Grape Seed Compound Kills Leukemia Cells
By:
Sylvia Booth Hubbard
A
natural compound extracted from grape seeds makes laboratory
leukemia cells commit suicide, according to a new study by the
University of Kentucky. When exposed to the extract, 76 percent
of the leukemia cells were dead within 24 hours.
The
extract forces leukemia cells to commit „apoptosis,‰
or cell suicide, which is a kind of programmed cell death that
cells in the body undergo either in the normal course of growth
and development or when something goes wrong with them.
Leukemia
and other cancers block the cell signaling pathway that allows
apoptosis˜this is how cancer keeps the defenses of the
body at bay. Grape seed extract activates a protein called JNK
that regulates the apoptotic pathway and allows damaged cells
to commit suicide.
Grape
seed extract has already shown beneficial activity in other
laboratory cancer cell lines, including breast, skin, lung,
and prostate cancers. Before the new study, however, no one
had tested the effects of grape seed on hematological cancers,
and neither had anyone found the exact mechanism involved.
„What
everyone seeks is an agent that has an effect on cancer cells
but leaves normal cells alone, and this shows that grape seed
extract fits into this category,‰ said study author Xianglin
Shi, Ph.D., who emphasized that research is still in an early
stage.
Hematological
cancers, including leukemia, caused almost 54,000 deaths in
2006, making them the fourth leading cause of cancer death in
the United States.
(c)
2008 Newsmax