Drinking Milk May Prevent Cancer Metastasis To Bones

Filed in archive Bone Health , Cancer , Functional Foods , Studies on October 7, 2007

If your bones are strong and healthy, metastasizing cancer cells are less likely to penetrate, making a glass of fortified milk may be the way to block the spread of cancer cells.




Such were the findings of researchers at the ANZAC Research Institute in Concord, Australia from a mouse model of breast cancer metastasis:

The researchers found that a calcium deficiency may increase the tendency of advanced breast cancer to target bone. Dietary calcium, they reason, might help prevent the spread of breast cancer to bone and serve as an adjuvant treatment during therapy.

About 70 percent of patients who develop advanced breast cancer will have secondary tumors in the bone. The spread of cancer to bones leads to cellular processes that physically break down existing bone, leading to further pain and illness.

In fact, the breakdown of bone and subsequent bone re-growth forms what senior author Colin R. Dunstan, Ph.D., terms a "vicious cycle" that turns bone into an environment conducive to cancer growth.

Well, it certainly pays to have a high-calcium diet, because if this mice study findings translate into humans, dietary calcium deficiency (independent of the chemical factors that control turnover) was related to a significantly higher increase in cancer cell proliferation and the total proportion of bone that had been penetrated.

So, drink your milk, regularly.

Findings appear in the Oct. 1 issue of Cancer Research - a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Find more details from the American Association for Cancer Research.