Men's Health Women's Health Senior's Health Antioxidants Sports Nutrition Diet & Weight Loss Vitamins & Minerals Herbs Specialty Supplements Targeted Supplements Spa Products Anti-Aging Basics Body Systems Body Structure Book Store Pet Health My Recommendation My Favorite Articles Our Most Popular Specials Bargain Basement Brands

MSM

Health News Archive 315 - Liver Cancer
<<back to structure/function index

Probiotics Reduce Risk of Liver Cancer

A daily probiotic supplement could reduce the risk of liver cancer caused by fungal toxins in foods, a leading cause of the disease in some of the world’s most populous countries.

“Probiotic-based food products may be an effective dietary prevention that could be implemented in many regions of the world to prevent the development of liver cancer or other environmentally induced cancers,” wrote the researchers in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Liver cancer is the sixth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world, and third most common cause of death from cancer, according to Cancer Research UK. Despite these figures, the cancer remains relatively rare, with 18,500 new cases in the US every year. The highest incidences of the disease are in east and Southeast Asia, particularly China, and for this reason the current researchers looked at the effects of probiotic supplements on markers for the disease.  The biggest risk factor for the disease is said to be chronic hepatitis B virus infection, but consumption of foods contaminated with aflatoxins are also established causes of liver cancer.

The researchers, led by Hannu Mykkänen from the University of Kuopio and supported by grants from the Academy of Finland and Valio Ltd., selected 90 male students from the Guangdong province where food ingested exposure to aflotoxins is said to be common.

The double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with two parallel groups randomly assigned the volunteers to either the intervention group – two probiotic capsules per day containing a mixture of the strains Lactobacillus rhamnosus LC705 and Propionibacterium freudenreichii ssp. shermanii, (Valio's commercial Bioprofit product), or placebo (cellulose).  The strains were present in equal weight concentrations with a dose of 2-5 x10¹⁰ colony-forming units per day.  At the start of the intervention period, both groups had similar urine concentrations of AFB-N7-guanine, a metabolite of aflotoxin M1.

Researchers obtained urine samples at the start of the study, three weeks into the study and at the end of the study. The samples were tested for levels of a cancer-causing chemical called aflatoxin B1, which is a food contaminant that is extremely toxic and causes liver cancer.  Fortunately, probiotics have been shown to help block intestinal absorption. If its intestinal absorption is blocked, urine levels of the aflatoxin breakdown product, AFB-N7-Guanine will decrease.

“Probiotic administration led to a statistically significant decrease in the level of urinary excretion of AFB-N7-guanine. The reduction was 36 per cent at week three and 55 per cent at week five, but disappeared during the five-week post-intervention period,” wrote lead author Hani El-Nezami.  The reduction in excretion levels of the aflotoxin metabolite indicates that the concentration within the body of carcinogens was decreasing.

“The results of the present probiotic intervention are encouraging for additional studies on an approach of probiotic use that can beneficially influence the toxicokinetics of unavoidable exposures to aflotoxins and other natural and environmental carcinogens,” stated the researchers. The researchers concluded “A probiotic supplement reduces the biologically effective dose of aflatoxin exposure and may thereby offer an effective dietary approach to decrease the risk of liver cancer.”

Source: Source: El-Nezami HS, Polychronaki NN, Ma J, Zhu H, Ling W, Salminen EK, Juvonen RO, Salminen SJ, Poussa T, Mykkanen HM. Probiotic supplementation reduces a biomarker for increased risk of liver cancer in young men from Southern China. Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 May;83(5):1199-203.

back to top