Research reveals new diet to ‘self-destruct’ brain tumor cells

Identifying the two amino acids

They examined biological processes to better understand the disease and discovered that glioblastoma tumor cells were sensitive to ferroptosis. 

Ferroptosis is a relatively new type of cell death that has only recently been discovered, and researchers are still learning about this “cell self-destruction” mechanism. Ferroptosis is a type of intracellular iron-dependent cell death, as per a statement.

Cell death is part of the normal functioning of our human body. This natural process is known as apoptosis. However, our bodies block this natural process in cancer cells, making it difficult to remove unwanted cells, which multiply to pose serious health risks.

This is where ferroptosis enters the picture in cancer treatment. “The recent discovery of ferroptosis adds to the excitement of it all. It is really a rapidly growing body of research, and we are finding that it’s a very important for a lot of biological processes, and not just in cancers,” said Dominique Higgins, MD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at UNC. 

To achieve ferroptosis, scientists remove specific types of amino acids from the patient’s diet. This, in turn, allows tumor cells to die. 

Source: bing.com