Ginger, pepper treat difficult cancers

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Ginger, pepper treat difficult cancers

Tue Apr 4, 2006 10:18 PM ET

 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ginger can kill ovarian cancer cells while the

compound that makes peppers hot can shrink pancreatic tumors, researchers told a

conference on Tuesday.

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 gynecology at the

University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, 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 U.S. 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 tumors, " he said.

The spicy compound killed pancreatic tumor 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

tumor 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.