No abstract

It is well recognized that early detection and cancer prevention are significant armaments in the 'war against cancer'. Changes in lifestyle and diet have significant impact on the global incidence of cancer. For over 30 years, many investigators have studied the concept of chemoprevention. More recently, with the demonstration that antiangiogenic activity reduces tumor growth, the concept of angioprevention has emerged as a novel strategy in the deterrence of cancer development (carcinogenesis). In this study, we utilized a fast growing, highly aggressive murine Lewis lung cancer model to examine the in vivo antitumor effects of a novel, dietary supplement, known as plant phospholipid/lipid conjugate (pPLC). Our goal was to determine if pPLC possessed direct antitumor activity with relatively little toxicity that could be developed as a chemoprevention therapy. We used pPLC directly in this in vivo model due to the lack of aqueous solubility of this novel formulation, which precludes in vitro experimentation. pPLC contains known antioxidants, ferulic acid and lipoic acid, as well as soy sterols, formulated in a unique aqueous-insoluble matrix. The pPLC dietary supplement was shown to suppress in vivo growth of this tumor model by 30%. We also demonstrated a significant decrease in tumor angiogenesis accompanied by increased apoptosis and present preliminary evidence of enhanced expression of the hypoxia-related genes pentraxin-3 and metallothionein-3, by 24.9-fold and 10.9-fold, respectively, compared with vehicle control. These findings lead us to propose using this plant phosolipid/lipid conjugate as a dietary supplement that may be useful in cancer prevention.

Human bipedalism entails relatively short strides compared with facultatively bipedal primates. Unique non-sagittal-plane motions associated with bipedalism may account for part of this discrepancy. Pelvic rotation anteriorly translates the hip, contributing to bipedal stride length (i.e. the ‘pelvic step’). Facultative bipedalism in non-human primates entails much larger pelvic rotation than in humans, suggesting that a larger pelvic step may contribute to their relatively longer strides. We collected data on the pelvic step in bipedal chimpanzees and over a wide speed range of human walking. At matched dimensionless speeds, humans have 26.7% shorter dimensionless strides, and a pelvic step 5.4 times smaller than bipedal chimpanzees. Differences in pelvic rotation explain 31.8% of the difference in dimensionless stride length between the two species. We suggest that relative stride lengths and the pelvic step have been significantly reduced throughout the course of hominin evolution.

Longitudinal morphological growth data of apes are incredibly difficult to obtain. Long life histories, combined with practical and ethical issues of obtaining such long-term data have resulted in few longitudinal datasets in chimpanzees of known chronological ages. One classic, This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as