Folic acid 'cancer risk' fears played down by study

Worries that taking extra folic acid might increase the risk of cancer have been played down by a major study.

Following Canadian research linking the vitamin with a small rise in cancer, the study in the Lancet journal looked at data from 50,000 people.

It found no significant differences in those taking folic acid.

Taken in early pregnancy, it reduces the chances of certain birth defects and there have been calls to add it to food in the UK.

Many countries, including the US and Canada, South Africa and Australia, already add folate - also called folic acid or Vitamin B9 - to all flour.

It is proven to reduce the number of babies born with "neural tube defects" such as spina bifida.

BREAST CANCER 'SWITCH' DISCOVERED

AUSTRALIAN researchers have found a ''genetic switch'' that has the potential to open up new treatments for breast cancer.

The switch allows scientists to change breast cancer cells and make them more responsive to different kinds of treatments, such as anti-oestrogen therapies.

Outlined in the latest edition of the journal PLoS Biology, researchers from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney found that the molecule known as ELF5 can turn genes on or off.

By manipulating the molecule, the breast cancer cell's sensitivity to anti-oestrogen drugs used to treat breast cancer can be increased.

Found in all breast cells, the molecule was discovered by Professor Ormandy's team in 1999. Photo: Ryan Osland

Smoking Health Consequences

SMOKING: Cancer. 

Your body is made up of cells that contain genetic material, or DNA, that acts as an “instruction manual” for cell growth and function. Every single puff of a cigarette causes damages to your DNA. When DNA is damaged, the “instruction manual” gets messed up, and the cell can begin growing out of control and create a cancer tumor. Your body tries to repair the damage that smoking does to your DNA, but over time, smoking can wear down this repair system and lead to cancer (like lung cancer). One-third of all cancer deaths are caused by tobacco.

DNA pioneer James Watson takes aim at "cancer establishments"

A day after an exhaustive national report on cancer found the United States is making only slow progress against the disease, one of the country's most iconic - and iconoclastic - scientists weighed in on "the war against cancer." And he does not like what he sees.

James Watson, co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, lit into targets large and small. On government officials who oversee cancer research, he wrote in a paper published on Tuesday in the journal Open Biology, "We now have no general of influence, much less power ... leading our country's War on Cancer."

On the $100 million U.S. project to determine the DNA changes that drive nine forms of cancer: It is "not likely to produce the truly breakthrough drugs that we now so desperately need," Watson argued. On the idea that antioxidants such as those in colorful berries fight cancer: "The time has come to seriously ask whether antioxidant use much more likely causes than prevents cancer."

That Watson's impassioned plea came on the heels of the annual cancer report was coincidental. He worked on the paper for months, and it represents the culmination of decades of thinking about the subject. Watson, 84, taught a course on cancer at Harvard University in 1959, three years before he shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for his role in discovering the double helix, which opened the door to understanding the role of genetics in disease.

Dr. James Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA helix and father of the Human Genome Project, became the first human to receive the data encompassing his personal genome sequence at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in this May 31, (2007 file photo). REUTERS/Richard Carson/FilesOther cancer luminaries gave Watson's paper mixed reviews.