蔓越莓或可帮助有效抵御结肠癌发展

  蔓越莓经常被认为可以保护机体抵御尿路感染，但实际上这不仅是它的一个小用处而已；近日，在第250届美国化学学会国家博览会上，来自国外的研究人员表示，利用蔓越莓提取物来喂食结肠癌小鼠或可帮助有效减少小鼠机体肿瘤的尺寸和数量，而鉴别出蔓越莓中治疗性分子对于开发抵御癌症的新型疗法或将提供一定帮助。
  据美国癌症学会数据显示，20个美国人中就有1人会在其一生某个时间里患上结肠癌，尽管结肠癌的检测和疗法再不断开发和更新，但该疾病仍然是美国人癌症死亡的第二大罪魁祸首。
  这项研究中，研究者将蔓越莓提取物混合到结肠癌小鼠的食物中，小鼠看起来对蔓越莓提取物味道并不介意，喂食20周后研究者发现，相比没有饮食中添加蔓越莓提取物的小鼠而言，添加蔓越莓提取物的小鼠机体的结肠癌肿瘤的数量减少了一半；而且小鼠机体中剩下的肿瘤尺寸也明显变小了，似乎蔓越莓提取物可以有效降低结肠癌小鼠机体中炎性标志物的水平。研究者Neto说道，我们的研究发现非常重要，所有的准备工作或许在某个时候就会发生作用，而蔓越莓提取物似乎是最为有效的，当然也会存在多酚和非多酚的组成之间的协同作用。
  这项研究中，研究人员表示他们并没有给予小鼠不合理的蔓越莓含量，给予的含量相当于人类每日一杯蔓越莓的含量，然而研究者并不确定给予小鼠一杯果汁是否会达到这样的效果，因为果汁中缺少蔓越莓表皮中的有效组分。当前研究人员正在对蔓越莓进行深入研究，研究者期望可以分离到具有抗癌特性的单一成分；同时研究者还将对消耗蔓越莓的小鼠的代谢产物进行分析，这或许可以帮助解释蔓越莓提取物有效抑制结肠癌小鼠机体肿瘤的分子机制。（转化医学网360zhyx.com）
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Powdered cranberry combats colon cancer in mice
Cranberries are often touted as a way to protect against urinary tract infections, but that may be just the beginning. Researchers fed cranberry extracts to mice with colon cancer and found that the tumors diminished in size and number. Identifying the therapeutic molecules in the tart fruit could lead to a better understanding of its anti-cancer potential, they say. 

The team will describe their approach in a presentation at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

According to the American Cancer Society, one in 20 Americans will develop colon cancer at some point in his or her lifetime. While progress has been made on the detection and treatment of colon cancer, it remains the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S.

Colon cancer may offer a particularly good target for a dietary treatment, says Catherine Neto, Ph.D., simply due to the anatomy of digestion. "Cranberry extracts may also afford protection toward other cancers, but it seems reasonable to look at colon cancer," she says. "Cranberry constituents and metabolites should be bioavailable to the colon as digestion proceeds."

In previous studies, Neto and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, found that chemicals derived from cranberry extracts could selectively kill off colon tumor cells in laboratory dishes. "We've identified several compounds in cranberry extracts over the years that seemed promising, but we've always wanted to look at what happens with the compounds in an animal model of cancer," Neto says. This led to a collaboration with Hang Xiao, Ph.D., of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His team had developed a mouse model that mimics the type of colon cancer associated with colitis, an inflammatory bowel condition that affects hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S.

For Neto's part, her team generated three powdered cranberry extracts: a whole fruit powder, an extract containing only the cranberry polyphenols, and one containing only the non-polyphenol components of the fruit. Some evidence suggests that polyphenols have anti-inflammatory properties, and she wanted to assess their contribution to the cranberry's overall impact......