Vitamin A May be an Effective Treatment for Pre-Cancerous Breast Cells

Vitamin A is a ubiquitous organic compound that can be found in meat, fish, poultry, dairy, fruits, and vegetables. Now, new research has shown that pre-cancerous breast cells treated with vitamin A revert to non-cancerous cells.

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University have found that retinoic acid, which is a derivative of vitamin A found in sweet potatoes and carrots, reverted the pre-cancerous breast cells. Dr. Sandra V. Fernandez, Ph.D. and her colleagues had their study published this month in the International Journal of Oncology.

Vitamin A helps form and maintain healthy skin, teeth, skeletal, and soft tissue, mucus membranes, and skin. A deficiency in vitamin A is most likely to result in a greater risk of infectious disease and vision problems. Females over the age of 14 should be consuming approximately 700 micrograms (mcg) of vitamin A per day, according to the National Institutes of Health.

In their study, the researchers used a model of breast cancer progression based on four cell types: normal, pre-cancerous, cancerous, and fully aggressive. Each cell type was exposed to different concentrations of the retinoic acid and the strongest change was observed in the pre-cancerous cells. The pre-cancerous cells in the model had 443 genes that were either up or downregulated on their way to becoming cancerous and all of them returned to normal levels after being exposed to the derivative of vitamin A.

Previous studies regarding cancer treatment with vitamin A have never seen such results because of the way it was administered, the researchers say. According to a news release, "The research could help explain why some clinical studies have been unable to see a benefit of vitamin A on cancer: the vitamin doesn't appear to change the course of full-blown cancer, only pre-cancerous cells, and only works at a very narrow dose."

The promising findings of this study have led the researchers to seek out a follow-up experiment to administer retinoic acid in an animal model. If successful, that could be the next step for the treatment to be utilized in clinical trials.