01-06-2005

Zinc Treatment Cuts Mouth Cancer Risk in Rats

The mineral zinc may help prevent esophageal and oral cancers in people at high risk, suggests research on rats.

A team from the Kimmel Cancer Center of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia found that rats that are deficient in dietary zinc experience increased expression of COX-2 in the esophagus and tongue, an effect that is accompanied by a hyperplasic phenotype in these areas that is likely relevant to cancer development.

Esophageal and tongue cancers have previously been associated with dietary zinc deficiency, and these cancers often over express COX-2, a characteristic known to contribute to carcinogenesis. Louise Fong and colleagues report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (vol 97, no 1, pp40-50) that COX-2 over expression accompanies hyperplasia in zinc-deficient rats.

Treating the rats with zinc or a COX-2 inhibitor reduced COX-2 over expression and reversed the hyperplasia found in the esophagus.

Courtesy American Longevity Archives