Posted on 08/27/2008 8:52:40 AM PDT by decimon
COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research strongly suggests that a mix of preventative agents, such as those found in concentrated black raspberries, may more effectively inhibit cancer development than single agents aimed at shutting down a particular gene.
Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center examined the effect of freeze-dried black raspberries on genes altered by a chemical carcinogen in an animal model of esophageal cancer.
The carcinogen affected the activity of some 2,200 genes in the animals’ esophagus in only one week, but 460 of those genes were restored to normal activity in animals that consumed freeze-dried black raspberry powder as part of their diet during the exposure.
These findings, published in recent issue of the journal Cancer Research, also helped identify 53 genes that may play a fundamental role in early cancer development and may therefore be important targets for chemoprevention agents.
“We have clearly shown that berries, which contain a variety of anticancer compounds, have a genome-wide effect on the expression of genes involved in cancer development,” says principal investigator Gary D. Stoner, a professor of pathology, human nutrition and medicine who studies dietary agents for the prevention of esophageal cancer.
“This suggests to us that a mixture of preventative agents, which berries provide, may more effectively prevent cancer than a single agent that targets only one or a few genes.”
Stoner notes that black raspberries have vitamins, minerals, phenols and phytosterols, many of which individually are known to prevent cancer in animals.
“Freeze drying the berries concentrates these elements about ten times, giving us a power pack of chemoprevention agents that can influence the different signaling pathways that are deregulated in cancer,” he says.
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“What’s emerging from studies in cancer chemoprevention is that using single compounds alone is not enough. And berries are not enough. We never get 100 percent tumor inhibition with berries, so we need to think about another food that we can add."
To conduct this study, Stoner and his colleagues fed rats either a normal diet or a diet containing 5 percent black-raspberry powder. During the third week, half the animals in each diet group were injected three times with a chemical carcinogen, N-nitrosomethylbenzylamine. The animals continued consuming the diets during the week of carcinogen treatment.
After the third week, the researchers examined the animals’ esophageal tissue, thereby capturing gene changes that occur early during carcinogen exposure. Their analyses included measuring the activity, or expression levels, of 41,000 genes. In the carcinogen-treated animals, 2,261 of these genes showed changes in activity of 50 percent or higher.
“These changes in gene expression correlated with changes in the tissue that included greater cell proliferation, marked inflammation, and increased apoptosis,” Stoner says.
In the animals fed berry powder, however, a fifth of the carcinogen affected genes – exactly 462 of them – showed near-normal levels of activity, when compared with controls. Most of these genes are associated with cell proliferation and death, cell attachment and movement, the growth of new blood vessels and other processes that contribute to cancer development. The tissue also appeared more normal and healthy.
Lastly, of the 462 genes restored to normal by the berries, 53 of them were also returned to normal by a second chemoprevention agent tested during a companion study.
“Because both berries and the second agent maintain near-normal levels of expression of these 53 genes, we believe their early deregulation may be especially important in the development of esophageal cancer,” Stoner says.
“What’s emerging from studies in cancer chemoprevention is that using single compounds alone is not enough,” Stoner says. “And berries are not enough. We never get 100 percent tumor inhibition with berries. So we need to think about another food that we can add to them that will boost the chemopreventive activities of berries alone.”
Funding from the National Cancer Institute supported this research.
Your berracity suffers for this. ;-)
I'm really sorry to hear you are dealing with this. Amazing things are happening all the time, so I hope whatever your diagnosis is you are optimistic. As a member of the ‘medical establishment’ I just want you to know that not all of us think we have all the answers. In fact, I would say that the majority are open to new and novel ways to deal with cancer and other hurtful conditions. The problem with cancer is that in many ways understanding how to deal with cancer is similar to unraveling exactly how a single set of genetic instructions in an undifferentiated fertilized egg can lead to the development of a beautiful human being. The same instruction set is contained in every cell of your body, but some become the neurons in your brain, some become the hepatocytes in your liver, and some become the muscle cells in your heart. It's really complex, and cancer is what happens when the cells no longer know exactly what it is they are supposed to be. My prayers are with you and I wish you all the best.
I’m offended!
Call them “Rasberries of color”
I thought Freepers wore pajamas when posting.
Plus, ya get to eat blackberries every day...
Apple
Walnuts
Broccoli
Curry
Banana
Aspirin
Fish Oil
Beans
Jalapeno Pepper
Black Rasberries
I just may live forever.
thanks, bfl
From a GD Stoner no less!
Doesn't it though? There are so many tried cancer therapies about which I read and they sound just as likely to produce the desired results as chemo and radiation and can leave you healthier and not destroy your wellbeing. I cannot see myself ever having chemo.
Good luck to you.
Chinese traditional medicine is mostly hokum, like any alternative medicine, some herbs may well have curative properties but it is usually due to a single compound or class of compounds hitting a specific molecular target.
I can well see the alt-med crowd cry aloud that without the ‘entire natural herb’ the medicinal benefits would be lost, but then again they also believe in homeopathy - where a medicine is diluted to nothing but water that they claim retains some molecular memory of the medicine/toxin that it once contained.
bttt
If “traditional” acupuncture works so well then why does “sham” acupuncture work just as well in a clinical setting?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/26979.php
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