Tag Archives: cancer progression

Broccoli extract fights cancer

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Broccoli may not be the world’s favourite vegetable, but is proving to be a genuinely healthy component of a meal. Previous research has shown that it can fight cancer-inducing bacteria and now a new study has found that it can play a part in reducing prostate cancer risk.

Prostate cancer is the most common cause of cancer in men so finding ways to prevent it can have a significant impact on people’s lives.

Researchers writing in BioMed Central’s open access journal Molecular Cancer have found that sulforaphane, a chemical found in broccoli, interacts with cells lacking a gene called PTEN to reduce the chances of prostate cancer developing.

The presence of PTEN in a cell helps it to fight the development of tumours. Cells without an active copy of this gene are more at risk of cancer tumours developing.

Broccoli

Broccoli

Richard Mithen, from the Institute of Food Research, and a team from Norwich Research Park, UK carried out a series of experiments on both human prostate tissue and mice to investigate the anti-cancer activity of sulforaphane and its interactions with the PTEN gene.


They found that contain PTEN, the broccoli extract had no effect. But in those cells that did not contain PTEN, and were therefore at more risk of tumour development, sulforaphane causes them to become less competitive, thus reducing their chances of spreading any tumours.

Commenting on the results, Mithen said that “PTEN is a tumour suppressor gene, the deletion or inactivation of which can initiate prostate carcinogenesis, and enhance the probability of cancer progression. We’ve shown here that sulforaphane has different effects depending on whether the PTEN gene is present.”

More work needs to be done to turn this research into practical applications, but in the meantime it wouldn’t hurt to consider adding a portion of broccoli to your five a day.

Polyphenols in green tea and red wine can halt advance of prostate cancer

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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.