Grape see extract is more effective than chemotherapy at fighting colorectal cancer – especially in its later, aggressive stage – and may be a powerful alternative treatment for other cancers too, say researchers.

The extract suppresses cancer cell growth and kills half of all stage IV colorectal cells, researchers from the University of Colorado Cancer Centre have discovered.

Their discovery is a major bread-through as colorectal cancer is hard to treat using chemotherapy, often because it is detected only at an advanced stage. By stage IC, usually cancer’s final phase before death, colorectal cancer cells are resistant to chemotherapy because of genetic mutation; it’s thought that a colorectal cancer cell has more than 11,000 mutations that differentiate it from a healthy cell.

But the bioactive compounds in grape seed extract target multiple mutations, and so can be much more effective than chemotherapy.

The researchers think that the extract could also be used as a alternative on other cancers as well.

(Source: Cancer Letters, published online ahead of publication, January 21, 2013)

2019-03-14T10:04:34+13:00 Latest News|