You are what you eat is an old saying, but it truly reflects many scientific findings in modern times. Diet has a role in helping us fight disease and how effectively we do, and this assertion is also true when it comes to cancer. Food for health advocates says that foods rich in antioxidants can help fight disease. Pomegranate fruit has been widely studied for its anti-oxidative potentials, and advocated as anticancer, but why? Below is why pomegranate fruit juice has anticancer properties that warrant the 'anticancer title.'
Discovering how food can prevent or cure disease has become a stronger focus of scientific research. Much of the scientific focus is given to plant-based compounds called antioxidants, which have been proven to help humans fight disease. So, the reason why pomegranate fruit juice has anticancer properties is that it is packed with antioxidants, but more specifically, this fruit is rich with two (antioxidant) phenolic acids called: ellagitannins and ellagic acid.
ellagitannins
Ellagittannins is one of the reasons why pomegranate fruit juice has anticancer properties. This polyphenol is present in fruits and vegetables and is part of the tannin family, which been widely studied and proven as an effective medical therapy for cancer.
The use of Ellagitannins in Cancer chemoprevention and therapy is something that has been widely discussed amongst the scientific community, because studies have found that ellagitannins, abundantly found in pomegranate juice, are able to inhibit pro-inflammatory pathways including, but not limited to, the NF-κB pathway, whose activation leads to immune reactions, inflammation, and the transcription of genes involved in cell survival, such as Bclx and inhibitors of apoptosis. Constitutive activation of NF-κB has been observed in prostate cancers, where it sustains chronic inflammation and promotes the development of high-grade prostate cancer.
ellagic acid (EA)
The second reason why pomegranate fruit juice has anticancer properties is that it is rich in punicalagin, the major fruit ellagitannin, and ellagic acid (EA). In an in vitro study, scientists evaluated the antiproliferative, apoptotic and antioxidant activities of these purified isolated compounds against pomegranate’s juice on various cancer cell lines, namely: colon, oral, prostate cancers and tumor cells. It was observed that Pomegranate Juice has greatest antiproliferative activity against all cell lines by inhibiting proliferation from 30-100%. At 100 μg/mL.
Other in vitro studies have suggested that isolated Ellagic acid elicits anticarcinogenic effects by inhibiting tumor cell proliferation, inducing apoptosis, breaking DNA binding to carcinogens, blocking virus infection, and disturbing inflammation, angiogenesis, and drug-resistance processes required for tumor growth and metastasis. In one of these studies, scientists observed the transcellular absorption and epithelial cell accumulation of Ellagic Acid in the human intestinal Caco-2 cells (human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma cells). They found that the treatment of Caco-2 cells with 10 microM EA revealed irreversible binding of EA to cellular DNA as much as five times higher than for protein, and EA appears to accumulate selectively in the epithelial cells of the aerodigestive tract, where its cancer preventive actions may be displayed.
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