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Friday, June 5, 2015
http://www.sharsheret.org/
What does the above organization have to say about aspirin and Metformin and the citations below from pubmed.org?
Breast cancer (BrCa) and diabetes mellitus (DM) are two major heath problems in women and the general population. This study explores the association between DM and breast cancer patients' survival outcomes, as well as the potential therapeutic merits of metformin.
METHODS:
To explore the association between DM and BrCa, we performed systematic literature search in EMBASE (www.embase.com) and MEDLINE (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) from January 1960 to April 2014 and systematically identified clinical studies that assessed the association between BrCa mortality and DM. The NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database was analyzed to identify micro-RNA change in BrCa cells treated by metformin, a common drug for DM worldwide.
RESULTS:
Twenty studies were selected for the meta-analysis, of which 16 reported all-cause mortality and 12 reported cancer specific death. During our inclusion period, the cohorts encompassed a total of 2,645,249 patients including more than 207,832 DM patients. Pre-existing DM was associated with a 37% increase of all-cause mortality risk for women withBrCa (HR=1.37; 95%CI: 1.34-1.41; P=0.02). DM was in general associated with a 17% increased risk for BrCa mortality in women (HR=1.17; 95%CI: 1.11-1.22; P<0.01). The GEO analysis revealed downregulation of a series of pro-tumorigenic micro-RNAs following metformin treatment, which was in part restored by DICER knockdown.
CONCLUSION:
Women with DM are at higher risk of BrCa-specific and all-cause mortality after initial breast cancer diagnosis. BrCa patients with DM could possibly benefit from metformin treatment via DICER mediation.
Metformin, a widely prescribed antidiabetic drug, has previously been shown to lower the risk of certain types of cancer, including that of breast cancer, and to improve prognosis. Its anticancer effects, which are mediated by the activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), have become notable. The Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathway is involved in changes in mammary ducts and malignant transformation. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the role of the Shh pathway in mediating the anticancer effects of metformin and the correlation between AMPK and the Shh pathway. We investigated the effectiveness of metformin in inhibiting the proliferation, migration, invasion and stemness of breast cancercells in vitro using RNA extraction and reverse transcription‑polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), western blot analysis, cell proliferation assay, scratch-wound assay (cell migration assay), cell invasion assay, mammosphere culture and flow cytometry. In in vivo experiments, a tumor xenograft model was used to detect the effects of metformin on cancer cell proliferation. The results revealed that the treatment of breast cancer cells with metformin led to the inhibition of the Shh signaling pathway. Importantly, metformin inhibited recombinant human Shh (rhShh)‑induced cell migration, invasion, and stemness, and impaired cell proliferation both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, the small interfering RNA (siRNA)‑mediated downregulation of AMPK reversed the inhibitory effects of metformin on rhShh‑induced Gli-1 expression and stemness. Our findings identified a role of the Shh signaling pathway in the anticancer effects of metformin in breast cancer. Furthermore, we revealed that the metformin-mediated inhibition of the Shh signaling pathway may be dependent on AMPK.
As a 28-year-old who had just learned she had breast cancer in 2001, Rochelle Shoretz founded a support group for cancer patients while sitting in her oncologist’s office awaitingchemotherapy. She called it Sharsheret, Hebrew for chain. In 2009, the cancer returned.
“I started out as the first link in that chain,” Ms. Shoretz, a lawyer, told ABC News two years ago. “The chain has come full circle, so I get to draw on the chain myself.”
Ms. Shoretz died on Sunday at her home in Teaneck, N.J. She was 42. The cause was complications of the cancer, a statementon Sharsheret’s website said.
Ms. Shoretz, a graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School, had just finished clerking for Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court when she noticed an indentation in one of her breasts. A lump was discovered during a full breast examination, and the growth was found to be malignant.
After learning that she did not have the genetic mutation that triggers breast and ovarian cancers, she chose alumpectomy rather than more radical surgery and also underwent chemotherapy.
But when the cancer returned, it was diagnosed as Stage IV, meaning that it had spread to other organs. She had a double mastectomy.
By then she was the mother of two boys.
“When I was diagnosed, there were a lot of offers to help with meals and transport my kids,” Ms. Shoretz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2003, “but I really wanted to speak to another young mom who was going to have to explain to her kids that she was going to lose her hair to chemo.”
Since then, Sharsheret has fielded tens of thousands of inquiries from women who have breast cancer or who are at greater genetic risk of getting breast or ovarian cancer, and it connects them with health professionals, peer support groups and other resources.
In 2004, in a letter to The New York Times, Ms. Shoretz wrote: “One in 40 Jewish women of Ashkenazi descent is a carrier of mutations in the genes responsible for hereditary breast cancer. Yet many Jewish women do not learn about these genes until a series of breast or ovarian cancer diagnoses affect their family. Physician education about genetic testing would certainly go a long way in helping families identify their risks of genetic conditions.”
Rochelle Lee Shoretz was born in Brooklyn on July 27, 1972. She was the daughter of Morris Shoretz and Sherry Tenenbaum and the stepdaughter of Jeffrey Tenenbaum and Carol Ann Finkelstein. After graduating from law school, she clerked for Justice Ginsburg in 1998 and 1999.
Ms. Shoretz, whose two marriages ended in divorce, is survived by her parents and stepparents; her sons, Shlomo and Dovid Mirsky; five sisters; and two brothers.
“Of course I wish I had more time,” she told the Jewish newspaper The Forward in 2009, after learning that her cancer had returned. “I would love to see grandchildren, to see weddings, to be a part of these amazing things for more time, but I love life and don’t want to spend any of it mourning the loss of that which I can’t have. I’d much rather embrace that which I do.”
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