New anti-cancer components of extra-virgin olive oil revealed

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Public release date: 17-Dec-2008

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/bc-nac121608.php

Contact: Graeme Baldwin

graeme.baldwin@...

44-7

BioMed Central

New anti-cancer components of extra-virgin olive oil revealed

Good quality extra-virgin olive oil contains health-relevant chemicals,

'phytochemicals', that can trigger cancer cell death. New research

published in the open access journal BMC Cancer sheds more light on the

suspected association between olive oil-rich Mediterranean diets and

reductions in breast cancer risk.

Menendez from the Catalan Institute of Oncology and

Segura-Carretero from the University of Granada in Spain led a team of

researchers who set out to investigate which parts of olive oil were

most active against cancer. Menendez said, " Our findings reveal for the

first time that all the major complex phenols present in extra-virgin

olive oil drastically suppress overexpression of the cancer gene HER2 in

human breast cancer cells " .

Extra-virgin olive oil is the oil that results from pressing olives

without the use of heat or chemical treatments. It contains

phytochemicals that are otherwise lost in the refining process. Menendez

and colleagues separated the oil into fractions and tested these against

breast cancer cells in lab experiments. All the fractions containing the

major extra-virgin phytochemical polyphenols (lignans and secoiridoids)

were found to effectively inhibit HER2.

Although these findings provide new insights on the mechanisms by which

good quality oil, i.e. polyphenol-rich extra-virgin olive oil, might

contribute to a lowering of breast cancer risk in a HER2-dependent

manner, extreme caution must be applied when applying the lab results to

the human situation. As the authors point out, " The active

phytochemicals (i.e. lignans and secoiridoids) exhibited tumoricidal

effects against cultured breast cancer cells at concentrations that are

unlikely to be achieved in real life by consuming olive oil " .

Nevertheless, and according to the authors, " These findings, together

with the fact that that humans have safely been ingesting significant

amounts of lignans and secoiridoids as long as they have been consuming

olives and extra-virgin oil, strongly suggest that these polyphenols

might provide an excellent and safe platform for the design of new anti

breast-cancer drugs " .

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1. Anti-HER2 (erbB-2) oncogene effects of phenolic compounds directly

isolated from commercial Extra-Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)

A Menendez, Vazquez-, Rocio -Villalba,

Alegria Carrasco-Pancorbo, Cristina Oliveras-Ferraros, Alberto

Fernandez-Gutierrez and Segura-Carretero

BMC Cancer (in press)

http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmccancer/

All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's

open access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request at press@...

on the day of publication.

2. BMC Cancer is an open access journal publishing original

peer-reviewed research articles in all aspects of research relating to

cancer, including molecular biology, genetics, pathophysiology,

epidemiology, clinical reports, and controlled trials. BMC Cancer (ISSN

1471-2407) is indexed/tracked/covered by PubMed, MEDLINE, CAS, Scopus,

EMBASE, Thomson Reuters (ISI) and Google Scholar.

3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science,

Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access

publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by

BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and

are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part

of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the

STM sector.

--

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