By Jimmy Downs

Wednesday Nov 14, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- A study recently published in PLos One suggests that women who are taking chemotherapy after breast cancer surgery or diagnosis may be better off also taking dietary supplements like green tea extracts and sulforaphane.

That is only a suggestion, but not a definite conclusion because the study was conducted in cell cultures and more research is needed to confirm the efficacy of these bioactive ingredients against breast cancer in humans.

Syed M. Meeran of University of Alabama at Birmingham in Birmingham, Alabama, United States and colleagues conducted the study and found that bioactive dietary supplements, that is, green tea polyphenols and sulforaphane, inhibit DNA methyltransferases and histone deacetylases, respectively in breast cancer cells.

DNA methyltransferases and histone deacetylases are involved in the cancer development, thus inhibition of these enzymes are considered important in cancer prevention.

Breast cancer patients are often given anticancer drugs like tamoxifen therapy, but these drugs are only found effective in some, but not all patients.  Tamoxifen does not benefit patients who have estrogen receptor negative cancers.  Thus, other chemo preventives in addition to the ones currently employed to fight breast cancer are highly desired.

For the current study, the researchers tested  green tea polyphenols (GTPs) and  sulforaphane (SFN) individually or in combination in ERα-negative breast cancer cells to see if they reactivated ERα expression to help treatment of ERα-negative breast cancer with tamoxifen. 

As a result, the combination of 20 µg/mL green tea polyphenols and 5 µM sulforaphane was found optimal for ERα-reactivation at 3 days of treatment in a breast cancer cell culture.

Additionally, treatment with tamoxifen and the combination of green tea polyphenols and sulforaphane significantly caused cell death and inhibited cellular proliferation in breast cancer cells, compared to treatment with tamoxifen alone. 

The researchers concluded "our findings suggest that a novel combination of bioactive-HDAC inhibitors with bioactive-demethylating agents is a promising strategy for the effective treatment of hormonal refractory breast cancer with available anti-estrogens."

Breast cancer is expected to be diagnosed in more than 230,000 women in 2012 in the United States and the disease and its complications will kill an estimated 37,000 in 2012 in the U.S., according to the National Cancer Institute.

Breast cancer in many cases is preventable.  An authoritative organization says that two major risk factors for breast cancer are medical radiation and hormone replacement therapy although other lifestyle parameters can also affect the risk of developing the disease.