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Lee Swanson Research Update
Black Raspberries Show Potential Against Cancer
September 2008
Concentrated freeze-dried extracts from black raspberries may help prevent certain cancers by acting on multiple gene targets, suggests a new study with rats, funded by the National Cancer Institute.
Over 2,000 genes were affected in the esophagus of animals when they were exposed to a carcinogen, but normal function was restored in 462 genes after supplementation with freeze-dried black raspberries, according to researchers from Ohio State.
Reporting their findings in the journal Cancer Research, the scientists stated that 53 of these genes may be especially important in the development of cancer.
"We clearly have shown that berries, which contain a variety of anticancer compounds, have a genome-wide effect on the expression of genes involved in cancer development," said lead researcher Gary Stoner. "This suggests to us that a mixture of preventative agents, which berries provide, may more effectively prevent cancer than a single agent that targets only one or a few genes."
The researcher added that the fruit contain many different types of nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, phenols and phytosterols, many of which individually have been reported to prevent cancer in animals.
The Ohio State researchers fed rats a standard diet or the diet supplemented with five percent black raspberry powder. After three weeks they were exposed to the compound N-nitrosomethylbenzylamine (NMBA), which is known to cause cancer. This led to a change in 2,261 genes in the esophagi of the rats.
"These changes in gene expression correlated with changes in the tissue that included greater cell proliferation, marked inflammation and increased apoptosis," Stoner explained.
However, in the animals fed the raspberry powder, 462 of these genes showed near-normal levels of activity, compared with controls. The tissue also appeared more normal and healthy, said the researchers.
Moreover, of these 462 genes restored to normal, 53 of them were the same as observed in an earlier study that used dietary phenylethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC), a compound found in cruciferous vegetables.
"Because both berries and [PEITC] maintain near-normal levels of expression of these 53 genes, we believe their early deregulation may be especially important in the development of esophageal cancer," Stoner said.
"What’s emerging from studies in cancer chemoprevention is that using single compounds alone is not enough," he added. "And berries are not enough. We never get 100% tumor inhibition with berries. So we need to think about another food that we can add to them that will boost the chemopreventive activities of berries alone."
Cancer Research 68:6460-6467, 2008
