cells in mice. BPH-715, as well as zoledronate, also has the effect of increasing the production of gamma delta T-cells, immune system cells that also kill tumor cells.