Vitamin A could Stop Prostate Cancer from Spreading

Researchers have now found that retinoic acid from vitamin A can reduce prostate cancer's ability to spread to surrounding tissues.

According to the study, vitamin A can be used to increase the efficacy of treatments for prostate cancer. Green vegetables, carrots and liver are good sources of vitamin A.

Prostate cancer occurs in tissues of the prostate - a gland that is present below the bladder and in front of the rectum in men. National Cancer Institute says that an estimated 241,740 new cases will be diagnosed and about 28,000 men will die from the cancer in the U.S.

Cancerous cells are normal cells that have gone awry and have certain switches turned off. The compound retinoic acid can switch these controls back on.

"We have found that specific 'twin' genes are turned off in malignant prostate cancer stem cells. When we turn them back on using retinoic acid, the cancer becomes less aggressive," said professor Norman Maitland, Director of the YCR Cancer Research Unit in the Department of Biology at York.

Other research has shown that All-trans retinoic acid can also be used to enhance treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease.

"All-trans retinoic acid is already used treat another type of cancer called acute promyelomcytic leukaemia (APL) and has been hugely successful in improving survival rates. For prostate cancer, our work suggests that retinoic acid would not need to kill the cancer stem cells, but simply switch them to a more treatable form. Our discovery suggests a clinical use of this compound to treat prostate cancer," Maitland said in a news release.

The study is published in the journal Oncogenesis.