Curry and vegetables could halt prostate cancer, study suggests

The scientists tested turmeric, also known as curcumin, along with phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC), a naturally occurring substance particularly abundant in a group of vegetables that includes watercress, cabbage, winter cress, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, cauliflower, kohlrabi and turnips.

The authors noted that, in contrast to the high incidence of prostate cancer in the US, the incidence of this disease is very low in India. This has been attributed to the dietary consumption of large amounts of plant-based foods rich in phytochemicals – nonnutritive plant chemicals that have protective or disease-preventive properties.

Consequently, scientists have been investigating intervention options based on compounds found in edible and medicinal plants. They have had some success, and a majority of patients with prostate cancer are now combining the conventional therapies with these compounds as alternative, supplementary or complementary medications.

“The bottom line is that PEITC and curcumin, alone or in combination, demonstrate significant cancer-preventive qualities in laboratory mice, and the combination of PEITC and curcumin could be effective in treating established prostate cancers,” said Ah-Ng Tony Kong, a professor of pharmaceutics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

The discovery was initially announced in the journal Cancer Research by Professor Kong and his colleagues at Rutgers’ Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy.

In the study, researchers used mice bred so that their immune systems would not reject foreign biological material and injected the mice with cells from human prostate cancer cell lines to grow tumors against which the compounds could be tested.