Page 384 - AWSAR 2.0
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360 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
How Could I Have Prevented Mitochondrial Oxidative Stress?
Mr. Sachin Shetty*
Email: sachinshetty304@gmail.com
Hello friends! I am your dearest and biggest internal organ. People, officially, call me liver. You can find me
in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen, right below the mighty diaphragm. Uff!! These tight schedules of metabolism, excretion, detoxification ... always keep me busy.
I am sad since I got diagnosed with cancer. As you know liver cancer is one of the major causes of cancer-related mortality and is the fifth most deadly cancer. Among the liver cancers, the one I was diagnosed with was hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which is a major sub-type and accounts for about 75% of total liver cancers. The etiology of hepatocellular carcinoma is quite diverse. Aflatoxins in diet, alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking, and exposure to certain viruses and
chemical carcinogens are among the major lifestyle and environmental factors contributing to an increase in growth of HCC. Chemical carcinogens, the most dangerous among them, play a major role in its development. Humans, like you, are exposed to various exogenous hepatocarcinogens, such as pyrrolizidine alkaloids, cycasin and related glycosides, nitrosamines and nitrosamides. While, nitrosamines are ubiquitous environmental carcinogens present in water, soil and air. They pose maximum threat to health as they can be found in contaminated or preserved food, drugs, cosmetics and pesticides. The cured meat products you eat have a very high content of nitrosamines (1-80 ppm). Nitrite substrates formed during cooking of protein rich food may lead to an endogenous
* Mr. Sachin Shetty, PhD Scholar from Manipal College of Health Professions, Karnataka, is pursuing his research on “Modulatory Effects of Mito-Tempo and Piperine in Mouse Model of N-NitrosodiethylamineInduced Hepatocarcinogenesis”. His popular science story entitled “How could have I Prevented Mitochondrial Oxidative Stress??” has been selected for AWSAR Award.
