Cranberry Juice Helps Fight Cancer

By Author: Dr. Victor Marchione
Total Articles: 90
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Cranberry has been used for centuries by native people to treat urinary-tract infections. Most likely, you’ve heard about this health benefit. Drink cranberry juice, medical experts say, and you’ll keep your urinary system healthy.
Well now, cranberries not only fight infection, but they can also play a vital role in the fight against cancer. Drinking a glass of cranberry juice could greatly boost an ovarian-cancer patient’s sensitivity to chemotherapy.
Researchers discovered that when they pretreated ovarian-tumor cells with cranberry juice, something quite extraordinary happened. It seems that the juice increased the cancer-killing power of drugs as much as six times!
Chemotherapy treatment commonly uses drugs to kill tumors, but many women develop a resistance to these drugs during the course of treatment. This, unfortunately, means that they require even higher doses of drugs, putting them at risk for nerve damage and kidney failure.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health funded the study. The research team collected cancer cells ...
... from patients who had already developed a resistance to cancer drugs. They then exposed the cells to a store-bought cranberry drink that contained only 27% pure juice.
All of the cancer cells were then treated with chemotherapy. It was then that researchers discovered that the cancer cells were killed at a rate that was equal to six times that of cells that didn’t get cranberry juice. They also found that the juice appeared to slow the growth and spread of some cancer cells.
Cancer-killing Power from Antioxidants
The research team believes that cranberry’s cancer-killing power comes from a special antioxidant called “proanthocyanidins.” This antioxidant is not found in other fruits. It appears to block the activity of tumor proteins that are found in ovarian-cancer cells, increasing their sensitivity to chemo.
The researchers cautioned that it remains to be seen whether cranberry will be just as effective outside of the lab setting. They also mentioned that cranberry compounds should not be considered a cure for cancer. However, they may very well make an excellent partner to more toxic chemo drugs.3
Dr. Robert Morgan, Jr., section head of medical gynecologic oncology at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, CA, agreed that the “cranberry effect” warrants further study.
“Of course, cranberries are non-toxic and the compounds they contain are part of the family of flavonoids found in grape seeds, which have been shown to be potentially beneficial in breast cancer,” Morgan said in conclusion.
In the meantime, have a glass of cranberry juice with breakfast. You’ll at least be giving yourself an antioxidant boost, whatever future studies have to say about cranberries and cancer prevention.

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