Evidence Based Research | Patient Resources

A recent study found that regular exercise before, during, and after breast cancer treatment can help minimize the cognitive difficulties known as chemo brain. Many, if not most, people going through cancer treatment experience some blunting of their usual mental sharpness,  and difficulty with concentration, focus, and word-finding. Most of us compensate fairly easily and return to our normal level of mental focus within a few months. Unfortunately, there are people who have a hard...

A 2022 University of Florida study found that meditation done at an intense level caused diverse positive changes in participants’ immune systems. The meditation experience studied was certainly intense: an 8-day retreat with 10-hour daily meditation sessions, all conducted in silence. Those retreat participants saw robust activation of their immune systems, with positive changes in 220 immune-related genes–but without activating inflammatory signals. The positive impact of medit...

Faulty versions of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are well known to increase the risk of breast cancer in men and women, and in ovarian cancer. Now BRCA1 and BRCA2 have been linked to several other cancers, including those that affect men. A study published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology has provided the strongest evidence to date of these links and helped researchers estimate more accurately the associated risk. Since these genes were discovered in the mid-90s, numerous studies have ...

Bile acids (BAs), synthesized from cholesterol in the liver, are not only emulsifiers that promote lipid digestion and absorption but also serve as signal molecules to perform different biological functions. Are bile acids foes or friends? This has been a controversial subject for a long time. The knowledge of bile acids has been extended from promoting the absorption of lipids to key signalling molecules that maintain the body’s homeostasis. Especially in cancer, bile acids are givin...

Vitamin B6, or pyridoxine, is a water-soluble molecule that metabolises into cofactors for more than 100 enzymes in the human body. Vitamin B6 transforms in the body into an active coenzyme pyridoxal 5-phosphate, known commonly as either PLP or P5P.            PLP is involved in gluconeogenesis, glycogenolysis, lipid metabolism, and the synthesis of amino acids, carbohydrates, proteins, and neurotransmitters. Deficiencies in vitamin B6 have been shown to present ...