Preventing and Reversing Prostate Cancer

According to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 186,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in the United States in 2008, while nearly 30,000 will die of the disease over the same period. A cancerous prostate is, therefore, the most common cancer that affects men, and the second most common cause of cancer-associated death (after lung cancer) in men.

Over the past decade, the long-term survival rate for a cancerous prostate has increased markedly, with more than 90 percent of patients surviving 10 years or more after diagnosis. The development of a blood test for prostate cancer, the PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test, has significantly improved our ability to detect a cancerous prostate at an early stage, which means that, increasingly, this dis-ease is being diagnosed when it is still amenable to reverse.

Biologically active compounds in pomegranat, known as ellagitannins, are known to have powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. These powerful dietary antioxidants are related, chemically, to the antioxidants also found in green tea (even though I do not recommend drinking green tea because it is moderately acidic), which is another area of intense focus in cancer prevention research.

Previous research studies looking at human prostate cancerous cells growing in cell cultures (and implanted in mice as well) have suggested potential cancer prevention and cancer treatment roles for pomegranate extracts. In a recently published clinical study, pomegranate supplements were found to slow down the progression of recurrent cancerous prostate in patients who had previously undergone treatment with surgery or radiation therapy. Moreover, when the serum of these patients was added to cell cultures containing human prostate cancerous cells, the serum collected after patients consumed pomegranate extracts slowed down the growth of the prostate cancerous cells.

A new research study, just published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics by scientists at UCLA, adds important new information about the possible role of pomegranate extracts in the prevention and treatment of a cancerous prostate.

Nuclear Factor Kappa-B, or NF-κB, consists of a group of proteins referred to, collectively, as transcription factors. Transcription factors act by activating multiple genes in both normal cells and cancerous cells (which are cells spoiled by metabolic and/or dietary acids). Activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway turns on a variety of genes that appear to play an important role in the development and progression of many cancerous cells, including cancerous or acidic prostate cells. NF-κB also has been implicated in the effects of chronic inflammation on the development of several cancerous conditions, including a cancerous prostate.

Moreover, activation of NF-κB also appears to enable cancerous cells to resist the effects of chemotherapy and other cancer treatments, and it appears to be linked with more aggressive tumor biology and a resulting increase in the risk of cancer recurrence.

While almost all prostate cancerous cells are initially sensitive to hormonal therapies that block the male sex acidic hormones (androgens), patients with advanced cancerous prostate who are treated with androgen-blocking agents will eventually develop prostate cancerous cells that are resistant (or androgen-independent) to such therapies. When metastatic cancerous prostate tumors become androgen-independent, these tumors then become unresponsive to most clinical therapies.

In this study, pomegranate extract was added to androgen-independent human prostate cancerous cells in the laboratory, resulting in an inhibition of NF-κB that was proportional to the amount of pomegranate extract that was added. This inhibition of the NF-κB pathway, which was induced by pomegranate extract, also resulted in a decreased rate of growth of the androgen-independent prostate cancerous cells, as well as an increased death rate among these cells.

When androgen-sensitive human prostate cancerous tumors are transplanted into mice, they gradually become androgen-independent, following castration of the mice. In this research study, the authors also implanted androgen-sensitive human prostate cancerous cells into laboratory mice. Some mice were given pomegranate extract, while other mice were not given any pomegranate supplements.

Subsequently, as the transplanted prostate cancerous cells began to grow into tumors, all mice were then castrated to induce androgen insensitivity in their implanted tumors. The authors subsequently found that the mice that had received pomegranate supplements developed significantly smaller tumors when compared to the mice that had not received pomegranate extract. Moreover, the development of androgen insensitive tumors was significantly delayed in the mice that had received the pomegranate supplement, suggesting that pomegranate extract may not only be able to shrink prostate cancerous tumors, but may also be able to maintain prostate cancerous cells in the more favorable androgen-sensitive state.

PSA levels in the blood of the mice that received the pomegranate extract were also significantly lower than what was observed in the control animals that did not receive the extract in their diets. All of these favorable effects that were observed in the mice that had received pomegranate extract appeared to be linked directly to an inhibition of the NF-κB signaling pathway.

The results of this study are highly intriguing, as they suggest that, at least in mice, pomegranate extracts may be able to slow prostate cancerous cell growth as well as significantly delaying the transition of prostate tumors from the more favorable androgen-sensitive state to the treatment-resistant androgen-insensitive state.

Because rising levels of NF-κB activity have previously been linked to the development of a cancerous prostate, as well as to the increased biological aggressiveness of prostate cancerous cells, the inhibition of NF-κB with pomegranate extracts could conceivably reduce the risk of developing a cancerous prostate and might also reduce the growth rate and aggressiveness of already established cancerous prostate.

Additionally, and importantly, the results of this study suggest that NF-κB itself probably plays a dominant role in the development of androgen independence in prostate cancerous tumors and, therefore, that blocking NF-κB with pomegranate extract may maintain metastatic prostate cancerous tumors in the more treatable androgen-sensitive state.

Although the results of this study cannot tell us if pomegranate extract is able to either prevent a cancerous prostate in humans or decrease its aggressiveness once it has already developed, there have been very few reports of any apparent serious ill affects associated with pomegranate extract consumption.

"The key to the cure for a cancerous prostate is found in its prevention not in its treatment," states Dr. Robert O. Young, Director of Research at the pH Miracle Living Center.

Dr. Young further states, "a cancer cell is an acidic cell and the cause of an acidic cancerous cell, including a cancerous prostate cell is an acidic lifestyle and diet."

"The key to preventing any cancerous condition, including a cancerous prostate is to maintain the alkaline design of the body with an alkaline lifestyle and diet," states Dr. Young.