A naturally occurring plant-based compound has been found to slow breast cancer growth, in a new laboratory study of mice.
The study, published in in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, determined the compound – phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC) – hinders the development of breast tumors by inducing a programmed cell-death that scientists have likened to cancer-cell suicide.
Past studies have shown PEITC to be effective as a chemopreventative agent in mice for colon, intestinal, and prostate cancer.
SPECIAL: This Small Group of Doctors are Quietly Curing Cancer — Read More.
For the new study, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute researcher Shivendra V. Singh fed cancerous mice a diet supplemented with PEITC for 29 weeks and compared them to a second group that was given a regular diet. They found the mice fed PEITC had a 56.3 percent reduction in tumors, compared to those who weren’t treated with the compound.
"Although PEITC administration does not confer complete protection against mammary carcinogenesis, mice placed on the PEITC-supplemented diet, compared with mice placed on the control diet, clearly exhibited suppression of carcinoma progression," the authors wrote.