Grape Seed Extract Kills Head and Neck Cancer Cells

New research shows that in both cell lines and mouse models, grape seed extract (GSE) kills head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells, while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

The research findings were published January 2012 in the journal Carcinogenesis. “It’s a rather dramatic effect,” stated Rajesh Agarwal, PhD, investigator from the University of Colorado (Denver, USA) Cancer Center and professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (San Diego, CA, USA). It depends mostly, according to Dr. Agarwal, on a healthy cell’s ability to outlast the damage. “Cancer cells are fast-growing cells,” he noted. “Not only that, but they are necessarily fast growing. When conditions exist in which they can’t grow, they die.”

Grape seed extract creates the conditions that are unfavorable to growth. Specifically, the study’s findings reveals that grape seed extract both damages cancer cells’ DNA (via increased reactive oxygen species) and blocks the pathways that allow repair (as evidenced by decreased levels of the DNA repair molecules Brca1 and Rad51 and DNA repair foci). “Yet we saw absolutely no toxicity to the mice, themselves,” Dr. Agarwal stated.

Once more, the grape seed extract killed the cancer cells but not the healthy cells. “I think the whole point is that cancer cells have a lot of defective pathways and they are very vulnerable if you target those pathways. The same is not true of healthy cells,” Dr. Agarwal said. The scientists hope to move in the direction of clinical trials of grape seed extract, potentially as an addition to second-line therapies that target head and neck squamous cell carcinoma that has failed a first treatment.

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