The juice of the pomegranate, say researchers at the UW Medical
School, shows major promise to combat prostate cancer - the
most common invasive cancer and the second-leading cause of
cancer death in men.
With more than millions of new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed
across the globe every year and the outlook poor for patients
with metastatic disease, researchers are looking for new strategies
to combat the disease. Earlier research at Wisconsin and elsewhere
has shown that the pomegranate, a fruit native to the Middle
East, is rich in anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activity
and is effective against tumors in mouse skin. In fact, pomegranate
juice has higher anti-oxidant activity than do red wine and
green tea, both of which appear promising as anti-cancer agents.
The UW research team aimed to find out if the
extract from pomegranates would not only kill existing cancer,
but help prevent cancer from starting or progressing. Using
human prostate cancer cells, the team first evaluated the fruit
extract's effect, at various doses, on those cells cultured
in laboratory dishes. They found a "dose-dependent" effect -
in other words, the higher the dose of pomegranate extract the
cells received, the more cells died.
The research team then progressed to tests
in mice that had been injected with prostate cancer cells from
humans and developed malignancies. The 24 mice were randomly
divided into three groups. The control group received normal
drinking water, while the animals in the second and third groups
had their drinking water supplemented with .1 percent and .2
percent pomegranate extract respectively. The doses for the
mice were chosen to parallel how much pomegranate juice a typical
healthy human might be willing to eat or drink daily.
The results were dramatic: the mice receiving
the higher concentration of pomegranate extract showed significant
slowing of their cancer progression and a decrease in the levels
of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a marker used to indicate
the presence of prostate cancer in humans. The animals that
received only water had tumors that grew much faster than those
in the animals treated with pomegranate extract.
The next step in the evaluation of pomegranates
for cancer prevention and treatment is to conduct tests in humans,
according to Mukhtar.
To read a copy of the extract published in
the latest addition of the Proceeding of the National Academy
of Sciences of the United States of America, click
here.
The pomegranate is native from Iran to the
Himalayas in northern India and was cultivated and naturalized
over the whole Mediterranean region since ancient times. It
is widely cultivated throughout India and the drier parts of
southeast Asia, Malaya, the East Indies and tropical Africa.
The tree was introduced into California by Spanish settlers
in 1769. In this country it is grown for its fruits mainly in
the drier parts of California and Arizona. Pomegranate juice
is high in three different types of polyphenols, a potent form
of antioxidants. Those include - tannins, anthocyanins, and
ellagic acid. Pomegranate juice contains particularly high
levels of all three, differentiating this fruit from other antioxidant
rich fruits. Antioxidants are credited with helping in the
prevention of cancer and heart disease.
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