A study on an essential mineral abundant in Brazil nuts could help unlock the key to preventing the spread of triple negative breast cancer, according to research. The study, funded by Cancer Research UK, suggests that limiting the antioxidant effects of selenium, a popular ingredient of multivitamin supplements found in everyday foods such as meat, mushrooms and cereals, could be the secret to controlling this form of the disease. Triple negative breast cancer can be hard to treat but is often manageable through therapy and surgery, unless it spreads to other parts of the body when it can become inoperable.
The action of selenium, a key antioxidant, was assumed to be useful in fighting against cancer cells. However, the research found that cancer cells are in great need of selenium, especially when the cells are sparse, away from densely packed cell clusters. Once packed together, triple negative breast cancer cells produce a type of fat molecule containing oleic acid (commonly found in olive oil) which protects them from a type of cell death called ferroptosis brought on by selenium starvation.
The research, published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, shows that when triple negative breast cancer cells are not clustered together, such as when they are moving to other parts of the body, they cannot survive without selenium. When the research team at the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute in Glasgow interfered with the metabolism of selenium in these sparse cancer cells, they fo.