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Glutamine: The Surprising Link to Prostate Cancer -thoughts?
A groundbreaking study published in ASN Neuro reveals a significant breakthrough in cancer research. This research shifts the paradigm in cancer biology, establishing glutamine fermentation as a critical metabolic pathway. By targeting the dual dependency on glucose and glutamine, this approach offers the potential to revolutionize cancer treatment and significantly reduce mortality rates. For the first time, it demonstrates that amino acid fermentation, particularly of glutamine, plays a pivotal role in the dysregulated growth of tumor cells. This discovery advances our understanding of cancer metabolism and has profound implications for treatment strategies.
Key Findings:
Glutamine as a Primary Fermentable Fuel:
Among all 20 amino acids tested, glutamine uniquely promotes robust tumor growth in both mouse and human glioblastoma cells.
Glutamine is metabolized into succinate through a fermentation process, even in the absence of oxygen and glucose.
Non-Oxidative Energy Production:
Tumor cells produce ATP through mitochondrial substrate-level phosphorylation, independent of oxidative phosphorylation.
This process persists in the absence of glucose, oxygen, or functional oxidative phosphorylation pathways (e.g., when inhibited by cyanide).
Mechanistic Insights:
Labeling experiments with C13-glutamine confirm the production of C13-succinate as a fermentation end product.
This demonstrates that tumor cells depend on glutamine fermentation rather than traditional respiration for energy.
Synergistic Role of Glucose and Glutamine:
Tumor cells exploit the synergy between glucose and glutamine metabolism to sustain rapid, dysregulated growth.
Clinical Validation:
In vivo experiments show that targeting both glucose and glutamine metabolism, combined with nutritional ketosis, dramatically reduces tumor growth with minimal toxicity.
Implications:
Revisiting Warburg's Hypothesis:
While Warburg identified cancer as a mitochondrial metabolic disease, this study clarifies that tumors utilize two fermentable fuels—glucose and glutamine—for survival and growth.
The study challenges the traditional view that oxygen consumption in tumors is linked to ATP production through oxidative phosphorylation.
Treatment Strategies:
Combining dietary interventions (e.g., ketosis) with therapies targeting glucose and glutamine metabolism offers a promising, low-toxicity approach to cancer management.
The findings provide a blueprint for addressing major cancers, including lung, colon, bladder, and breast cancer, which exhibit similar metabolic traits.
This research shifts the paradigm in cancer biology, establishing glutamine fermentation as a critical metabolic pathway. By targeting the dual dependency on glucose and glutamine, this approach offers the potential to revolutionize cancer treatment and significantly reduce mortality rates.
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Thanks of the post!
Can you provide a link to the study you reference?
I purchased a copy and read Thomas Seyfried's 2012 book "Cancer as a Metabolic Disease"...its written in the fashion of a graduate level biochemistry textbook and assumes the reader has a good grasp of, at a minimum, undergraduate organic chemistry...so I have an interest in this line of research.
I had previously seen Dr. Geo YouTube video and I watched it again, after your post. I came away with a few notable observations from this video:
1) Dr.'s Gong & Espinosa both agree that glutamine, is a "non-essential" amino acid that is produced by the body and it is the most abundant amino acid in our blood.
2) Localized lower/intermediate risk prostate cancer cells are LESS glucose dependent than other types of cancer.
3) Dr. Gong's earlier research indicated that localized prostate cancer (Gleason 6, 7 and 8) were NOT influenced by glutamine blocking mechanisms. Apparently, it's a controversial point, in medical research circles, that glutamine influences these lower/intermediate PCa types.
4) Advanced prostate cancer (MCRPC & MCSPC), and especially neuroendocrine prostate cancer, DOES appear to be glutamine "addicted". This is where the the glutamine based research appears to be the most promising and focused; but NOT through modified diet.
5) In pancreatic cancer, the research shows the blocking glutamine makes the cancer MORE RESISTANT...therefore, one needs to be very careful before making conclusions about attempting to restrict glutamine...by any means. In fact, glutamine is absolutely necessary for proper functioning in other parts of the body.
It seems to me that the one thing that everyone (Seyfried, Gong, Espinosa and virtually every traditional cancer physician) in the cancer research arena ALL agree...the one thing that is definitely helpful in slowing cancer...EXERCISE, EXERCISE, EXERCISE.
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5 ReactionsYeah, there's a chain of miscommunication
1. Researchers cautiously over-emphasise the significance of their work ("Important new avenue to explore in future research"), because competition for grants and appointments is fierce.
