Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Dogs, Cancer and Arginine

Arginine and Fish Oil May Help
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Arginine and Fish Oil May Help Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy
When the people at Hills Pet Nutrition went looking for a diet that would help dogs with cancer, they didn't know it would take ten years to come up with the formula.
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In the end, they found that two things make a significant difference in remission and survival time: arginine and fish oil. Details of the diet and the research behind it were published as a 13-page report in Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society.
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The American Cancer Society reports show that dogs with cancer (lymphoblastic lymphoma in this case) have elevated levels of lactic acid and insulin in their blood. These abnormal elevations go along with wasting syndrome, decreased survival time, and decreased time to recurrence. By normalizing levels with arginine and fish oil, the researchers were able to reverse these trends, and significantly increase survival time. (Survival time for stage III was 700 days with the supplemented diet versus 400 for the regular diet; the time to recurrence for dogs with the supplemented diet was 425 days versus 275 days without supplements).
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Arginine does not always stop the growth of cancer. It can do the opposite.
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The reason that arginine can act differently, depending on the cancer, probably has to do with an enzyme known as arginase. If the cancer creates a lot of the enzyme, it appears that it will use arginine to promote growth by converting it to L-ornithine. If the cancer doesn't create much arginase, it probably converts arginine to nitric oxide instead. Nitric oxide is used by immune cells to fight cancer. Since cancer cells are not tested for arginase, it's impossible to tell what effect arginine will have on cell growth. For that reason, arginine's role at this time is limited to its potential use as an immune stimulant during traditional cancer treatment, along with fish oil.
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Source : Life Extensoin Magazine

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