Cancer the word scares us to death and why not? Till date, there has been hardly any medication or treatment that can effectively deal with this deadly disease.
Think about prostate cancer and the number of casualties claimed by this fatal disease every year! The exact causes of this killer disease are still unknown, and naturally, the doctors are not sure about their treatments or preventive strategies.
Though no bold link between prostate cancer and lifestyle has been so far established, some experts are of the opinion that diet has definitely some role to play in this respect, and inclusion of a generous amount of vitamin E in the diet may help the patients to fight against this deadly disease.
Vitamin E generally fights against at least two forms of cancer. These are prostate cancer and Bladder cancer. A research shows that people who had high levels of vitamin E in their blood naturally or ate foods containing vitamin E were less likely to develop prostate cancer than other people.
Doctors have proved that in prostate cancer cells that are exposed to vitamin E, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels drop considerably nearly about 80 to 90 percent. This is a sign of the slow growth of the cancer cells.
Researchers also showed that vitamin E kills 90 percent of the cancer cells. Vitamin E is in fact an antioxidant that destroys harmful molecules like radicals. This antioxidant property of vitamin E might be helpful in preventing prostate cancer.
Vitamin E plays a very important role in the prostrate cells. Androgen receptor is a protein in our body that is essential for the growth of the prostrate cells and also the cancer cells.
Vitamin E affects this protein dramatically. The compound blocks the unit of the protein and hits the protein that plays a central role in the development of this deadly disease.
A study showed that heavy smokers, who took 50 International units (IU) of vitamin E in a regular basis, carried almost 32 per cent less risk to develop prostate cancer.
They were also 41 per cent less likely to die from this disease than the other people who do not take right dosage of vitamin E.
Scientists also discovered that different forms of vitamin E bring different results in the treatments. Vitamin E succinate which is also known as alpha tocopherol succinate is the most effective form of vitamin E in the treatment of prostate cancer.
Researchers and scientists are still trying to discover the reason why some forms of vitamin E are more effective than others in the treatment of prostate cancer.
Researches also show that selenium that can be found in different plant foods can be very helpful to prevent prostate cancer.
In spite of all these benefits, you must also be careful about the fact that antioxidants like vitamin E can affect the cholesterol-lowering drugs that are advised to take for heart diseases.
