(Press-News.org) URBANA – Could preventing colon cancer be as simple as developing a taste for yerba mate tea? In a recent University of Illinois study, scientists showed that human colon cancer cells die when they are exposed to the approximate number of bioactive compounds present in one cup of this brew, which has long been consumed in South America for its medicinal properties.
"The caffeine derivatives in mate tea not only induced death in human colon cancer cells, they also reduced important markers of inflammation," said Elvira de Mejia, a U of I associate professor of food chemistry and food toxicology.
That's important because inflammation can trigger the steps of cancer progression, she said.
In the in vitro study, de Mejia and former graduate student Sirima Puangpraphant isolated, purified, and then treated human colon cancer cells with caffeoylquinic acid (CQA) derivatives from mate tea. As the scientists increased the CQA concentration, cancer cells died as a result of apoptosis.
"Put simply, the cancer cell self-destructs because its DNA has been damaged," she said.
The ability to induce apoptosis, or cell death, is a promising tactic for therapeutic interventions in all types of cancer, she said.
de Mejia said they were able to identify the mechanism that led to cell death. Certain CQA derivatives dramatically decreased several markers of inflammation, including NF-kappa-B, which regulates many genes that affect the process through the production of important enzymes. Ultimately cancer cells died with the induction of two specific enzymes, caspase-3 and caspase-8, de Mejia said.
"If we can reduce the activity of NF-kappa-B, the important marker that links inflammation and cancer, we'll be better able to control the transformation of normal cells to cancer cells," she added.
The results of the study strongly suggest that the caffeine derivatives in mate tea have potential as anti-cancer agents and could also be helpful in other diseases associated with inflammation, she said.
But, because the colon and its microflora play a major role in the absorption and metabolism of caffeine-related compounds, the anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects of mate tea may be most useful in the colon.
"We believe there's ample evidence to support drinking mate tea for its bioactive benefits, especially if you have reason to be concerned about colon cancer. Mate tea bags are available in health food stores and are increasingly available in large supermarkets," she added.
The scientists have already completed and will soon publish the results of a study that compares the development of colon cancer in rats that drank mate tea as their only source of water with a control group that drank only water.
This in vitro study was published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, vol. 55, pp. 1509-1522, in 2011. Co-authors include Sirima Puangpraphant, now an assistant professor at Kasetsart University in Thailand; Greg Potts, an undergraduate student of the U of I; and Mark A. Berhow and Karl Vermillion of the USDA, ARS, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois. The work was funded by the U of I Research Board and Puangpraphant's Royal Thai Government Scholarship.
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Dr. Mark Tripp, dentist in South Charlotte, NC, is pleased to welcome 2012 with new, improved changes to his practice. The new year of 2012 brings new beginnings to Drs. Mark Tripp, Armen Balasanyan and Andre Brun, as they are pleased to announce the recent name change for Richards and Tripp Dentistry.
"I am pleased to announce that with the New Year comes a new change at our practice. We have formally changed our name from Richards and Tripp Dentistry to LandMark Dentistry. Even though our name has changed, we still maintain the same commitment and dedication ...
CHICAGO (January 23, 2012) – A new study published online today in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons finds hospitals participating in a regional collaborative of the American College of Surgeon's National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®), achieved substantial improvements in surgical outcomes, such as reducing the rates of acute renal failure and surgical site infections. The collaborative also saved $2,197,543 per 10,000 general and vascular surgery cases when comparing results from 2010 with results from 2009. ACS NSQIP is the leading nationally ...
INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana University School of Medicine study has determined that a patient's socioeconomic status has more influence than race on physician diagnosis of whether a child's injury was accidental or caused by abuse.
When presented with scenarios that could possibly but not obviously indicate child abuse, 2,109 physicians from across the United States who participated in the study were most likely to suspect maltreatment rather than accident for white children from families with low socioeconomic status than for black children with low socioeconomic status ...
Drs. Helene T. Nguyen, DPM, Vilayvanh Sysounthone, DPM and Yong J. Zhu, DPM, podiatrists in Hackettstown, NJ, are pleased to announce the recent merging of their Parsippany office with Feet 'N Beyond of New Jersey, P.A. Medical and surgical podiatric services are now available during clinical hours or by appointment at the two New Jersey locations convenient to Essex, Morris, Passaic, Warren and Sussex County residents and businesses.
"With our recent merger, I look forward to providing our patients with superior quality foot and ankle care. Growing the practice ...
Troy, N.Y. – Graphene is the thinnest material known to science. The nanomaterial is so thin, in fact, water often doesn't even know it's there.
Engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University coated pieces of gold, copper, and silicon with a single layer of graphene, and then placed a drop of water on the coated surfaces. Surprisingly, the layer of graphene proved to have virtually no impact on the manner in which water spreads on the surfaces.
Results of the study were published Sunday in the journal Nature Materials. The findings ...
Chicago -- U.S. states that enacted unilateral divorce laws saw substantial increases in violent crime in the years following the reform, according to research in the Journal of Labor Economics. But the ill-effects of the new laws appear to be largely temporary.
The research found an average 9 percent increase in violent crime after a state enacted a unilateral divorce law, which allows one spouse to end a marriage without the consent of the other. The increase in crime was mainly confined to the first two decades after the reform and was mostly attributable to individuals ...
Nurturing mothers have garnered accolades for rescuing skinned knees on the playground and coaxing their children to sleep with lullabies. Now they're gaining merit for their offspring's physical health in middle age.
In a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science, Brandeis psychologist Margie Lachman with Gregory Miller and colleagues at the University of British Columbia and the University of California, Los Angeles reveal that while children raised in families with low socioeconomic status (SES) frequently go on to have high rates of chronic illness ...
WASHINGTON, DC – A Georgetown University Medical Center professor says the voluntary action taken by two research teams to temporarily halt work involving the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 is "laudable."
In the researchers' statement, published today by Science and Nature, the authors stated that they "recognize that we and the rest of the scientific community need to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks." The statement comes in the wake of a debate following the U.S. government's request ...
Leading Saginaw dentist, Dr. Greg Herzler, remains up-to-date with technology through the launch of his practice's mobile website. At the current rate of growth, most people will own a smart-phone by 2013 and be capable of browsing the web.
A mobile website is designed to load quickly, preferably in about four seconds, while a desktop site can take much longer on a mobile phone because of connection speeds. Dr. Herzler, dentist in Saginaw, MI, is also aware that patients want their information now - they don't want to wait. Patients are often on-the-go, and need to ...
Graphene is largely transparent to the eye and, as it turns out, largely transparent to water.
A new study by scientists at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has determined that gold, copper and silicon get just as wet when clad by a single continuous layer of graphene as they would without.
The research, reported this week in the online edition of Nature Materials, is significant for scientists learning to fine-tune surface coatings for a variety of applications.
"The extreme thinness of graphene makes it a totally non-invasive coating," ...
