Kurkuma tegen kanker.*
Kurkuma (curcumine), die stof die kerrie geel maakt, blijkt uit een laboratoriumstudie ook heel effectief in de bestrijding van darmkanker. Uit eerdere studies door deze onderzoekers was al gevonden dat kurkuma ook effectief is in het voorkomen en bestrijden van huid, borst en andere kankers vandaar dat inmiddels al enige clinical trials met mensen gestart zijn. In dit onderzoek werd speciaal gekeken naar de rol die het hormoon neurotensine speelt. Dit hormoon wordt aangemaakt als reactie op het eten van vet. Op zijn beurt zorgt neurotensine voor de aanmaak van het proteïne IL-8, een sterk ontstekingen veroorzakend proteïne die de groei en verspreiding van verschillende kankercellen waaronder darmkankercellen doet versnellen. Kurkuma blokkeert de activiteit van neurotensine waardoor de aanmaak van het proteïne IL-8 sterk vermindert.
Looking
For A Cancer Cure? Try The Spice Rack
In
the last few years, that tactic has proved productive for researchers
investigating turmeric, a curry spice used for centuries in Indian traditional
medicine.
They've found that turmeric's active ingredient, curcumin, works in the lab to
fight skin, breast and other tumor cells. In fact, human clinical trials
employing curcumin have already been launched.
Now, working with cell cultures in a laboratory, scientists at the University of
Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) have discovered that curcumin blocks
the activity of a gastrointestinal hormone implicated in the development of
colorectal cancer, the country's second leading cancer killer with nearly 60,000
deaths annually. In a paper published in the current issue of Clinical Cancer
Research, the UTMB researchers link the gastrointestinal hormone neurotensin,
which is generated in response to fat consumption, to the production of IL-8, a
potent inflammatory protein that accelerates the growth and spread of a variety
of human cancer cells, including colorectal and pancreatic tumor cells.
"We found that in colon cancer cells, neurotensin increases not just the
rate of growth but also other critical things, including cell migration and
metastasis," said UTMB surgery professor B. Mark Evers, senior author of
the article and director of UTMB's Sealy Center for Cancer Cell Biology.
"The fact that all that can be turned off by this natural product, curcumin,
was really remarkable."
Evers' group, including lead author and UTMB research associate Xiaofu Wang,
probed curcumin's effect on the process by which neurotensin stimulates colon
cancer cells to generate IL-8 in detail.
Neurotensin's influence, they found, depends on biochemical signaling pathways
inside the cell. Their experiments showed that curcumin damped down those
signals, reducing the production of IL-8. Experiments also showed that
neurotensin increased the migration of colorectal cancer cells, and that
curcumin could suppress this migration -- possibly reducing the ability of
colorectal cancer to spread to other locations in the body.
"Our findings suggest that curcumin may be useful for colon cancer
treatment, as well as potential colon cancer suppression, in cells that respond
to this gastrointestinal hormone, neurotensin," Evers said. "About a
third of all colorectal cancer cells have the receptor for neurotensin. Thus,
the concept would be sort of like what we do for breast and prostate cancer,
where the main therapy involves blocking hormones. We hope to do similar things
with gastrointestinal cancers that respond to this hormone."
###
Contact: Jim Kelly
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
(Okt.
2006)