Component
in olive oil kills cancer cells
From: Rutgers University
A Rutgers nutritional scientist and two cancer biologists
at New York City’s Hunter
College have found that an ingredient in extra-virgin olive oil kills a
variety of human cancer cells without harming healthy cells.
The ingredient is oleocanthal, a compound that ruptures a
part of the cancerous cell, releasing enzymes that cause cell death.
Paul Breslin, professor of nutritional sciences in
the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, and David Foster and
Onica LeGendre of Hunter College, report that oleocanthal kills cancerous cells
in the laboratory by rupturing vesicles that store the cell’s waste.
LeGendre, the first author, Foster, the senior author, and Breslin have published their findings in Molecular and Cellular Oncology.
LeGendre, the first author, Foster, the senior author, and Breslin have published their findings in Molecular and Cellular Oncology.
According to the World Health Organization’s World Cancer
Report 2014, there were more than 14 million new cases of cancer in 2012 and
more than 8 million deaths.
Scientists knew that oleocanthal killed some cancer cells,
but no one really understood how this occurred. Breslin believed that
oleocanthal might be targeting a key protein in cancer cells that triggers a
programmed cell death, known as apoptosis, and worked with Foster and Legendre
to test his hypothesis after meeting David Foster at a seminar he gave at
Rutgers.
“We needed to determine if oleocanthal was targeting that
protein and causing the cells to die,” Breslin said.
After applying oleocanthal to the cancer cells, Foster and
LeGendre discovered that the cancer cells were dying very quickly – within 30
minutes to an hour. Since programmed cell death takes between 16 and 24 hours,
the scientists realized that something else had to be causing the cancer cells
to break down and die.
Read more at Rutgers
University.