Celery Compound Fights Cancer

A natural substance found in celery, parsley and other plants has been found to show promise as a non-toxic treatment for an aggressive form of breast cancer. New research out of the University of Missouri determined the chemical apigenin shrank breast cancer tumors whose growth is typically fueled by progestin, the female hormone given to women to ease menopause symptoms. Although the research was conducted in laboratory studies of mice, scientists said the findings could have significant implications for human cancer patients. "This is the first study to show that apigenin, which can be extracted from celery, parsley and many other natural sources, is effective against human breast cancer cells that had been influenced by a certain chemical used in hormone replacement therapy," said researcher Salman Hyder, biomedical-sciences specialist at the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center. For the study, Hyder and his colleagues implanted cells of a fast-growing human breast cancer, known as BT-474, into mice treated with progestin. Some of the mice were then treated with apigenin; the others were not. Researchers found tumors grew rapidly in the mice that did not receive apigenin, but in the mice treated with the natural substance the tumors shrank. "We don't know exactly how apigenin does this on a chemical level," Hyder said. "We do know that apigenin slowed the progression of human breast cancer cells in three ways: by inducing cell death, by inhibiting cell proliferation, and by reducing expression of a gene associated with cancer growth." The research was published in the journal Hormones and Cancer.