What your cervix can tell you about how you are anti-aging
In a new study on urine Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists have detected a way on a urine test to test for cervical cancer risk, and it relates to how our tissue ages,
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The world wide vaccine program against cervical cancer is aimed at almost complete elimination of this disease and the other cancers that are caused by HPV including penile cancer. In those not vaccinated we have developed n genetic markers derived directly from cervical tissue that can help detect those that should be tested for the precancerous changes of the cells that precedes actual invasive disease. The test on urine, which most patients would tell you is much easier and better tolerated than actual cervical swaps combines looking for HPV DNA and fragments of human cellular DNA altered by precancerous changes. This early study online in Cancer Prevention Research on November 8, 2016 the investigators say their genetic markers test showed a accuracy rate of 90.9 percent in identifying so-called CIN2 lesions which are the high grade precancerous cervical changes that have at least 1/10 chance of becoming a malignancy if untreated. Additionally, they demonstrated that the DNA for all three human genes and one viral gene could be successfully extracted from urine, and they could identify such lesions with 75 percent sensitivity.
Antiaging medicine has shown that oxidation, methylation, glycosilation, and chelation of our cells, our DNA, and our tissues ages us. Aging processes can also lead to cancer. Two tests based on markers of DNA chemical changes called methylation, released in Europe last summer, and are an advancement in the science of cervical cancer detection but do require Pap smear swabs of cervical tissue, and show 64 percent sensitivity in identifying similar lesions, and of course then require further testing, which can be both uncomfortable and expensive to really detect any new disease in this study called PROHTECT-3. Their new test looks at three genes associated with cervical cancer or abnormal-looking cells known to become cancerous: FKBP6, INTS1 and ZNF516. As abnormalities progress, these genes were more likely to have a chemical methyl group attached to their DNA in certain spots. Using methylation as a value to diagnose cervical malignancy, the three genes together showed a 90 percent sensitivity, meaning that their presence was able to predict a true positive cancer sample this percentage of the time.
As an aside, the anti-aging medication physicians would venture that preventing methylation, and reversing methylation, would ultimately attack the problem at the root.This new test uses those three genes and added one HPV viral gene HPV16-L1 to test for in urine The gene the virus, HPV16-L1, which also becomes methylated in human cells as cancer develops. So there it is, even the HPV virus gene ages and becomes more deadly!
The research was funded by National Cancer Institute grants (U01 CA084986, K01 CA164092 and U01 CA084986).