Ginger can kill ovarian cancer cells while the compound that makes peppers hot can shrink pancreatic tumours, researchers have told a conference.
Their studies add to a growing body of evidence that at least some popular spices might slow or prevent the growth of cancer.
The study on ginger was done using cells in a lab dish, which is a long way from finding that it works in actual cancer patients, but it is the first step to testing the idea.
Dr Rebecca Liu, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Centre, and colleagues tested ginger powder dissolved in solution by putting it on ovarian cancer cell cultures.
It killed the ovarian cancer cells in two different ways - through a self-destruction process called apoptosis and through autophagy in which cells digest themselves, the researchers told a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
"Most ovarian cancer patients develop recurrent disease that eventually becomes resistant to standard chemotherapy, which is associated with resistance to apoptosis," Liu said in a statement.
"If ginger can cause autophagic cell death in addition to apoptosis, it may circumvent resistance to conventional chemotherapy."
Ovarian cancer kills 16,000 out of the 22,000 US women who are diagnosed with it every year, according to the American Cancer Society.
Ginger has been shown to help control inflammation, which can contribute to the development of ovarian cancer cells.
"In multiple ovarian cancer cell lines, we found that ginger-induced cell death at a similar or better rate than the platinum-based chemotherapy drugs typically used to treat ovarian cancer," said Dr Jennifer Rhode, who helped work on the study.
A second study found that capsaicin, which makes chili peppers hot, fed to mice caused apoptosis death in pancreatic cancer cells, said Sanjay Srivastava of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
"Capsaicin triggered the cancerous cells to die off and significantly reduced the size of the tumours," he said.
The spicy compound killed pancreatic tumour cells but did not affect normal, healthy pancreas cells, researchers told the AACR meeting.
Last year the same team reported similar results with pancreatic cells in lab dishes. Pancreatic cancer is highly deadly, killing 31,000 of the 32,000 it will be diagnosed in this year.
Last month researchers in Los Angeles reported that capsaicin killed prostate tumour cells. Other studies have shown that turmeric, a yellow spice used widely in Indian cooking, may help stop the spread of lung cancer and breast cancer in mice.
Experts point out that many compounds shown to stop cancer in mice are not nearly as effective in human cancer patients
Also
http://www.digitalnaturopath.com/cond/C20313.html see this
Cayenne Pepper (Capsicum frutescens) See link between Hypothyroidism and Ginger.
Ginger Root (Zingiber officinalis) The liberal use of ginger, cayenne and other spicy herbs has helped restore a normal body temperature for some people with hypothyroidism.
Also maybe getting your body temperature up to normal with the ginger or cayenne might aid the immune system fight the early cancer or it is something related to the heat of the cayenne generates that helps the body fight fight/kill the cancer cells? (together with above?).. if it does work inside your body as well as in a petri dish or in mice..
Enzymes not working optimally and so not optimal immune function perhaps? Maybe optimal temperature for fighting cancer cells is 37C or even slightly above ..maybe cancer cells can grow faster at lower temperatures than the immune cells work most effectively at?.. the again its only a suggestion with NO basis to it.
Pity I don't like ginger...
My grandmother liked ginger though and she died of ovarian cancer.. then again, she didn't eat a lot of it, only a bit occasionally
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Pomegranate and prostrate cancer
"Pomegranate from the tree Punica granatum possesses strong antioxidant and antiinflammatory properties. We recently showed that pomegranate fruit extract (PFE) possesses remarkable antitumor-promoting effects in mouse skin"
Malik A, Mukhtar H
Prostate cancer prevention through pomegranate fruit
Malik A, Afaq F, Sarfaraz S, Adhami VM, Syed DN, Mukhtar H
Pomegranate fruit juice for chemoprevention and chemotherapy of prostate cancer
Lansky EP, Jiang W, Mo H, Bravo L, Froom P, Yu W, Harris NM, Neeman I, Campbell MJ.
Possible synergistic prostate cancer suppression by anatomically discrete pomegranate fractions
http://www.vrp.com/art/1868.aspIn a recent study, researchers showed that pomegranate fruit extract inhibited cell growth and induced apoptosis (programmed cell death) in a highly aggressive human prostate cancer cell line.
The same researchers followed up their cell culture experiment with a study that tested the oral administration of a human acceptable dose of pomegranate fruit extract on mice implanted with prostate cancer cells. In mice treated with pomegranate fruit extract there was a significant inhibition of tumor growth. In addition, pomegranate fruit also reduced secretion of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in the serum of the animals.
According to the scientists, “The outcome of this study could have a direct practical implication and translational relevance to prostate cancer patients, because it suggests that pomegranate consumption may retard prostate cancer progression, which may prolong the survival and quality of life of the patients.”
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http://www.anticancer.net/nutrition/ for more nutritional treatments of cancer