{"id":2306,"date":"2014-07-17T07:42:44","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T11:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/?p=2306"},"modified":"2014-07-17T07:44:15","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T11:44:15","slug":"cancer-fighting-okra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/cancer-fighting-okra.html","title":{"rendered":"Cancer-fighting okra?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWell, this is unexpected.\r\nRecent research shows a compound in okra\r\n“promotes selective antitumor effects in human breast cancer cells and may represent a potential therapeutic to combat human breast cancer.”\r\n

\r\nHere’s the abstract,\r\nBiotechnol Lett. 2014 Mar;36(3):461-9. doi: 10.1007\/s10529-013-1382-4. Epub 2013 Oct 16.\r\n\r\nLectin of Abelmoschus esculentus (okra) promotes selective antitumor effects in human breast cancer cells.<\/a>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe anti-tumor effects of a newly-discovered lectin, isolated from\r\nokra, Abelmoschus esculentus (AEL), were investigated in human\r\nbreast cancer (MCF7) and skin fibroblast (CCD-1059 sk) cells. AEL\r\ninduced significant cell growth inhibition (63 %) in MCF7 cells. The\r\nexpression of pro-apoptotic caspase-3, caspase-9, and p21 genes was\r\nincreased in MCF7 cells treated with AEL, compared to those treated\r\nwith controls. In addition, AEL treatment increased the Bax\/Bcl-2\r\nratio in MCF7 cells. Flow cytometry also indicated that cell death\r\n(72 %) predominantly occurred through apoptosis. Thus, AEL in its\r\nnative form promotes selective antitumor effects in human breast\r\ncancer cells and may represent a potential therapeutic to combat\r\nhuman breast cancer.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nDon’t get your hopes up about that 72% figure: that seems to be\r\nthat when cancer cell death occurred, 72% of it was related,\r\nnot that 72% of cancer cells were killed.\r\nThe 63% cancer cell growth inhibition does seem promising, though.\r\n

\r\nThere are even hints in another paper that okra may be related to lower rates of prostate cancer:\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\n…a “Southern” pattern, which was characterized by higher\r\nintakes of foods such as okra, cornbread, or sweet potatoes. The\r\n“Southern pattern” had a suggestive inverse association\r\nwith prostate cancer risk (highest versus lowest tertile: RR, 0.6;\r\n95% CI, 0.4-1.1; Ptrend = 0.08). The authors speculated that the\r\nobserved association was due to living in the South, which may be\r\nrelated to lower risk of prostate cancer due to higher sunlight\r\n(vitamin D) exposure. In that study, statistical power was limited\r\n(136 cases). In a small case-control study from Canada (80 cases) a\r\n“processed diet” was significantly associated with an\r\nincreased risk of prostate cancer (4).\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSo this survey paper couldn’t really find any research that\r\ndirectly associated okra eating with lowered prostate cancer risk,\r\nbut it did find one study that showed a diet including okra had some\r\nslight decreased risk, and another study that showed a significant\r\nincreased risk for a diet of processed foods.\r\nSo okra is better than processed foods for prostate cancer,\r\nand it tastes better, too.\r\nThat was\r\n\r\nDietary Patterns and Risk of Prostate Cancer in U.S. Men<\/a>,\r\nby Kana Wu1, Frank B. Hu1, Walter C. Willett1 and Edward Giovannucci1,\r\ndoi: 10.1158\/1055-9965.EPI-05-0100,\r\nCancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev January 2006 15; 167.\r\n

\r\nThe association with okra helping against breast cancer is much clearer.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, this is unexpected. Recent research shows a compound in okra “promotes selective antitumor effects in human breast cancer cells and may represent a potential therapeutic to combat human breast cancer.” Here’s the abstract, Biotechnol Lett. 2014 Mar;36(3):461-9. doi: 10.1007\/s10529-013-1382-4. Epub 2013 Oct 16. Lectin of Abelmoschus esculentus (okra) promotes selective antitumor effects in human […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[44,98,6,60],"tags":[2619,380,3,23,2778,5,2796,2760,2780,2620],"class_list":["post-2306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-okra","category-okra-paradise-farms","category-plants","tag-breast-cancer","tag-cancer","tag-georgia","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-health","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-okra","tag-okra-paradise-farms","tag-plants","tag-prostate-cancer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-Bc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2306"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2308,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions\/2308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}