By David Liu, PHD

Thursday May 3, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- Researchers of University of Georgia found evidence to suggest that low oxygen levels in cells, maybe not genetic mutations, may be the primary cause of uncontrollable tumor growth in some cancers, according to a study report.

The researchers found cells of cancers like breast, kidney, liver, lung, ovary, pancreatic and stomach cancers have high levels of a biomarker that indicate low oxygen levels in cells.

The study was published in the early online edition of the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology.

If low oxygen levels in cells or hypoxia is confirmed to be the key driver for certain types of cancer, then it explains why current treatments, which are designed to treat mutation-induced cancer development, often have a drug resistant problem when used to treat cancer.

Ying Xu, professor of bioinformatics and computational biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and colleagues found low oxygen levels in cancer cells after analyzing data downloaded from the Stanford Microarray Database via a software program to detect abnormal gene expression patterns, particularly they checked on the gene HIF1A as a biomarker of the amount of molecular oxygen in a cell.

When the cell lacks oxygen, the normal glucose-to-energy pathway does not function. Instead, the system goes through a pathway that does not require as much oxygen, but produce lots of lactic acid and low energy output, which is why cancer patients often experience tiredness.  When the cells lack oxygen, they will create something such as new blood vessels to try to get more energy, which leads to the cancer cell growth into eventually clinically significant biomass called cancer.

Any cancer researcher should know the fact that in an environment that lacks oxygen, cancer cells grow very well.  When too  much oxygen gets into a cancer cell culture, the cells do not grow as well.

This is not the first study that finds cancer cells lack oxygen.  Early research has already shown that cancer is a product of fermentation in cells.  When a cell lacks oxygen for some time, the cell becomes cancerous and the process is irreversible.

Oxygen is toxic to cancer cells.  This may explain in part why exercise can help fight cancer.  Exercise promotes circulation and delivers blood with oxygen to the places where oxygen is needed.

That is why also some alternative physicians use hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to treat cancer, which received a warning from the Food and Drug Administration.