In what could lead to a major advance in the treatment of prostate cancer, scientists now know exactly why polyphenols in red wine and green tea inhibit cancer growth. This new discovery, published online in The FASEB Journal, explains how antioxidants in red wine and green tea produce a combined effect to disrupt an important cell signaling pathway necessary for prostate cancer growth. This finding is important because it may lead to the development of drugs that could stop or slow cancer progression, or improve current treatments.
Green tea
“Not only does SphK1/S1P signaling pathway play a role in prostate cancer, but it also plays a role in other cancers, such as colon cancer, breast cancer, and gastric cancers,” said Gerald Weissmann, MD, editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal. “Even if future studies show that drinking red wine and green tea isn’t as effective in humans as we hope, knowing that the compounds in those drinks disrupts this pathway is an important step toward developing drugs that hit the same target.”
Scientists conducted in vitro experiments which showed that the inhibition of the sphingosine kinase-1/sphingosine 1-phosphate (SphK1/S1P) pathway was essential for green tea and wine polyphenols to kill prostate cancer cells. Next, mice genetically altered to develop a human prostate cancer tumor were either treated or not treated with green tea and wine polyphenols. The treated mice showed reduced tumor growth as a result of the inhibited SphK1/S1P pathway.
To mimic the preventive effects of polyphenols, another experiment used three groups of mice given drinking water, drinking water with a green tea compound known as EGCg, or drinking water with a different green tea compound, polyphenon E. Human prostate cancer cells were implanted in the mice and results showed a dramatic decrease in tumor size in the mice drinking the EGCg or polyphenon E mixtures.
- Similar posts
- Cancer-Fighting Benefits of cruciferous vegetables (21.3%)
- Green tea may kill leukemia cells (13.3%)
- Eat your greens all year round (12.4%)
- Alzheimer's and green tea (9.5%)
- Prostate cancer drug news (9.3%)
If you love iced tea, it could be time for you to give up that love – a urologist has warned that drinking it excessively could lead to kidney stones.
Iced tea contains high concentrations of oxalate, one of the key chemicals that lead to the formation of kidney stones.
Though hot tea also contains oxalate, it isn’t as easy to consume a quantity large enough amount to encourage the formation of stones.
“For people who have a tendency to form kidney stones, it’s definitely one of the worst things you can drink,” said Dr. John Milner, assistant professor, Department of Urology, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, Maywood, Ill.
Men, postmenopausal women with low oestrogen levels and women who have had their ovaries removed are at a higher risk than others.
Kidney stones are small crystals that form from the minerals and salt normally found in the urine in the kidneys or ureter, the small tubes that drain urine from the kidney to the bladder.
Usually they can be expelled from the body harmlessly, but those big in size become lodged in the ureter.
Iced tea is a highly popular drink in summers considering it’s tastier than most other fluids, but Milner suggests there’s nothing better than water, maybe flavoured with lemon slices.
“Lemons are very high in citrates, which inhibit the growth of kidney stones,” Milner said.
Spinach, chocolate, rhubarb, nuts, salt and meat should be avoided as they encourage stones, he said.
And calcium rich foods, which reduce the amount of oxalate the body absorbs, plus water, are a must.