Summary of Flechas's talk in Sept. 
lilypond10
16 y
10,211
~RN
Thanks to the people at breastcancerchoices.org for posting this fascinating summary of Dr. Flechas's talk.
Breastcancerchoices edited what's in red.
this is my favorite quote....
"The more iodine you eat the longer you live and have fewer problems with cancer". - Dr. George Flechas
I'll post the 2 studies the editor comments on next.
Lily
A Summary of Dr. George Flechas' Speech at the September 2008Cancer Control Society
(Editor's Notes are Mine.)"The absence of iodine in the human body is a promoter of cancer."Dr. FlechasThe absence of iodine in the human body is a promoter of cancer. No iodine, lots of cancer.When you go back and look in history at the relationship between iodine and cancer, it was found that people without iodine in the thyroid get a goiter, enlargement of thyroid, and hypothyroidism. A hundred years ago, they discovered that people with a goiter have a higher rate of thyroid cancer, and increased risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, esophogeal cancer, etc.Intermediary Diseases Before Getting CancerThyroid - Normal thyroid tissue... Goiter .... Nodules ... Enlargement ... Thyroid CancerBreast - Normal breast tissue .. Cysts; Nodules, Scar Tissue, Enlargment, Pain ( called fibrocytic disease)... Two or three years ago, a NEJM article found that people with fibrocystic disease ended up having higher rates of having breast cancer.Ovary - Normal ovarian tissue ... Cysts, Nodules, Scar tissue, Enlargement, Pain (called polycystic disease) By late 40's, early 50's may have ovarian cancer.Amounts of Iodine in OrgansFor people who have been on the drug, amiodarone, an organic iodine for heart arrhythmias, and died under the influence of the drug, it was discovered after they died that the body could hold up to 1500 mg of iodine.Most people have 20 mg - 30 mg of iodine in them.The thyroid can hold up to a maximum of 50 mg., which represents less than 3% of the total iodine that the body can hold. But medical professionals have only focused on the thyroid, and have forgotten the rest of the body.Skin: The skin has 20% of the iodine. What does iodine do in the skin? Iodine helps the body to sweat. The absence of sweating is a premonition to let you know that the iodine levels in the body have declined. The absence of iodine promotes cancer.Muscles: 32% of the iodine sits in the muscles. When there are nodules, scar tissue, enlargement, and pain, called fibromyalgia.Iodine in HistoryIn history, it was only thought you needed enough iodine for the population to stave off a goiter. They say that you can get your iodine from salt. But, today, 50% of people do not cook with iodized salt. Plus, many in the fast food industry do not use iodized salt. Iodine used to be in the bread and milk, but it was taken out. The only place you can get iodine is in salt.In Napoleon's day, when iodine was discovered, it was found that iodine is what stops the development of a goiter. If you give iodine, the goiter disappears. It was the first disease that could be stopped.Now, doctors think that if you give iodine, it will cause a goiter. It is the schizophrenia of medicine.We forgot one of our first medical tenets. If you give iodine, it will get rid of a goiter. It does not induce a goiter. And, if it does, something else is wrong.Iodine and CancerIodine takes away the immortality of cancer cells. Cancer cells think of themselves as being immortal. Iodine induces apoptosis. It takes away the immortality of cancer cells. Iodine freezes cellular division, so that cells can not divide and multiply, and divide and multiply. Iodine stops dividing and multiplying.But if you have a wound, you need to have controlled "divide and multiply" quickly to close the wound. It was discovered in the 80's that if you put iodine on a surgical wound, when you take out the sutures, the wound will open up. Why? Iodine will not allow for divide and multiply that is necessary for a surgical wound to close.EstrogenRecent research has found that iodine has the ability to decrease estrogen production in the cells of the body. When you take estrogen for menopause, and if you are starting to take iodine, you may need more estrogen to control the menopausal symptoms. Iodine controls and almost stops the production of estrogen. And iodine decreases the ability of the cells to make receptors for estrogen. Hence, this is the medication, Tamoxifen It has the ability to block these receptors. While iodine decreases the total number of estrogen receptors that are present in the body...Sodium Iodide Symporter (NIS)The absorption of iodine is a protein known as the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) system. The symporter is found in the thyroid and in all cell tissues of the body. The symporter is a transport protein that transports the iodine from a low concentration to a high concentration zone. There is a high concentration in the thyroid and low concentration in the tissues. Iodine has the ability to transport iodine against a gradient, and push it into the tissue.In the breast, two transport systems: Pendrin and NIS.In the breast, the chloride channel, the pendrin, is operational from the beginning.But, in breast cancer, the NIS becomes