How often for checkups? What about diet?

an article about the wonders of broccoli...one reason why Dr. Hassell doesn't recommend vitamin pills,  companies can manufacture a particular vitamin or mineral, but, scientists do not know everything about the components of a food and how they work together.

Broccoli compound targets key enzyme in late-stage cancer
By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 02 December 2008
BERKELEY — An anti-cancer compound found in broccoli and cabbage works by
lowering the activity of an enzyme associated with rapidly advancing breast cancer,
according to a University of California, Berkeley, study appearing this week in the online
early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The compound, indole-3-carbinol, is already undergoing
clinical trials in humans because it was found to stop the
growth of breast and prostate cancer cells in mice.
The new findings are the first to explain how indole-3-
carbinol (I3C) stops cell growth, and thus provides the
basis for designing improved versions of the chemical
that would be more effective as a drug and could work
against a broader range of breast as well as prostate
tumors.
Indole-3-carbinol, or I3C, is a chemical
compound found in broccoli and other
cruciferous vegetables and which is known
to stop the growth of breast cancer cells.
UC Berkeley researchers' discovery of how
I3C works will help them modify the compound
to improve its anti-cancer effects.

(Firestone & Bjeldanes labs/UC Berkeley)
"I think one of the real uses of this compound and its derivatives is combining
it with other kinds of therapies, such as tamoxifen for breast cancer and anti-androgens
for prostate cancer," said coauthor Gary Firestone, UC Berkeley professor of molecular
and cell biology. "Humans have co-evolved with cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and
Brussels sprouts, so this natural source has a lot fewer side effects."
"This is a major breakthrough in trying to understand what the specific targets of these
natural products are," said coauthor Leonard Bjeldanes, UC Berkeley professor of
toxicology. "The field is awash with different results in various cells, but no real
identification of a specific molecular target for these substances. The beauty of
identifying the target like this is that it suggests further studies that could augment the
activity of this type of molecule and really specify uses for specific cancers."
Firestone, Bjeldanes and their colleagues showed that I3C inhibits the enzyme elastase,
which at high levels in breast cancer cells heralds a poor prognosis: decreased response
to chemotherapy, reduced response to endocrine treatment and reduced survival rates.
Elastase is an enzyme that shortens a cellular chemical, cyclin E, that is involved in
controlling the cell cycle. The shortened version of cyclin E accelerates the cell cycle,
making cancer cells proliferate faster. Firestone showed that I3C prevents the elastase
shortening of cyclin E, thereby arresting development of breast cancer cells.
2

For more than 15 years, Firestone, Bjeldanes and their colleagues have studied the
anti-cancer benefits of vegetables in the cabbage family that are lumped together in the
genus Brassica and, because of their cross-shaped flowers, are often referred to as
cruciferous vegetables.
Though the anti-cancer benefits have been recognized since the 1970s, the mechanism
is only now being discovered, in part through the work of Firestone, Bjeldanes and their
UC Berkeley colleagues.
"We have connected the dots on one extremely important pathway" by which indole-3-
carbinol works, Firestone said.
In previous work, they found that indole-3-carbinol interferes with more than cell
proliferation. It also disrupts the migration and alters adhesion properties of cancer cells,
as well as counteracts the survival ability of cancer cells, all of which are implicated in
cancer cell growth. To have such broad downstream effects, I3C must act at the
beginning of a major cellular pathway, Firestone said. The newly reported research pins
this activity to elastase and its effect on cyclin E.
Bjeldanes noted that I3C is available as a supplement and is a preferred preventative
treatment for recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, a condition involving non-malignant
tumors of the larynx. Improved versions of the chemical could thus help treat cancers
other than those of the breast and prostate.
Graduate student Ida Aronchik and recent Ph.D. recipient Hanh H. Nguyen, along with
colleagues in the Firestone and Bjeldanes labs, have already chemically modified I3C and
boosted its activity in cell culture by at least a factor of 100. The lab teams currently are
probing the elastase structure and how I3C interacts with it to identify the best parts of
the I3C molecule to modify.
I3C is only one of many plant-derived chemicals, called phytochemicals, that Firestone is
investigating in his laboratory as potential anti-cancer agents. Among them is the antimalarial
drug artemisinin. Last month, the Journal of Biological Chemistry accepted a
paper by Firestone and his colleagues showing that artemisinin blocks prostate cancer
cell growth by interfering with the same intracellular pathway as does I3C. This pathway
involves the transcription factor SP1, which latches onto other genes to boost their
activity.
"SP1 could be a generalized target of phytochemicals," Firestone said. "Phytochemicals
work because they interact with and inhibit enzymes that control a host of cellular
processes, including migration and adhesion."
The research is supported by the National Cancer Institute. Other coauthors of the paper
are Gloria A. Brar, currently a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and former UC Berkeley undergraduate David H. H. Nguyen, now a graduate
student at New York University.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/12/02_indole.shtml