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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter September 21, 2011

Interactions between folate and aging for carcinogenesis

  • Sang-Woon Choi and Simonetta Friso

Abstract

Inadequate folate intake and aging are each strongly implicated as important risk factors for certain cancers. Since both folate depletion and aging are strongly associated with hyperhomocysteinemia, genomic DNA hypomethylation, and increased uracil misincorporation into DNA, it appears that each of them enhances carcinogenesis by inducing a derangement of one-carbon metabolism that supplies one-carbons to biological methylation reactions and nucleotide synthesis. Recent studies have demonstrated that inadequate dietary folate and aging may interact and synergistically disturb the normal homeostasis of one-carbon metabolism, thereby provoking subsequent biochemical and molecular aberrations, including alterations in critical gene expression related to carcinogenesis. These studies have further indicated that modest folate supplementation may reverse or partially ameliorate those adverse effects induced by folate depletion and aging.


Corresponding author: Sang Woon Choi, MD, PhD, Vitamins and Carcinogenesis Laboratory, Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, 711 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111, USA Phone: +1-617-556-3151, Fax: +1-617-556-3309,

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Published Online: 2011-9-21
Published in Print: 2005-10-1

©2005 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York

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