Could this food stop cancers?

Most people think of food only as a way to supply nutrition to our cells.
But there is much more to food than that - foods contain substances, phytochemicals, which perform drug-like actions.

Phytochemcals are vitally important for our health. They balance hormones, control blood vessel growth, balance sugar levels, detoxify the body, control bacteria, balance the immunes system, kill cancer and much more. If you think all you have to do to be healthy is to take some supplements, think again. There is no possible way that any supplement, can take the place of eating fresh, whole foods.

Researchers at the Department of Pharmacy Sciences Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, knew that berries not only supply energy, vitamins, and minerals, but they are rich in a special class of phytochemicals called anthocyanins.

Anthocyanins are among the many substances found in food that provide color to the food, and they have a broad spectrum of therapeutic properties. Anthocyanins repair and protect the genes in our DNA from being damaged as we get older. Studies have shown that the anthocyanins from berries reduce free radical damage, can prevent and be used to treat macular degeneration, and also improve brain speed, memory and nerve function during the aging process.

These researchers studied the effects of several berry extracts, including wild blueberry, bilberry, raspberry seeds and strawberry. They examined these extracts for antioxidant strength, anti-cancer activity, cellular uptake and anti-angiogenisis.

Angiogenesis refers to the body's ability to grow new blood vessels. Angiogenesis is very important when an area of the body becomes damaged and needs to be repaired. It is through the process of angiogenesis that new blood vessels are created to replace the damaged one, making it critical for wound repair, fractures, burns, and contusions.

The only problem with angiogenesis is that just like healthy cells, cancer cells can also use it to create new blood vessels, a crucial component for cancers. Cancer cells are abnormal cells, and because of their abnormally rapid growth rate, they can quickly outgrow their blood supply. When that happens, they die as a result. So in order to provide an adequate
blood supply for their growth, cancers need angiogenesis. One of the most effective ways to treat cancers is to use substances that interfere with angiogenesis, anti-angiogenic substances.

Cancer cells stimulate angiogenesis by creating and releasing something called vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF. Without the production of VEGF, cancer cells would not be able to get an adequate blood supply, and would die. The study tested the different berry extracts to see how well they were able to reduce the release of VEGF from cancer cells. Then they compared the results to several other popular phytochemicals including grape seed extract, a bioflavenoid called rutin, catechin (found in tea), vitamin E and ferrulic acid (found in various foods, and known to have anti-cancer properties).

The most powerful VEGF inhibitor was the blueberry extract. They inhibited VEGF a full 75 percent. The next most powerful was raspberry seed at 70 percent, then strawberries at 63 percent, bilberries at 60 percent, rutin at 45 percent, catechin at 25 percent and ferrulic acid at 17 percent. Vitamin E and grape seed extract had no effect at all.

The researchers then developed a combination of these berry extracts which they called Optiberry, and tested the combination on the growth of a special kind of tumor called a hemangioma. Hemangiomas are benign tumors that are made up of blood vessels. They appear on infants at birth, and then during the first year of life can become quite large. Because they are composed of developing blood vessels, they are a particularly good tumor to test the anti-angiogenic effect of the berry extracts.

Hemangiomas are among the most common tumors in infants. They affect about one in every 30 children. Hemangiomas usually occur within four weeks of birth, and often affect premature infants. Even though they are not cancerous, hemangiomas are often large, and can lead to deformities. They can be disfiguring, and in some cases can even threaten the health of the child.

They injected endothelial cells, the kind of cells that form hemangiomas, into a group of mice. In half of the mice the endothelial cells were pretreated with the OptiBerry combination extract. They found that 100 percent of the mice that were injected with the untreated cells developed hemangiomas. But only 90 percent of the mice with the retreated cells developed it. Furthermore, the hemangiomas in those mice were less than half as large as the ones in the untreated group. The berry extract had decreased the tumor growth rate by more than 50 percent.

In another study conducted at Ohio State University, researchers injected a group of mice with the endothelioma cells, and fed half of them varying doses of blueberry extract. They found that the larger the dose they gave, the more the tumors were inhibited. The mechanism is anti-angiognensis by VEGF inhibition. In fact, the mice that were given the blueberry extract lived twice as long, and had tumors that were 60 percent smaller. In a news release, Gayle Gordillo, MD, the principal investigator of the Ohio State team, said "this work provides the first evidence demonstrating that blueberry extract can limit tumor formation by inhibiting the formation of blood vessels and inhibiting certain signaling pathways."

These studies are also particularly good news for those children who are born with hemangioma. According to Dr. Gorillo, "oral administration of blueberry extract represents a potential therapeutic strategy for treating endothelial cell tumors [hemangiomas] in infants."

Current treatments can suppress the immune system, and can also cause developmental delays. Removing a hemangioma surgically is dangerous because the blood vessels are so dense that it could cause the child to bleed to death. Thus, many families opt to play it safe and accept the deformities. Blueberry extract may be changing all that.

If given at the first signs of hemangioma, it is very possible that the destructive growth of these tumors can be significantly curtailed. Dr. Gorillo stated, "our hope is that if we feed blueberry juice to a child with this type of tumor, we can intervene and shrink the tumor before it becomes a big problem."

 

References:
 

1. Gordillo G, Fang H, Khanna S, Harper J, Phillips G, Sen CK. “Oral administration of blueberry inhibits angiogenic tumor growth and enhances survival of mice with endothelial cell neoplasm.” Antioxid Redox Signal. 2009 Jan; 11(1): 47-58.
2. Bagchi D, Sen CK, Bagchi M, Atalay M. “Anti-angiogenic, antioxidant, and anti-carcinogenic properties of a novel anthocyanin-rich berry extract formula.” Biochemistry (Mosc). 2004 Jan; 69(1): 75-80.
3. “Blueberries May Shrink Tumors in Babies. Blood Vessel Tumors Respond to Blueberry Extract, Study Shows.” Bill Hendrick. WebMD Health News. Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD. Jan. 21, 2009.

For more info contact Dr. Frank Shallenberger at The Nevada Center, specializing in comprehensive alternative medicine, (775) 884-3990 or www.antiagingmedicine.com.