Garlic may help fight colon cancer
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By David Liu, Ph.D.
Thursday Aug 11, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- Many savvy food consumers may have already known this: garlic helps fight cancer. A new study found evidence suggesting that the odor-bearing compounds in garlic may help prevent colon cancer from spreading to other organs.
K.C. Lai of China Medical School in Taiwan and colleagues tested three odorous compounds found in garlic diallyl sulfide, diallyldisulfide and diallyl trisulfide in a colon cancer cell culture and found these compounds at doses of 10 and 25 mirco mole per liter inhibited the migration and invasion of colon cancer cells.
The researchers found the garlic compounds induced the down-regulation expression of a variety of genes resulting in the inhibition of cell proliferation.
The study was published in the June 21 2011 issue of Environmental Toxicology.
This is not the first study to suggest that garlic may help fight colon cancer.
Researchers from Mainland China also tested diallyl disulfide in the HT-29 human colon cancer cells and found this compound affected 49 known genes and one previously unknown gene, which are known to be associated with cell proliferation, growth, and deaths among other things.
The study was conducted by Y.S. Huang and colleagues from University of South China in P.R. China and published in the May-June 2011 issue of Molecular Medicine Reports.
Colon cancer is diagnosed in about 100,000 men and women in the U.S. each year and the disease together with rectal cancer, which is diagnosed in about 40,000 Americans, kills about 50,000 people each year in the country.
Garlic may also help people with other types of cancer. This food is known to be antiangiogenic, meaning it helps stop cancer growth by preventing the vascular formation.
Photo credit: wikipedia.org
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