Posted on 02/21/2015 11:40:43 AM PST by Tired of Taxes
A Rutgers nutritional scientist and two cancer biologists at New York City’s Hunter College have found that an ingredient in extra-virgin olive oil kills a variety of human cancer cells without harming healthy cells.
The ingredient is oleocanthal, a compound that ruptures a part of the cancerous cell, releasing enzymes that cause cell death.
Paul Breslin, professor of nutritional sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, and David Foster and Onica LeGendre of Hunter College, report that oleocanthal kills cancerous cells in the laboratory by rupturing vesicles that store the cell’s waste.
The findings are published in Molecular and Cellular Oncology.
Scientists knew that oleocanthal killed some cancer cells, but no one really understood how this occurred. Breslin believed that oleocanthal might be targeting a key protein in cancer cells that triggers a programmed cell death, known as apoptosis, and worked with Foster and Legendre to test his hypothesis.
“We needed to determine if oleocanthal was targeting that protein and causing the cells to die,” Breslin said.
After applying oleocanthal to the cancer cells, Foster and LeGendre discovered that the cancer cells were dying very quickly — within 30 minutes to an hour. Since programmed cell death takes between 16 and 24 hours, the scientists realized that something else had to be causing the cancer cells to break down and die.
Pancreatic cancer (PC3) cells treated with an increasing dose of olive-oil ingredent (-)-Oleocanthal (OC) in the absence of serum (fetal bovine serum). After 30 minutes of treatment, 100% of cells have been detached from the plate. Survival and growth of PC3 cells depend on being attached, so loss of attachment and the rapid rounding of cells seen in 20 micromolar (20µM) concentration of OC indicate these cancer cells are dead. (credit: Dr. Onica LeGendre)
LeGendre, a chemist, provided the answer: The cancer cells were being killed by their own enzymes. The oleocanthal was puncturing the vesicles inside the cancer cells that store the cell’s waste. These vesicles, known as lysosomes are larger in cancer cells than in healthy cells, and they contain a lot of waste. “Once you open one of those things, all hell breaks loose,” Breslin said.
But oleocanthal didn’t harm healthy cells, the researchers found. It merely stopped their life cycles temporarily — “put them to sleep,” Breslin said. After a day, the healthy cells resumed their cycles.
The researchers say the logical next step is to go beyond laboratory conditions and show that oleocanthal can kill cancer cells and shrink tumors in living animals. “We also need to understand why it is that cancerous cells are more sensitive to oleocanthal than non-cancerous cells,” Foster said.
It will also be interesting to explore the implications of this study for research suggesting beneficial effects of ingesting fullerenes dissolved in olive oil.
According to the World Health Organization’s World Cancer Report 2014, there were more than 14 million new cases of cancer in 2012 and more than 8 million deaths.
probably tiny little octopi, if the cancer cells are like crabs.
CANCER WARRIORS PING
This is a ping list for cancer survivors and caregivers to share information. If you would like your name added to or removed from this ping list, please tell us in the comments section at this link (click here). (For the most updated list of names, click on the same link and go to the last comment.)
Yawn. Another day, another way-out claim put out for the sole purpose of attracting eyeballs.
Well that settles it. I’m eating more pasta cooked with olive oil.
OK. So, I should eat more Extra~Virgin Olive Oil.
I think it's the Italians have an olive oil police unit.
And in six months the report will be that olive oil CAUSES cancer.
I think it's the Italians have an olive oil police unit.
Who knows? If this subject is ever mentioned again in the MSM, I'll be surprised.
They have these stories all the time. It's ridiculous. "Food X, which you eat every day, will kill you." "Food Y will stop Alzheimer's."
It's all to get eyeballs. Very little of it ever comes to anything. It's just a cheap way of getting attention.
It used to be said that freedom of speech didn't cover crying "fire" in a crowded movie theater.
Nowadays, pretty much 100% of what the MSM does is cry "fire." "Look at me! Read my article! Pay attention to me or you're probably going to die!" Enough already.
How do I know? Big pharma told me so.
Olive oil is high in monounsaturated fatty acids. It helps lower cholesterol and reduce blood clots. There are a host of health benefits to consuming olive oil. It will not give you heart disease. It may even help you avoid heart disease.
Definitely true. I’ve seen “The Godfather”. Those guys ate olive oil all the time, and very few of the deaths in that movie were from cancer.
Perhaps the place to start is: What are the statistics of cancer with ‘Mediterranean Diet” countries versus the rest?
That absence of serum makes the growing conditions somewhat removed from physiological. Serum has a property of binding various molecules; I wonder if, in an animal, all of the compound will be bound by serum and therefore will not enter cells?
Death by gunfire may have had something to do with that. :)
Maybe they’re onto something?
Here’s a list of the top ten countries on the cancer scale - I don’t see one ‘Mediterranean Diet” country there?
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jan/24/worldwide-cancer-rates-uk-rate-drops
Yet, we should remember that it’s the genuine organic extra virgin oil we should pay attention to - like using for salad dressings and dips and drizzles?
Studies report that HEATED OO can be carcinogenic.
Also, OO goes rancid quickly and then is not good for conuming.
— Olive Oil is 100% FAT. Cure your cancer. Die of heart disease. —
The fat heart-disease connection was actually never proven and was promoted for political reasons. Recent research has shown that this hypothesis was wrong. Fat does not cause heart disease. In fact, eating healthy fats (saturated, omega-3 polys and monos) will help stave off heart disease as well as a host of other metabolic diseases.
It's not the kind of fat that causes heart disease. You may be thinking of the hydrogenated stuff like crisco.
BTW, if concerned about heart disease, eliminate grains and most sugar from your diet and don't smoke.
.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.