Licorice is the protagonist of the summer and not only: excellent for combating low blood pressure, it also offers benefits to those suffering from digestive problems but is also used in the treatment of various pathological forms such as sore throat, cough, bronchitis, arthrosis, food poisoning and systemic lupus erythematosus. What if we told you that licorice is an excellent ally to deal with pancreatic cancer?
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I study
A chemical found in licorice could help fight one of the deadliest cancers in the world. The Hong Kong study found that the flavonoid isoliquiritigenin (ISL), found in licorice root, a widely used herb in traditional Chinese medicine, could kill pancreatic cancer cells. Hong Kong researchers also found that the compound could make skin treatments more effective chemotherapy.
Study director Dr. Joshua Ko Ka-Shun said: “The licorice compound will be important for chemotherapy treatments. Pancreatic cancer is difficult to identify, and usually in an advanced stage when diagnosed, with few treatment options available. It is urgent to find an adequate treatment. When ISL was injected into patients with tumors, the survival rate of these tumor cells is d50-80% limit, depending on the dosage. about the11-13 percent of cells went into late apoptosis, or cell death, compared with fewer than five percent of cells that did not receive ISL.
“ISL has a unique property of inhibiting the progression of pancreatic cancer by blocking autophagy, which is a natural process in which the body’s cells clean up damaged or unnecessary components,” said Dr.
Ko. Late-stage autophagy blockade in our experiments results in tumor cell death.
The effects
The researchers also tested the effects of ISL on the chemotherapy drugs gemcitabine (GEM) and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). These drugs tend to have low success rates, as low as 10 percent, and many patients become resistant to them after just a few months of treatment. But the team found that adding ISL to GEM suppressed the growth of cancer cells by 18%, and adding 5-FU stopped the growth of 30 Pancreatic cancer is the third deadliest form of the disease in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute, after lung and colorectal cancer. On average, only 12.5% survive after five years.
The NCI estimates that more than half of these cases are diagnosed after the disease has already spread to other organs, as early symptoms, such as jaundice and abdominal pain, are easily overlooked. As the cancer reaches later stages, the survival rate decreases to three percent. This has led to pancreatic cancer being referred to as a ‘silent killer’.
Dr Ko urged people not to consume large quantities of licorice to prevent cancer. However, the group is optimistic that ISL could be used in treatments in the coming years. “The results of this study open a new avenue for the development of ISL as a novel autophagy inhibitor in the treatment of pancreatic cancer,” said Dr. Ko. “We hope to collaborate with other research partners to further evaluate the efficacy and potential clinical application of ISL in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.”