Drinking cranberry juice or taking cranberry extract may enhance the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs used to fight ovarian cancer.
Chemotherapy using platinum-based drugs is a mainstay treatment for ovarian cancer. However, cancer cells tend to develop resistance to platinum therapy over time, and higher doses of the drugs can cause unwanted side effects, including nerve damage and kidney failure. Researchers have tried to find ways to make cells more sensitive to platinum therapy, and the answer may be in your refrigerator right now.
Researchers demonstrated human ovarian cancer cells resistant to platinum drugs became up to six-times more sensitized to the drugs after exposure to cranberry compounds than unexposed cells. The amount of juice extract given to the cells was the human equivalent of about one cup of cranberry juice.
Though these early results are promising, some doctors cautioned it is too soon to recommend all patients stock up on the red juice. “If a patient of mine saw the study and said, ‘I love cranberry juice. Should I keep on drinking it?’ I would say, ‘By all means! Drink it.'” Dwight Im, M.D., co-director of the gynecological oncology center at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., told Ivanhoe. “On the other hand, I wouldn’t go and say you should drink cranberry juice even if you’re not a cranberry juice drinker.”
Study researchers said animal studies of the treatment therapy will begin soon and if successful, cranberry extract could be used as part of an injectable chemotherapy regimen or as a beverage supplement to be consumed during chemotherapy.
SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Dwight Im, M.D.; American Chemical Society 234th National Meeting in Boston, Mass., Aug. 19-23, 2007