active in the breast cancer cells. The breast cancer cell, sensing something is wrong, increases NIS to absorb iodine to get rid of the cancer. In Dr. Christine Horner's book, The Making of a Warrior Goddess, she states that 80% of breast cancer cells show evidence of active absorption through the sodium iodide symporter.EXPLOITING NIS IN MICE STUDIES; You can take the sodium iodide symporter - the gene for the symporter -and put it into an AIDS-type virus, a retrovirus, that has the ability to insert genes into the DNA of cells.Lung Cancer Mice Study: Researchers at UCLA put the gene for the symporter into a retrovirus, then put it in and infected the cancer cells of mice with oat cell lung cancer, and all of a sudden the cells could absorb iodine. Result: There was 95% cell death in just a few days. (Editor's Note: From the Lung Cancer Study: This is the first report demonstrating that a therapeutic dose of nonradioactive iodide has potent efficacy and high selectivity against lung cancer when used in combination with genetic modification of cancer cells to express the NIS/TPOgenes.)Prostate Cancer Mice Study: In this Mayo study, researchers loaded NIS in the prostate of mice and gave them iodine and and in a matter of days the prostate cancer was gone. (Editor's Note: In this prostate cancer study, they unfortunately used radioactive iodide.)This is how important iodine is in the body.There are now new therapies to infect a cancer with a virus that contains the symporter that has the ability to increase the body's capability to absorb iodine.Boston Women's StudyYears ago, in Boston, 25,000 women took 5 mg of iodine a day, and were followed for five years. At the end of five years, they had a 50% decrease in the production of breast cancer. So, what we are saying is that the absence of iodine is a promoter of cancer.IQ and IodineIodine determines the IQ in a population. If iodine is taken during pregnancy, the child will have an IQ that is 10-15 points higher in IQ than the parents. On the West Coast, what population would be expected to have a higher IQ? The Asians. They eat seaweed. They eat seaweed all of the time with their meals. Americans maybe eat sushi once a year. There are 20 different kinds of seaweed. Need to incorporate more seaweed in the diet. Learn how to use seaweed in beans, rice, etc. And then we are told not to eat fish because of mercury. But what they don't tell you is that there are small fish that do not have mercury.Chinese Experiment with FluorideIn China, where there isn't much iodine in the population, they flouridated the water system and watched over five years to see if there were any problems. What they found was there were babies born that were cretins, m*o*o*ns, idiots, what ever you want to call it.And here in the US, the iodine has been depleted, taken out of the bread, milk. And we have been told to decrease taking salt in the next five years, they say, by 50%. And they fluoridate the water in the cities here, so what can we expect in the next population?Italian Study with KidsAn absence of iodine in EARLY pregnancy leads to problems. In Italy, they conducted a study with 20 kids from the city (Tuscany) and 20 kids from an ocean area. In the kids from the city, where there was not enough iodine in the water or food, 11 out of 20 kids got Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). In the kids from the ocean area, where they could eat ocean fish and products, zero of the kids got ADD.And here, in the US, between 2000 and 2004, the rate of ADD among adults rose 500%.Subtracting out IodineIf you subtract out iodine, there is decreasing intellect and increasing disease.94% of all American women have fibrocystic disease. Just think about future generations, when there is no iodine in their system.The more iodine you eat, the longer you live and have fewer problems with cancer.Japanese Men and IodineIf you are a man, if you don't die of a heart attack, you will die from prostate cancer.In Japan, when Japanese men develop prostate cancer, they never die of it. Why? The iodine keeps the cancer from spreading beyond the capsule of the prostate.In contrast to the Japanese, in the US, 40% of the men who get prostate cancer will die of the disease.Read Dr. David Derry's book, Breast Cancer and Iodine, on this. Dr. Derry is an MD/PHD, and you can get his book on Amazon. It has the documentation that iodine is crucial for men and women.Also, 1-2 % of US men develop breast cancer. It is not due to taking estrogen. It is due to not getting enough iodine in the diet.So, iodine is crucial for women and men.Why Males Have BreastsThyroperoxidase (TPO) is the enzyme in the thyroid gland that helps iodine get absorbed to make proteins, which is called organification. And then the production of hormones.While women have larger breasts, why do males have breast tissue? In the breast tissue, there is the enzyme, lactoperoxidase (LPO), that helps the body to absorb iodine in all tissues. That is why males have breast tissue.There is now technology to measure iodine saturation in the body.
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Prostrate study lilypond10
16 y
5,039
This is a reply to # 1,276,835As mentioned earlier...too bad they used radioactive iodine....
