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News Roundup:
- Gardening for Your Health
- Hold that Soft Drink
- Where We Live and What We Eat
- Baby Broccoli Battles Cancerous Bacteria
Scientist in the Spotlight - Paul van Ginkel, PhD
Paul van Ginkel, PhDAn Amsterdam native, Paul van Ginkel spent the majority of his time investigating the molecular biology of the eye. Then at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he began focusing on natural compounds to treat eye cancer – a type called uveal melanoma.
Now an Associate Scientist in the university’s Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Dr. van Ginkel’s lab research has revealed that a phytochemical may hold promise for two rare and treatment-resistant cancers.
Starting with the Eye
Both cancer of the uvea and neurblastoma commonly metastasize
Uveal melanoma frequently metastasizes, primarily to the liver, and once it spreads it is difficult to treat. Often the cancer has already metastasized by the time the eye tumor is detected. The goal for Dr. van Ginkel and his colleagues was to find non-toxic compounds to help treat the disease. That led him to resveratrol, a phytochemical found in red grapes and berries.
"We started using resveratrol as a tool to see if it would suppress a gene in uveal melanoma but to our amazement, we were seeing it had a potent effect on the tumor cells so we wanted to see if it could be used as an anti-cancer agent."
Taking A Left Turn
Foods that contain high amounts of resveratrol include dark-colored grapes
Preliminary findings were promising but the researchers were unable to find the right animal model to continue their study. Instead, Dr. van Ginkel used a related type of animal model that was available: neuroblastoma. "Working in an eye lab, we kind of took this left turn to progress our research," said van Ginkel. Neuroblastoma is an aggressive childhood cancer that also commonly metastasizes.
In a series of studies, Dr. van Ginkel tested resveratrol in mice with neuroblastoma. Mice who consumed resveratrol daily for five weeks had tumors approximately 50 to 80 percent smaller than those in the comparison group. When Dr. van Ginkel increased the level of resveratrol and injected it beside and directly into the tumor, "it was a dramatic effect," he said. The result was tumor-cell death and smaller tumors.
And while resveratrol lead to tumor-cell death, the surrounding skin tissue and distant organs remained healthy.
Soon after the neuroblastoma study began, Dr. van Ginkel was back to the eye, having developed a suitable animal model. "We wanted to know if in both types of tumor cells – neuroblastoma and uveal melanoma – the same mechanisms were at work, and by and large they are."
The Energy Powerhouse
How resveratrol leads to cancer cell death, Dr. van Ginkel saw, relates to the mitochondria. Mitochondria are the cell’s energy sources. Resveratrol disrupts the workings of the membrane, which sparks a cascade of reactions that lead to cell death.
One of his next goals is to pinpoint the exact target of resveratrol and the pathways leading to cell death. A clue may lie in calcium levels, which increase in the cell soon after administering the phytochemical. And because resveratrol is non-toxic at the levels in his research, Dr. van Ginkel hopes that there will be clinical applications to his work.
Excerpted from a feature in ScienceNow.
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Research Roundup
News Break Fast Fact Did You Know?
The bacterium H. pylori causes ulcers, gastritis and even stomach cancer. A study published last month suggests that eating broccoli sprouts regularly may suppress the bacteria.Gardening for Your Health
Gardeners, get out your spades: A new study has found that gardening is keeping older hands nimble and if you do it enough, it can help overall physical health. The research, published in the journal HortScience
, evaluated 53 participants who fit into one of three groups: gardeners who were moderately active (gardening at least 30-minutes per day five days a week); gardeners who were not as active; and nongardeners. The activity level for all of the participants was high and relatively at the same level. Compared to nongardeners, all of the gardeners showed greater hand strength and pinch force, a sign of hand control and strength that can decrease with age. The active gardeners also displayed signs of higher physical function and lower overall body pain.
Hold that Soft Drink
For dieters watching what you eat, a new study suggests you should take a good look at what you’re drinking too. Published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the 18-month study collected eating habits of approximately 800 adults enrolled in a behavior modification study aimed to lower blood pressure. Studies have shown that Americans take in about one-fifth of daily calories from beverages and these participants mirrored that estimate. In the study, out of seven beverage categories, including 100% juice, milk, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages, only the sugar beverages had an effect on weight change. Sugar-sweetened beverages included soft drinks and sugary juices.
At the 6-month point, drinking 100 fewer calories was found to help people lose slightly more weight than eating 100 fewer calories. By the study’s end, cutting one serving of sugar-sweetened beverages daily was linked with slightly more than one pound of weight loss. Scientists are not yet sure why there are differences between beverages and solid food on body weight, but right now, the authors note these results support recommendations (such as AICR’s) to cut down on consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.
Where We Live and What We Eat
The more places there are that sell healthy foods in your neighborhood, the more likely you will be a healthy weight, according to research published last month. The study compared the BMI of more than 13,000 New York City adults to the amount of healthy food outlets (supermarkets, fruit and vegetable markets, and natural food stores) and unhealthy outlets (including fast food and pizza restaurants) within walking distance of residents’ homes. Almost everyone lived near an unhealthy food outlet, with an average density of 31 outlets per square kilometer; 82% lived within a half-mile of a healthy food outlet, with an average density of four outlets per square kilometer. The researchers found that a higher density of healthy food outlets was linked with a lower average BMI and a lower prevalence of obesity.
To read more about how environments may affect health and change our behaviors, read WCRF/AICR’s Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention.
Baby Broccoli Battles Cancerous Bacteria
The bacterium Helicobacter pylori causes ulcers, gastritis and even stomach cancer. Now, an intriguing new study funded by AICR shows that a daily dose of broccoli sprouts may suppress the bacteria. Broccoli sprouts (and broccoli) are rich in sulforaphane, a compound earlier identified by the same researchers as a potent antibiotic against H. pylori.
Published in Cancer Prevention Research, the study randomly assigned 48 H. pylori-infected patients to eat a daily dose of broccoli sprouts or alfalfa. The broccoli sprouts delivered the same amount of sulforaphane as about 2 to 3 servings of broccoli: Alfalfa does not contain sulforaphane. After 8 weeks, the broccoli-sprout group showed a significant decrease in the measures of H. pylori. There was no sign of change in the alfalfa-eating group. Two months after people stopped eating broccoli sprouts, signs of the bacterium increased to previous levels.
In the same report, the scientists also show that when H. pylori-infected mice drank a broccoli-sprout-infused water for eight weeks, there was a significant increase in the activity of two compounds that protect cells against oxidative damage. The number of H. pylori in the mice’s stomachs decreased in the broccoli sprout water-sipping mice, but it did not change in the mice that drank plain water.
Together, the authors note, the studies suggest that sulforaphane-rich broccoli sprouts hold promise to fight H. pylori both directly and indirectly by protect against stomach cancer.
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