Efficacy of Grape Seed Extract as an Anticancer Drug Improves as the Cancer Becomes More Aggressive

Cancer researchers have found that grape seed extract (GSE) destroyed aggressive, metastasizing colorectal cancer cells more effectively than those at an earlier stage of growth did.

Grape seed extract is used as a folk or traditional remedy for conditions related to the heart and blood vessels, such as atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and poor circulation; complications related to diabetes, such as nerve and eye damage; vision problems, such as macular degeneration; swelling after an injury or surgery; cancer prevention; and wound healing. Previous work with cancer cells found that compounds in GSE created an environment that was unfavorable for cancer cell growth.

Investigators at the University of Colorado Cancer Center (Aurora, USA) treated cultures of colorectal cells taken from patients with different stages of the disease with GSE.

They reported in the December 22, 2012, online edition of the journal Cancer Letters that GSE selectively induced apoptotic death in human colorectal cancer cells. The efficacy of GSE treatment increased as the metastatic potential of the cancer cells increased. Oxidative stress, loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, modulation of pro- and antiapoptotic proteins, and involvement of both caspase-dependent/independent apoptotic pathways contributed to GSE-induced colorectal cancer cell death.

“A colorectal cancer cell can have upwards of 11,000 genetic mutations – differences from the DNA in healthy cells. Traditional chemotherapies may only target a specific mutation and as cancer progresses more mutations occur. These changes can result in cancer that is resistance to chemotherapy. In contrast, the many bioactive compounds of GSE are able to target multiple mutations. The more mutations a cancer presents, the more effective GSE is in targeting them,” said first author Molly Derry, a doctoral candidate in pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Colorado Cancer Center. “It required less than half the concentration of GSE to suppress cell growth and kill 50% of stage IV cells than it did to achieve similar results in the stage II cells.”

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University of Colorado Cancer Center