Mineral Found in Nuts Could Hold Key to Stopping the Spread of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

New research shows that selenium, a mineral commonly found in Brazil nuts, could hold the key to stopping the spread of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). The findings were funded by Cancer Research UK and published in EMBO Molecular Medicine.

Selenium is popular ingredient of multivitamin supplements found in every day foods such as nuts, meat, and mushrooms, and was previously assumed to be beneficial at fighting against cancer cells. However, this new research has found that cancer cells feed off of selenium, specifically when cells are sparse, and away from densely packed cell clusters.

In packed clusters, TNBC cells produce a type of far molecule containing oelic acid which provides it with protection from ferroptosis, or cell death, brought on selenium starvation. This new research shows that when TNBC cells are not clustered together, they die off without selenium.

The research team discovered that when they interfered with the metabolism of selenium in these sparse cancer cells, they were able to they could kill them, particularly those cells seeking to spread to the lungs. This discovery may hold the potential of developing new therapies to stop the spread of TNBC.

Research lead, Dr Saverio Tardito, of the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute in Glasgow, and also of the Centre for Cancer Research at the Medical University of Vienna, said via Cancer Research UK article: “We need selenium to survive, so, removing it from our diet is not an option, however, if we can find a treatment that interferes with the uptake of this mineral by triple negative breast cancer cells, we could potentially prevent this cancer spreading to other parts of the body.

Dr. Tardito added that: “With triple negative breast cancer having fewer treatments to control it, finding a new way to prevent it spreading could be life-saving.”