Ads from Google

Friday, September 7, 2007

Good or Not Good of Growth Factor hormone

My friend's father had passed away the day before yesterday, and so Pavarotti had yesterday. Their main cause is pancreas cancer. There is relatively new study regarding relation of a certain protein level in blood affecting the risk of developing cancer (including pancreas cancer). Reported at Scientific American as following


Because of its grim prognosis, researchers are particularly interested in identifying the risk factors for pancreatic cancer so that more cases can be prevented. For the current study, investigators looked at whether blood levels of a protein known as IGFBP-1 were related to the risk of developing the cancer.

IGFBP-1 -- short for insulin-like growth factor binding protein-1 -- inhibits the activity of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), a hormone that can assist the growth and spread of cancerous pancreatic cells.

While in other media, the IGF 1 is reported not increasing the risk for cancer but increase brain cell growth and survival and this is a good one.
According to Teresa Liu-Ambrose, UBC assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine’s Dept. of Physical Therapy, one-third of hip fracture hospital admissions internationally occur in seniors with cognitive impairment -- a condition that may be prevented or minimized with regular physical activity, including resistance training (RT), or exercising with weights to develop strength.

She believes RT can help reduce risk of fracture in cognitively impaired individuals in two ways: by improving bone health and by increasing levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) that promotes brain cell growth and survival. RT also decreases serum homocysteine, an amino acid that in high levels is associated with impaired cognitive performance.

So in other word , grow factor could be good also not good depending on some situation which becoming confusing for common people like me.



No comments: