Pomegranate Juice Fights Lung Cancer, Prostate cancer , Colon cancer and Breast cancer
Researchers are adding to the list of cancer types for which pomegranates seem to halt growth. A recent study at the University of Wisconsin–Madison using a mouse model shows that consuming pomegranates could potentially help reduce the growth and spread of lung cancer cells or even prevent lung cancer from developing.
In a recent issue of Cancer Research, researchers led by Hasan Mukhtar, co-leader of the Cancer Chemoprevention Program of the University of Wisconsin Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center, demonstrate that drinking pomegranate fruit extract helps slow the growth of lung cancer in mice.
“Pomegranate fruit continues to show great promise,” says Mukhtar, professor of dermatology at the School of Medicine and Public Health and a member of the Carbone Cancer Center. “We have earlier shown that pomegranate fruit contains very powerful skin and prostate cancer-fighting agents. These recent findings expand the possible health benefits of the fruit to the leading cause of cancer death in the country and worldwide: lung cancer.”
In the study, the research team examined the effect of oral consumption of a dose of pomegranate fruit extract on the growth, progression, blood-vessel development and signaling pathways in two mouse lung tumor protocols. The dosages tested were comparable to what humans could reasonably consume in a day. Chemicals were used to induce lung tumors, and the mice received pomegranate extract in drinking water. Lung tumor yield was then examined at different times during several months. Mice who were exposed to cancer-inducing chemicals and who were treated with pomegranate had significantly lower lung tumor growth than mice treated with carcinogens only. Tumor reduction was 53.9 percent at 84 days and 61.6 percent at 140 days.
Excerpt from an article published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute
Back to the Future
Reports of the pomegranate’s medicinal qualities have echoed throughout the millennia. In addition to Biblical references, the Romans mention the tree’s unique healing powers, and several Middle Eastern, Asian, and South American peoples continue to chew small bits of its bark, petals, and peel to treat ailments ranging from dysentery to diseases of the mouth and gums.
The echoes have been slow to interest Western scientists, however. Some say the indifference may owe to geography. Because the pomegranate is native to the Middle East and a rare item in Western diets, the tree may have simply fallen through the cultural cracks. In fact, a Medline search reveals that just 38 papers were published on pomegranates from 1975 to 1999, many of questionable quality.
By the late 1990s, the West slowly began to take more notice, thanks in part to a wave of interest in the pomegranate among Israeli scientists. Lansky became interested in the fruit during the early 1990s and eventually founded his company, Rimonest, a linguistic marriage of the Hebrew word “rimon,” or pomegranate, and the English superlative “-est.” Then, in 2000, Michael Aviram, D.Sc., and colleagues at the Rambaum Medical Center in Haifa reported that people who supplemented their diets with pomegranate juice, which is high in antioxidants, seemed to improve some key indicators of cardiovascular health.
For those scientists who have examined the pomegranate, most say they are impressed. “In general, I would say the pomegranate is ‘extraordinary’ and offers the opportunity to find new substances with health promoting properties,” said Ivo Feussner, Ph.D., a scientist at University of Goettingen’s Albrecht von Haller Institute for Plant Sciences in Germany, who has studied the chemical composition of pomegranate oil. “Therefore, this fruit needs to be studied more intensely.”
What particularly intrigues these scientists is the unique biochemistry of the pomegranate tree. In addition to the high levels of antioxidant-rich tannins and flavonoids in the juice and peel, researchers crush and dry the seeds to produce a unique oil, about 80% of which is a very rare 18-carbon fatty acid, or punicic acid. Also present in the oil is the isoflavone genistein, the phytoestrogen coumestrol, and the sex steroid estrone. In fact, the pomegranate is one of the only plants in nature known to contain estrone.
“All of this chemical peculiarity may be related to the fruit’s botanical isolation,” noted Lansky. “The pomegranate sits alone in its own botanical family, accompanied by its rare genetic forebear, whose habitat is restricted to the Yemeni island of Socotra.”
Seeds of a Cure?
