Blueberries May Help Curb Colon Cancer

The antioxidant-rich food cut precancerous lesions in rats

By Juhie Bhatia
HealthDay Reporter

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TUESDAY, March 27 (HealthDay News) -- Blueberries, already touted as a super food because they may protect against memory loss and heart disease, could help stop the development of colon cancer, a new study finds.

The study showed that a natural compound called pterostilbene -- found in blueberries and other fruits -- helped prevent pre-cancerous colon lesions in rats.

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"Pterostilbene is an antioxidant and an anti-inflammatory agent that is mostly found in blueberries and blackberries," said study leader Bandaru Reddy, a research professor at Rutgers University's Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research, in Piscataway, N.J. "We tested it using a rat model that is very similar to the human situation. Several other compounds tested using this model in the past are already in human trials."

The study was conducted by researchers at Rutgers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute. The findings were presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Chicago.

Colon cancer is one of the major cancers in Western countries, and this study is one of the first to show pterostilbene's potential to fight it, Reddy said.

For the pilot study, the researchers gave 18 rats a compound called azoxymethane, a chemical that induces colon cancer.

Half of the rats were then fed a balanced diet, while the other half were given the same diet plus the compound pterostilbene (at a level of 40 parts per million).

After eight weeks, the rats who were fed pterostilbene had 57 percent fewer pre-cancerous lesions in their colon (called preneoplastic lesions) compared to the other group. Ingesting pterostilbene also reduced colonic cell proliferation and inhibited the expression of certain genes involved in inflammation -- both of these are considered to be risk factors for colon cancer, the study authors said.

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