Enrichment of selenium in allium vegetables for cancer prevention.

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Enrichment of selenium in allium vegetables for cancer prevention.

 

 

 

Ip C, Lisk DJ.

 

Department of Surgical Oncology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute,

Buffalo, NY 14263.

 

We previously reported that garlic cultivated with selenium

fertilization is superior to regular garlic in mammary cancer

prevention in the rat 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA) model

(Nutr. Cancer, 17, 279-286, 1992). A new crop of high-selenium

garlic was harvested in 1992 and was used in a dose-response study

to confirm the reproducibility of the product and the bioassay.

Supplementation of 1 or 2 p.p.m. Se in the diet from the high-

selenium garlic produced a 56% or 75% reduction respectively in the

total tumor yield. Since both garlic and onion belong to the same

allium family of vegetables, we were also interested in finding out

whether our experience with garlic could be similarly applied to

onion. A high-selenium onion crop was grown in the same season and

location and with the same schedule of selenium fertilization. Two

distinct differences were noted with the high-selenium onion

regarding its capacity to accumulate selenium and its efficacy in

cancer prevention. First, the selenium concentration in onion was

considerably lower (28 p.p.m. Se dry wt) as compared to that found

in garlic (110-150 p.p.m. Se). Second, given the same levels of

selenium supplementation, the high-selenium onion was apparently not

as powerful as the high-selenium garlic in mammary cancer

inhibition. Thus different plants, even those of the same genus, may

respond in their unique way to selenium fertilization and the

biological benefits of selenium enrichment may vary depending on the

species. Additional information from our study indicated that the

high-selenium garlic/onion might provide an ideal system for

delivering selenium-substituted analogs in a food form for cancer

prevention: (i) they expressed a good range of anticancer activity

and could be easily adapted for human consumption on a regular

basis; (ii) their ingestion did not result in an excessive

accumulation of tissue selenium, a concern that is associated with

the standard selenium compounds such as selenite and

selenomethionine; (iii) no perturbation in the maintenance of

functional selenoenzymes were observed even at high levels of

supplementation.

 

PMID: 7923581 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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