Lansky, in particular, has championed the hypothesis that the plant’s chemical peculiarity might be effective in treating cancer, an idea that, he said, was supported in his initial in vitro work. Rather than take the standard reductionist step of sifting through his fruity mixture to isolate one ingredient that inhibits the tumor cells, Lansky went in the other intellectual direction. Trained as a homeopathist, Lansky argued that the whole worked better than the one active ingredient, a concept known as “herbal synergy.”
Herbalists argue that this chemical synergy can be transferred in its entirety to people. Take a complex botanical therapy, they say, and it will have a multifactorial effect that influences multiple cellular pathways at once. Take a standard, one-compound agent, they counter, and it generally will influence a single pathway, meaning cells can more readily switch to a backup pathway and become resistant to the drug, a common problem with chemotherapy.
“Our studies show that combinations of compounds act differently than single compounds in two ways,” said David Heber, M.D., Ph.D., a scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles Center for Human Nutrition. “One is enhanced action. The other is they are metabolized differently.”
For Lansky, who combines chemicals from a single plant, unusual in herbal and botanical medicine, the great leap of faith is that the pomegranate has evolved a potent synergism. That is, Mother Nature has evolved an unusual plant that punches all of the right mechanistic buttons to kill a tumor cell.
To build support for this idea, Lansky reported last year in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment that his pomegranate extracts selectively inhibited the growth of breast cancer cells in culture. According to Lansky, his currently unpublished data on in vitro work with prostate cancer cells are even more impressive.
“We feel our basic research is broad and clearly shows the efficacy of the product in repeatable, statistically significant ways and in a variety of settings,” he said. “We’ve also shown that the mode of inhibition is varied, including programmed cell death, invasion inhibition, proliferation inhibition, and angiogenesis. So, it’s a broad effect that consistently shows synergy.”
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Prevention and Prostate rejuvenation with Ayurvedic Medicine
Ayurveda, the science of life, prevention, and longevity, is the oldest and most holistic and comprehensive medical system available. Its fundamentals can be found in Hindu scriptures called the Vedas – the ancient Indian books of wisdom written over 5,000 years ago. Ayurveda uses the inherent principles of nature to help maintain health in a person by keeping the individual’s body, mind, and spirit in perfect equilibrium with nature.
Link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/btdj8bfwlr29f72u/
Journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Publisher Springer Netherlands
ISSN 0167-6806 (Print) 1573-7217 (Online) Issue Volume 71, Number 3 / February, 2002 Pomegranate fruit juice for chemoprevention and chemotherapy of prostate cancer
Edited by Louis J. Ignarro, University of California School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, and approved August 30, 2005 Link : http://www.pnas.org/content/102/41/14813.full Phase II Study of Pomegranate Juice for Men with Rising Prostate-Specific Antigen following Surgery or Radiation for Prostate Cancer
Requests for reprints: :Allan J. Pantuck, Department of Urology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, 66-118 Center for Health Sciences, Box 951738, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1738. Phone: 310-206-2436; Fax: 310-206-4082; E-mail: apantuck@mednet.ucla.edu. Link :http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/12/13/4018.abstract Pomegranate Juice, Total Pomegranate Ellagitannins, and Punicalagin Suppress Inflammatory Cell Signaling in Colon Cancer Cells
Center for Human Nutrition, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles,
California 90095, and Cytokine Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Therapeutics, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030 Link : PDF : http://www.pomhorrible.biz/pdf/Adams_2006.pdf Pomegranate seed oil rich in conjugated linolenic acid suppresses chemically induced colon carcinogenesis in rats
Department of Pathology, Kanazawa Medical University, 1-1 Daigaku, Uchinada, Ishikawa 920-0293
Link: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118804219/abstract Breast cancer chemopreventive properties of pomegranate (Punica granatum) fruit extracts in a mouse mammary organ culture-European Journal of Cancer Prevention: August 2004 – Volume 13 – Issue 4 – pp 345-348
Link : http://journals.lww.com/eurjcancerprev/Abstract/2004/08000/Breast_cancer_chemopreventive_properties_of.15.aspx Polyphenols from green tea and pomegranate for prevention of prostate cancer
Vaqar M. Adhami ;Hasan MukhtarDepartment of Dermatology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
Link : http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a757777083&db=all
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