Saffron takes on cancer!!

August 30th, 2011

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/333911/title/Saffron_takes_on_cancer

Saffron, best known as food spice or dye, was discovered in September with the Hepatology test, that the "spice suppresses a slew of cancer-realted compounds and boosts beneficial ones". Saffron is an expensive spice that comes out of the "Crocus Sativus" flower and research has hinted that it benefits against depression, inflammation, memory loss, and as an antioxidant. "Studies in animals and certain cells, research has suggested that saffron can inhibit certain cancers". "Although the spice has been used as a folk remedy for centuries, only in recent decades has its values been tested in a laboratory. In a new study Amin and his colleagues fed saffron to 24 rats daily for 24 weeks. Two weeks into the regimen the researchers injected animals with diethylnitrosamin and 2 acelytlaminofluorene, a chemical combination which is known to cause liver cancer." "8 other rats getting a similar injection combo received distilled water instead of saffron" 6 of the 8 rats developed serious cancer nodules on the liver, meanwhile 4 of the 24 rats getting saffron developed nodules, and out of 8 rats that actually got the highest dose of saffron, none of them, developed nodules. "Saffron kept in check a cell-proliferation protein called Ki-67 and reduce other compounds linked to liver damage and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress results from imbalance between unstable, reactive molecules called free radicals and the antioxidants sop them up.""A separate series of tests on human liver cancer cells showed that saffron inhibits the action of key proteins like NF-Kappa B, Interlukin-8, and tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 that contribute cell proliferation and inflammation. Other evidence shows that saffron switches on programmed cell death in cancerous cells, a failsafe mechanism that is ofter shut down in cancer." Still Saffron is very expensive and it has to be hand-picked, so its going to be very expensive.

I think this article is interesting because there has been almost no possible cure to cancer but now, a natural resource has the possibility of curing it.

This can relate to my life because my cousin was trying to create an operation where you could remove the cancer with a tube you insert and you isolate the cancerous area and remove it.

I think this article is more related to human ingenuity because these people are researching and they finally found a cure to cancer (liver) after many years of searching.