Prostate Specific Antigen

I talked early on in my blog about PSA and the fact that it exists in milk.
PSA stands for prostate specific antigen. Its increase over time (PSA velocity) is used as a measureto be suspicious if a man has prostate cancer and, therefore , whether he needs a prostate needle biopsy. PSA has a more sinister function. When insulin-like growth factor-one (IGF-1) circulates in the blood stream, it is usually bound to a binding protein. When bound to a binding protein it is not free to wreak havoc by causing cancer. It is the free IGF-1 that is involved in the cancer causing process.PSA is also an enzyme and splits IGF-1 away form its binding protein. This raises free IGF-1 to wreak havoc . So you have PSA in the milk you drink and your tumor produces PSA which act to increase free IGF-1 which in turn makes the tumor grow faster and this produces more PSA and the cycle continues. The home work for today’s blog is:

Insulin-like growth factor binding proteins (IGFBPs) as potential physiologic substrates for human
Kallikreins hK2 and hK3.

Link is: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11358513
I talked early on in my blog about PSA and the fact that it exists in milk.
PSA stands for prostate specific antigen. Its increase over time (PSA velocity) is used as a measure
to be suspicious if a man has prostate cancer and, therefore , whether he needs a prostate needle
biosy. PSA has a more sinister function. When insulin-like growth factor-one (IGF-1) circulates in
the blood stream, it is usually bound to a binding protein. When bound to a binding protein
it is not free to wreak havoc by causing cancer. It is the free IGF-1 that is involved in the cancer causing process.
PSA is also an enzyme and splits IGF-1 away form its binding protein. This raises free IGF-1 to
wreak havoc . So you have PSA in the milk you drink and your tumor produces PSA which
act to increase free IGF-1 which in turn makes the tumor grow faster and this produces more PSA
and the cycle continues. The home work for today’s blog is:

Insulin-like growth factor binding proteins (IGFBPs) as potential physiologic substrates for human
Kallikreins hK2 and hK3.

Link is: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11358513