2. Influencers and websites recklessly amplify that into full-on hype ("Big prostate cancer breakthrough!!!").
3. Alternative-health types then draw unwarranted conclusions from that hype and a bit of Googling (e.g. "New scientific discovery!!! Eating less tofu can prevent prostate cancer!!!").
As long as we avoid all that nonsense, though, it is interesting to hear what researchers are exploring.
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5 ReactionsI was mostly vegan for many years before I was diagnosed with Prostate cancer on March 5th, 2024. I used to eat once or twice wild caught Salmon and occasionally organic non-fat Greek Yogurt. Now I stopped both of them completely.
I am considering Fat and protein from Fish is same as Animal Fat and Protein from other sources. I eliminate dairy also. I make my own Cashew yogurt.
I am certainly not recommending any one to follow this!
You know if you ate right (no SAD diet) and did the right things, the place to target is something else. Did you check your house for radon gas? Do you live near or downwind (maybe many many miles) from an industrial smokestack of any kind or size? Do you filter water? Does your work have any of those same things mentioned plus maybe some of their own? There is also genetics, and inheritance. You know sounds like you did good things and still had trouble, but blaming the things you did right might not be the answer.
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1 ReactionWhat you posted right there, handera, is the single best example of all the contradictory discoveries we find on the internet.
For every study proving X, there’s a study debunking it and promoting Y. It can drive you bonkers!
The funny thing is that we all seem to think that the startling rise in cancer rates is solely to do with our modern diet, lack of exercise, environmental hazards, etc. Sure, there is some of that, esp. things like mesothelioma tied to asbestos, lung cancer to smoking, etc.
But people died from cancer centuries ago! There are accounts of breast cancer, skin cancers and others during pioneer times when there was no processed food, exercise was a necessity, and industrial waste was not as common as today.
The BIG difference is diagnosis. Imagine a country doctor trying to figure out why your 50 yr old father is in such pain, can’t pee and his leg “just done broke on his own”!
The poor guy probably had metastatic prostate cancer but how could anyone know? No PSA, no scans…nothing!
Now today we see a large increase in younger people getting cancer….getting ‘diagnosed’ is more like it since testing is so abundant (rampant?) today and drs. look for familial patterns of disease and start testing earlier.
We may not love the PSA test but once they can really refine it past the current PSE and onward, men will start getting tested at 40 yrs of age - and unfortunately even MORE cancer will be found and the news will be filled with the “startling rise” of prostate cancer in younger men.
But it will be the same as it ever was, to quote David Byrne, and for all that earlier testing and diagnosis some men will still die, just as they did in the Old West and in Roman times - if they lived that long in the first place.
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4 ReactionsThanks for your response. My urologist says that researching the causes, treatments and recommendations for living with PCa is like plummeting the mysteries of a "black hole"...to which I immediately quipped...well I think I have found a ledge from where I can look up and still see daylight! I think every PCa man peering from within this "black hole" needs to find his own "ledge"...as they say..."the devil is in the details"....
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3 ReactionsYou're absolutely right, @heavyphil. It's hard for us scientific laypeople to understand the process.
Early studies are mostly about correlations, not causes. Imagine if space aliens could access only tiny fragments of news broadcasts from earth, and it took huge effort to decode each one. Over time, they collect and analyze enough of the to discover that there's a statistically-significant correlation between ice cream sales and shark attacks.
So problem solved, right? Eating ice cream causes sharks to attack people!
Now think of how long it would take for them to get from there to realising that the real connection is that humans both eat more ice cream and swim more in warm weather. It would be largely a matter of luck (e.g. accidentally stumbling on 10 seconds of an old Baywatch episode).
That's the difference between the early findings at the start of the research process and the major human trials at the end. Almost every "new discovery" we read about is just ice cream and shark attacks. They're 100% useless to us as current prostate-cancer patients, but for researchers, they can be hints of where it's worth investing more time and money to dig for the real cause.
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2 ReactionsI am not blaming on my diet for diagnosing with Prostate cancer at 88! I count my blessings that I am healthy until now. I wish the same for everyone here.
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3 ReactionsNail on the head.
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1 ReactionI am 80 and was diagnosed with prostate cancer a couple years ago and I’ve decided just like I did with my abdominal aorta aneurysm to do nothing. I may so brave but I am not however that’s been my decision and I hope that I’m strong enough to accept the consequences.
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