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 research regarding bowel cancer was conducted by scientists from the University of Melbourne in partnership with Cancer Council Victoria and appeared in the Medical Journal of Australia. 106 persons from 25 Australian families were given the opportunity to take part in this study. The thing they all had in common was the fact that in their families there were bowel cancer cases and thus, they were likely to develop intestinal cancer. Thus, they would be able to find out their genetic heritage at a Familial Cancer Clinic.

However, when researchers informed the Australians that there would be some insurance problems if they accepted to take some genetic tests, refusals increased from 20% to 50%. Christine van Vliet, co-lead author of Dr. Keogh, stated that these rejections were the result of insurance implications. Even though health insurance was not affected in any way by this type of testing, getting the other forms of insurance remained questionable. Moreover, the author from School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales states: “However this is not the case in all countries. Since we know all people have some genes which predispose to disease, it is important that the Australian life insurance industry does not deter people from learning about their genetic risks”.

As studies have shown, intestinal cancer represents the second most common malign form that affects both men and women. Statistics proved that one in 3,000 Australians bear the genetic burden that could make them develop bowel cancer. These figures can be improved if those who suffer from high genetic risk of developing cancer would remove their polyps. This procedure could prove to drop by more than 50 percent the number of people suffering from intestinal cancer. This is why it is so important to screen and test people bearing high genetic risk of bowel cancer. However, due to insurance related problems which in the future may prove to have great health consequences for the population, genetically testing people is very hard to be undertaken.

The researchers warn the Federal Government and the Australian insurance industry to study in a deeper sense the issue of genetic testing since this procedure may prove to be one of the best weapons against the mortality caused by bowel cancer. Moreover, the scientists who took part in this study state that persons that have a high genetic risk of developing intestinal cancer can go to a Family Cancer Clinic based on a referral from a general practitioner and find out more about this illness and its genetic mechanisms.

Investigators from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Case Western Reserve University studied hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a type of liver cancer that is one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide. Obesity, type 2 diabetes and metabolic diseases are associated with 30% of the cases of HCC.

John Lambris, Ph.D., the Dr. Ralph and Sallie Weaver Professor of Research Medicine at Penn and senior co-author of the study said “The connection between obesity and cancer is not well understood at this point”, but the researchers try to detect precancerous conditions related to diet through the development of blood tests.

Hepatitis B and C viral infections, exposure to the fungal toxin aflatoxin, chronic alcohol use, or genetic liver diseases represent the other 70% of HCC cases.

Only 10 to 20 percent of hepatocellular carcinoma can be surgically removed, if that option is not possible than death usually comes in three to six months. This type of liver cancer causes about 700,000 deaths worldwide per year.

The tests on high-fat and low-fat diet on mice proved that the strain called C57BL/6J was susceptible to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and hepatocellular carcinoma on a high-fat, but not a low-fat diet. The strain named A/J encountered no such susceptibility no matter the diet.

The diets lasted almost 500 days, at the end of these period, mice predisposed to develop cancer showed characteristics of NASH, like inflammation, fibrosis and even cirrhosis, but if they changed to low-fat diet, these outcomes were reversed.

“The reason these findings are so provocative is that it relates to diet and we now have a unique model we know will develop cancer,” says Lambris.

The work was funded by the National Center for Research Resources and the Charles B. Wang Foundation.