Thursday, October 29, 2009

Curcumin kill esophageal cancer cells


LONDON (Reuters) - A molecule found in a curry ingredient can kill esophageal cancer cells in the laboratory, suggesting it might be developed as an anti-cancer treatment, scientists said on Wednesday.

Researchers at the Cork Cancer Research Center in Ireland treated esophageal cancer cells with curcumin -- a chemical found in the spice turmeric, which gives curries a distinctive yellow color -- and found it started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.

The cells also began to digest themselves, they said in a study published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Previous scientific studies have suggested curcumin can suppress tumors and that people who eat lots of curry may be less prone to the disease, although curcumin loses its anti-cancer attributes quickly when ingested.

But Sharon McKenna, lead author of the Irish study, said her study suggested a potential for scientists to develop curcumin as an anti-cancer drug to treat esophageal cancer.

Cancers of the esophagus kill more than 500,000 people across the world each year. The tumors are especially deadly, with five-year survival rates of just 12 to 31 percent.

McKenna said the study showed curcumin caused the cancer cells to die "using an unexpected system of cell messages."

Normally, faulty cells die by committing programed suicide, or apoptosis, which occurs when proteins called caspases are 'switched on' in cells, the researchers said.

But these cells showed no evidence of suicide, and the addition of a molecule that inhibits caspases and stops this "switch being flicked' made no difference to the number of cells that died, suggesting curcumin attacked the cancer cells using an alternative cell signaling system.

Friday, October 2, 2009

SciClone Halts Study of Pancreatic Cancer Treatment


Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) - SciClone Pharmaceuticals Inc. said it has discontinued a abstraction of its beginning biologic for pancreatic blight afterwards a advocacy by a assurance analysis committee. The shares fell as abundant as 24 percent.

The drug, accepted as RP101, is a nucleoside analog that was actuality activated for patients with late-stage blight of the pancreas, the aggregation said in a account today. The accommodation to stop the abstraction was based on a analysis of abstracts by a assurance ecology accumulation administering the trial, the aggregation said.

Foster City, California-based SciClone markets Zadaxin, a analysis for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and assertive cancers. The RP101 abstraction was in the additional of three phases about appropriate by U.S. regulators afore they will accept a drug. The aggregation didn’t specify what the assurance console found.

Pancreatic cancer is sometimes called a "silent killer" because early pancreatic cancer often does not cause symptoms and the later symptoms are usually non-specific and varied.[5] Therefore, pancreatic cancer is often not diagnosed until it is advanced.[5] Common symptoms include:

* Pain in the upper abdomen that typically radiates to the back (seen in carcinoma of the body or tail of the pancreas)
* Loss of appetite and/or nausea and vomiting
* Significant weight loss
* Painless jaundice (yellow skin/eyes, dark urine) when a cancer of the head of the pancreas (about 60% of cases) obstructs the common bile duct as it runs through the pancreas. This may also cause pale-colored stool and steatorrhea.
* Trousseau sign, in which blood clots form spontaneously in the portal blood vessels, the deep veins of the extremities, or the superficial veins anywhere on the body, is sometimes associated with pancreatic cancer.
* Diabetes mellitus, or elevated blood sugar levels. Many patients with pancreatic cancer develop diabetes months to even years before they are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, suggesting that new onset diabetes in an elderly individual may be an early warning sign of pancreatic cancer.
* Clinical depression has been reported in association with pancreatic cancer, sometimes presenting before the cancer is diagnosed.

However, the mechanism for this association is not known.

VIDEO TELL THE INGREDIENT OF NONI FRUIT:

Dr. Ralph Heinicke pioneered the study of the alkaloid Xeronine. Xeronine is produce in the body from the building blocks Proxeronine and Proxeronase. These building blocks are abundant in the juice of the Morinda citrifolia fruit.
Xeronine is a relatively small alkaloid that is physiologically active in the picogram range. (Editorial note: a picogram is one trillionth of a gram.) It occurs in practically all healthy cells of plants, animals and microorganisms. However, the amount of free alkaloid is minute, and is well below the limits of normal chemical analytical techniques.