Phytochemicals in nutrients to combat colon cancer

[Spook]

This was from an email I received and found it interesting:



Even if you are concerned whether or not a particular
nutrient/chemical ever gets in your bloodstream, I think one place
that has to see "everything" is the gastrointestinal tract. Here, it
was found that the introduction of various chemicals found in
vegetables, as well as ginseng, were able to kill off some of the
lesions that are presently thought to progress to colon cancer "later
on".

I take particular interest in this study, as I am a "fasting punk",
so this specific lesion was really emphasized by a team over in Italy
as being promoted by "fasting-refeeding". Their "spooky" findings
always mean that on refeeding days, I always get copious amounts of
vegetables, on the order of a few "pounds".

In any case, they found that quercetin was the best. I know that
onions are a particularly good source of these, but I think there are
others, like red wine and green tea.

Something else that is particularly important they found was that the
mechanism apparently involved the "intrinsic pathway of apoptosis".
This pathway is mitochondrial, and is presently thought to possibly
encompass the release of reactive oxygen species as an "internal
mediator of apoptosis". If this is the case, then it is possible
that these compounds may be killing "colon cancer cells with
radicals", which is definitely a different perspective then you might
have heard about 10 years ago.

Carcinogenesis. 2005 Apr 14; [Epub ahead of print]

Modulation of aberrant crypt foci and apoptosis by dietary herbal
supplements (quercetin, curcumin, silymarin, ginseng and rutin).

"It is estimated that one third of Americans use dietary herbal
supplements on a regular basis. Diets rich in bioactive
phytochemicals are associated with reduced risk of certain cancers,
notably, colon cancer. Herbal supplements have not been directly
tested as sources of bioactive cancer preventives. Hence, this study
compares the ability of four herbal flavonoids (quercetin, curcumin,
rutin, and silymarin) and one whole herb mixture (ginseng powder) to
suppress aberrant crypt foci (ACF) in an azoxymethane (AOM)-induced
rat colon cancer model...........The results of this study show that
diets containing quercetin, curcumin, silymarin, ginseng and rutin
decreased the number of ACFs by 4, 2, 1.8, 1.5, and 1.2 fold compared
to control, respectively. Histological analysis of the colon mucosa
revealed that all of the herbal supplements, except silymarin,
induced apoptosis, with quercetin being the most potent (3X increase
compared to control). Furthermore, ginseng and curcumin were
region-specific in inducing apoptosis. The ability of quercetin and
curcumin to modulate ACFs correlates well with their ability to
induce apoptosis. Western blot analysis of caspase-9, Bax
(proapoptotic) and bcl-2 (anti-apoptotic) proteins from the colon
scraping suggests that quercetin and curcumin induces apoptosis via
the mitochondrial pathway. Taken together, the results of this study
suggest that these herbal supplements may exert significant and
potentially beneficial effects on decreasing the amount of
precancerous lesions and inducing apoptosis in the large intestine.
" - PMID: 15831530

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=15831530