A compound found in many common vegetables such as celery and parsley may enhance the effectiveness of cancer chemotherapy, according to a new study by the University of California Riverside. The compound, a bioflavonoid called “apigenin,” restores the ability of a cell to self-destruct, which is key to current standard treatments.
Cells in the body ordinarily have the ability to undergo a process called “apoptosis,” or programmed cell self-destruction. Apoptosis comes into play in many normal body processes, including self-destruction whenever a cell’s DNA becomes damaged. In the case of cancer cells, however, a cell protein known as p53—which is the protein that forces cells with DNA damage to self-destruct—has become inactive.
Without the active p53 protein to trigger apoptosis, many cancer cells survive all attempts to destroy them. Apigenin restores the function of p53 in cancerous cells, therefore renewing their ability to self-destruct when chemotherapy drugs and radiation target the cancer cells and intentionally damage their DNA.
Experiments are still in the laboratory culture stage, and apigenin is not completely effective. When cancer cells in cultures were pretreated with apigenin, the rate of apoptosis when exposed to a common chemotherapy drug was 53 percent, compared to a rate of 20 percent in cells not pretreated. Apigenin does not affect normal human cells.
The study did not show that eating foods containing apigenin had the same cancer-fighting effect.
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