In what may lead to a key advance for treating prostate cancer, researchers now know exactly why polyphenol antioxidants in green tea and red wine inhibit the growth of cancers. Explained in these new findings, publicized in the FASEB Journal online, is how the antioxidants in green tea and red wine produce a dual effect to interfere with a signaling cell pathway that is necassery for the growth of prostate cancer. This discovery is important since it might lead to development of medications that could halt or slow down cancer progression, or enhance present treatments.
“Not just does the SphK1/S1P pathway signaling play a part in prostate cancer, but it plays a part in other cancers too, like colon cancer, gastric cancers and breast cancer,”
stated Gerald Weismann, MD, chief editor of the FASEB online journal. “Even if research in the future shows that the benefits of green tea and red wine drinking is not as beneficial for humans as we have hoped, knowing which compounds in these beverages that interfere with this pathway is an all important step forward for developing medications that strike the exact same target.”
Researchers undertook in vitro experiments which demonstrated that inhibiting the sphingosine 1-phosphate/sphingosine kinase-1 (S1P/SphK1) pathway is essential for red wine and green tea polyphenol antioxidants to kill cancerous prostate cells. Following that, mice genetically modified to develop human prostate cancer tumors were either not treated or treated with wine and green tea polyphenol antioxidants. The mice treated displayed a reduction in tumor growth as a direct result of the inhibited S1P/SphK1 pathway. To mimic these preventative benefits of polyphenol antioxidants, another experiment was conducted. Three groups of mice were given drinking water containing a specific kind of green tea polpyphenol called EGCG, drinking water containing a different green tea polyphenol called polyphenon E, or just plain drinking water. The mice were implanted with human prostate cancer cells and the results demonstrated a dramatic reduction in tumor size in the mice given the water containing EGCG or polyphenon E.
“The profound effect that these antioxidants in green tea and red wine have within our bodies is a lot more that anybody could have dreamed of just twenty-five years ago.” Weismann added. “So long as they are used moderately, all the signs show that green tea and red wine may be ranked amongst the most powerful ‘health foods’ that we know about.”
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