Mesothelioma Patients May Be Low in Antioxidants
New research suggests that the antioxidant vitamins found in abundance in fruits and vegetable may have a protective effect against malignant pleural mesothelioma. The news comes from a University in Turkey, where environmentally-induced mesothelioma is alarmingly common due to high erionite content in some small towns. Erionite is a naturally-occurring mineral that is structurally similar to asbestos, the primary cause of mesothelioma around the world. Erionite not only exists in the soil in these Turkish towns, but is also incorporated into hundreds of homes built from erionite-laden rocks. In an effort to evaluate whether or not certain key antioxidant vitamins might protect people against the deadly cancer, Turkish researchers enrolled 160 subjects, 42 of whom had been diagnosed with malignant pleural…