Thursday, April 06, 2006


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C04%5C06%
5Cstory_6-4-2006_pg12_12
Red chilli peppers contain cancer-busting chemicals: study

ISLAMABAD: Researchers are rolling out the spice rack against
cancer with studies showing that ginger and the hot element in red
chili peppers could kill tumour cells.

The ginger and chilli-pepper studies were presented during the
annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in
Washington. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh experimented
on mice to show that capsaicin, the active `hot' ingredient in the
pepper, killed pancreatic cancer cells through the body's normal
process for clearing defective cells.

"We discovered that capsaicin fed orally to mice with human
pancreatic tumours was an extremely effective inhibitor of the
cancer process, inducing apoptosis (natural cell death) in cancer
cells," said an assistant professor of pharmacology at Pitt and lead
author of the study Sanjay Srivastava.

Tumours treated with capsaicin were half the size of tumours found
in mice that were treated with saline solution by the end of the
study. Scientists at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer
Centre tested powdered ginger against ovarian-cancer-cell cultures
in a lab and planned to work with mouse in the next phase.

The research found that ginger caused cell death in all the ovarian-
cancer cell lines tested. Moreover, the spice caused cancer cells to
be destroyed both through the normal cell-death process and through
another mechanism that involves the cells digesting themselves.

The second mechanism is important, because it might offer a way
around the difficult tendency of ovarian cancer cells to become
resistant to conventional chemotherapy, said an assistant professor
of obstetrics and gynaecology at the UM Medical School and author of
the study Dr Rebecca Liu.

Ginger is known to be effective at controlling inflammation, which
contributes to the development of ovarian cancer cells. By halting
the inflammatory reaction, the researchers suggest, ginger also
stops cancer cells from growing.

"We found that ginger induced cell death at a similar or better rate
than platinum-based chemotherapy drugs used to treat ovarian
cancer," said an oncology fellow and co-author of the study Dr
Jennifer Rhode.

Another review of studies evaluating the use of soy supplements
against breast cancer finds that there is only a slight benefit. A
study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute says
that while soy intake may be associated with a small reduction in
the risk of breast cancer, the evidence is too weak to recommend
widespread use of the supplements.

The soy connection has been widely debated and tested for nearly
three decades since scientists first noted that Asian women have
much lower breast-cancer rates than women in Western nations. The
scientists have also observed an increase in breast-cancer rates
among the Asian women who moved to the United States.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University
pooled the results of 18 studies published between 1978 and 2004
that looked at the association between soy intake and breast-cancer
risk.

The researchers found an overall relative reduction in breast-cancer
risk for soy-eaters — a modest 14 percent for Caucasian women — but
the effect was not statistically significant for Asian women.

"We found that soy-food intake was associated with a reduced breast-
cancer risk, but the data is not adequate to provide a clear answer
to recommend soy foods to prevent breast cancer," said a professor
of oncology at Georgetown's Lombardi Cancer Centre Leena Hilakivi-
Clarke.

The researchers warned women against taking high-dose soy
supplements. APP

www.BreastImplantAwareness.org