Lily
October 2001, Volume 8, Number 20, Pages 1524-1531Table of contents Previous Article Next [PDF] 
Research Article In vivo sodium iodide symporter gene therapy of prostate cancer C Spitzweg1, A B Dietz2, M K O'Connor3, E R Bergert1, D J Tindall4, C Y F Young4 and J C Morris1 1Department of Endocrinology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA
2Stem Cell Laboratory, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Rochester, MN, USA
3Department of Nuclear Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA
4Department of Urology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA
Correspondence to: J C Morris, Division of Endocrinology, Mayo Clinic, Guggenheim 625, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
Abstract Radioiodine therapy, the most effective form of systemic radiotherapy available, is currently useful only for thyroid cancer because of thyroid-specific expression of the sodium iodide symporter (NIS). Here we explore the efficacy of a novel form of gene therapy using adenovirus-mediated in vivo NIS gene transfer followed by 131I administration for treatment of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer xenografts in nude mice injected with an adenovirus carrying the NIS gene linked to the cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoter revealed highly active uptake of radioiodine. Following administration of 3 mCi of 131I, we observed an average tumor volume reduction of 84 ± 12%. These results show for the first time that in vivo NIS gene delivery into non-thyroidal tumors is capable of inducing accumulation of therapeutically effective radioiodine doses and might therefore represent an effective and potentially curative therapy for prostate cancer.
Gene Therapy (2001) 8, 1524-1531.
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- Re: Prostrate study whitebeach
16 y
4,687
- Re: Prostrate study lilypond10
16 y
4,772
This is a reply to # 1,277,015Now these fellas have radioactive Iodine sitting in their prostrate glands when regular Iodine could have done the same thing.
lily
- Re: Prostrate study lilypond10
16 y
4,772
- Re: Prostrate study whitebeach
16 y
4,687
- Lung Cancer Study lilypond10
16 y
6,031
This is a reply to # 1,276,835I've quoted the breastcancerchoices.org comment below on the lung study....this is really good stuff.
Lily
Cited below is the first study referenced by Dr. Flechas, a UCLA study in which not only the NIS symporter, but thyroperoxidase (TPO) as well were put into a retrovirus that was put into mice with oat cell lung cancer.The significance of adding TPO to the NIS is that TPO helps to oxidize iodide to form iodine to make hormones and bind to fats to form iodolactones to kill cancer cells.Then iodide was given to the mice - NONRADIOACTIVE IODIDE!With all of the NIS to help the iodide get in, more than 95% of the mice's oat cell lung cancer cells were killed. Way cool.What great UCLA researchers to try using nonradioactive iodide to kill the lung cancer!
[Cancer Research 63, 5065-5072, August 15, 2003]
© 2003 American Association for Cancer Research
Regular Articles
Nonradioactive Iodide Effectively Induces Apoptosis in Genetically Modified Lung Cancer Cells1
Ling Zhang , Sherven Sharma , Li X. Zhu , Takahiko Kogai , Jerome M. Hershman , Gregory A. Brent , Steven M. Dubinett2 and Min Huang2Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine [L. Z., S. S., L. X. Z., S. M. D., M. H.], Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine [T. K., J. M. H., G. A. B.], Lung Cancer Research Program of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center [S. M. D.], and Department of Pathology, David Geffen School of Medicine [M. H.], University of California Los Angeles and Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, California 90073
ABSTRACT
We assessed a nonradioactive approach to induce apoptosis in non-small cell lung cancer by a novel iodide uptake and retention mechanism. To enhance tumor apoptosis, we transduced non-small cell lung cancer cells with retroviral vectors containing the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) and thyroperoxidase (TPO) genes. Expression of NISand TPOfacilitated concentration of iodide in tumors. As a consequence of the marked increase in intracellular levels of iodide, apoptosis was seen in >95% of NIS/TPO-modified lung cancer cells. Intraperitoneal injection of potassium iodide resulted in significant tumor volume reduction in NIS/TPO-modified tumor xenografts without apparent adverse effects in SCID mice. Iodide induced an increase in the level of reactive oxygen species. Iodide-induced apoptosis is sensitive to N-acetylcysteine inhibition, suggesting an important role by reactive oxygen species in this apoptotic process. In addition, iodide-induced apoptosis is associated with overexpression of CDKN1A (p21/Waf1)and down-regulation of survivin at both mRNA and protein levels. This is the first report demonstrating that a therapeutic dose of nonradioactive iodide has potent efficacy and high selectivity against lung cancer when used in combination with genetic modification of cancer cells to express the NIS/TPOgenes.
- Re: Summary of Flechas's talk in Sep... HarmonicCharge
16 y
4,714
This is a reply to # 1,276,835Thank you so much for posting, Lilypond!
Very concentrated info, yet easy to read & understand.
- Re: Summary of Flechas's talk in Sep... whitebeach
16 y
4,694
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