New UT-Austin Research IDs Compounds That Could Thwart Prostate Cancer

AUSTIN, TX — In avoiding prostate cancer, you might think about adding curry and baked apples to your diet. Both food choices could play a role in starving or even preventing cancer altogether, University of Texas at Austin researchers have found.

New research from the university identifies several natural compounds found in food, including turmeric, apple peels and red grapes, as key ingredients that could thwart the growth of prostate cancer, the most common cancer afflicting U.S. men and a key area of focus during Men’s Health Month, which public health advocates observe this month, university officials said.

Published online this week in Precision Oncology, the new paper uses a novel analytical approach to screen numerous plant-based chemicals instead of testing a single agent as many studies do, discovering specific combinations that shrink prostate cancer tumors, university officials said.

“After screening a natural compound library, we developed an unbiased look at combinations of nutrients that have a better effect on prostate cancer than existing drugs,” said corresponding author Stefano Tiziani, assistant professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Dell Pediatric Research Institute at UT Austin. “The beauty of this study is that we were able to inhibit tumor growth in mice without toxicity.”

Over the course of the past decade, some cancer research has highlighted various potential therapies found in plants, including chemicals found in foods such as turmeric, apple peels and green tea. Such compounds minimize one of the risk factors for cancer development, inflammation within the body, researchers explained. People who have chronic inflammation because of chronic infection, autoimmune disease or conditions such as obesity have a higher cancer risk because of damage to normal cells, researchers added.

The team involved in the study first tested 142 natural compounds on mouse and human cell lines to see which inhibited prostate cancer cell growth when administered alone or in combination with another nutrient. The most promising active ingredients then tested on animals included ursolic acid, a waxy natural chemical found in apple peels and rosemary; curcumin, the bright yellow plant compound in turmeric; and resveratrol, a natural compound common to red grapes or berries.

“These nutrients have potential anti-cancer properties and are readily available,” Tiziani said. “We only need to increase concentration beyond levels found in a healthy diet for an effect on prostate cancer cells.”

The new research paper further demonstrates how the plant-based chemicals work together, researchers noted. Combining ursolic acid with either curcumin or resveratrol prevents cancer cells from consuming glutamine needed for them to grow, according to the findings.

The upshot: A neat solution, blocking the uptake of a nutrient needed by prostate cancer cells with nutrients that are commonly in the human diet, researchers concluded.

Funding for this research included the National Institutes of Health and the University of Texas System. The experiment was designed, analyzed and written up with coauthors Alessia Lodi, John DiGiovanni and Achinto Saha, all of UT Austin. Additional authors include Xiyuan Lu, Bo Wang, Enrique Sentandreu, Meghan Collins, all of UT Austin; and Mikhail Kolonin of The Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

>>> Image: Curcumin combined with other nutrients has anti-cancer properties Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Photo credit: Steven Jackson