Lactoferrin and cancer

The paper reviewed all the scientific published evidence on Lactoferrin and Cancer, and here are its amazing conclusions, quoted directly from their study, regarding Cancer and Lactoferrin:

Here is what the researchers say –

“None of the current cancer treatments, including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and surgery, represent a full ideal approach, as all of them more or less affect the quality of life of the patients.
 
Recently, the use of nutraceuticals as natural compounds corroborating standard therapy is emerging as a promising tool for their relative abundance, bioavailability, safety, low-cost effectiveness, and immuno-compatibility with the host. Moreover, the oral route makes them very easy to be administered and well tolerated.

To date, however, most nutraceuticals applied in cancer prevention and treatment have shown limited effectiveness and even, in some cases, work against standard therapies.
 
In this context, Lactoferrin is a molecule able to both prevent and treat cancer as well as to boost conventional clinical approaches has to be considered a powerful weapon to use.

As both recent and emerging research shows, Lactoferrin is potentially a strong candidate for anti-cancer alternative treatment with the same advantages but almost none of the side effects characterizing standard therapies.

As a matter of fact, Lactoferrin shows

• high bioavailability after oral administration,
• high selectivity toward cancer cells, (meaning it attacks cancer cells and leaves healthy cells alone)
• no significant side effects

Lactoferrin has the ability to target cancers in different ways, as appropriate, controlling

• tumour proliferation,
• tumour survival,
• cancer cell migration
• cancer cell invasion, and
• metastasization.

Of note, Lactoferrin, according to the system it acts upon, is able to trigger differential outcomes. That is to say, it uses the appropriate tool for the job at hand; you could say that it is an ‘intelligent’ molecule’.

Indeed, Lactoferrin exerts positive or negative effects on cell cycle progression and cell migration towards normal and cancer cells, respectively. Current cancer treatments negatively affect healthy cells as well as cancerous cells; not so with Lactoferrin.

Lactoferrin is able to exert positive effects on healthy cells, while at the same time negatively affecting cancer cells. For example, a 2014 study showed that Lactoferrin inhibited four breast cancer cell lines, but not normal breast cell tissue.

Moreover, Lactoferrin can prevent development or inhibit cancer growth by boosting adaptive immune response.

The ability of Lactoferrin to cross the blood–brain barrier makes it a powerful tool to treat brain tumors.”