Published in
USA TODAY
June 30, 2000
Muscadine Wines have 7 times more anti-oxidants
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June 30, 2000 RALEIGH,
North Carolina (AP) -- Researchers believe they have unlocked the mystery of
how an antioxidant found in grapes and red wine fights cancer.
A study
published Friday concludes that the compound resveratrol, which acts like an
antibiotic to protect grapes from fungus, may turn off a protein that guards
cancer cells from cancer-fighting therapies such as chemotherapy.
The
research may one day allow the compound itself to be used in cancer prevention
and treatment, said Minnie Holmes-McNary, a nutritional biologist at the
University of North Carolina's medical school in Chapel Hill.
"The
benefit is that it certainly provides an open door for potential therapies,"
said Holmes-McNary, the study's lead author. That may include taking a pill
similar to a vitamin supplement.
The benefits of drinking a glass of
red wine have been touted over the past decade after the discovery of the
"French paradox" -- that the French had low rates of heart disease despite
high-cholesterol diets. Studies have shown the key may be the glass or two of
red table wine at dinner.
A few years ago, researchers found that
resveratrol kept cells from turning cancerous and stopped the spread of
malignancies. Resveratrol also blocked cell inflammation, which is linked to
arthritis and other diseases.
Resveratrol can be found in dozens of
foods, including mulberries and peanuts. All wines have some resveratrol, but
red wine seems to be its richest source.
Holmes-McNary and co-author
Albert Baldwin Jr. at the medical school's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer
Center wanted to know how resveratrol kills cancer cells. Their findings were
published in the July issue of the journal Cancer Research.
The
researchers used previous research by Baldwin and others that determined the
protein called NF-kappa B enabled tumor cells to survive even chemotherapy.
When NF-kappa B is blocked in mice -- as observed last year in a study -- the
cancer cells were eradicated by the chemotherapy.
Holmes-McNary and
Baldwin tested how cultured human and animal tumor cells reacted to the
resveratrol, learning that it effectively turned off the NF-kappa B cancer
gene. Untreated tumors continued to thrive, Holmes-McNary said.
Discovering the mechanisms of resveratrol is important to developing
the compound as a cancer-preventive agent for humans, said John Pezzuto, a
University of Illinois at Chicago researcher who first reported resveratrol's
link to red wine and fighting cancer in 1997.
"It's a good
contribution," Pezzuto said of the study. "It seems like there are multiple
mechanisms. In the end, there may be a common thread to all of them. It's like
we're laying down pieces of the puzzle. This is one of those pieces."
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the North
Carolina chapter of the American Heart Association, also found muscadine wines
contain up to seven times more resveratrol than regular wines. |
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