Babool bark extract holds out hope for a liver cancer cure

Vijay Pratap Singh
Posted: Jul 06, 2010 at 0154 hrs IST
 
Allahabad The researchers at Banaras Hindu University claim to have developed a drug that could be a potential cure for liver cancer from the extract of the bark of Acacia nilotica tree, commonly known as babool.
 
The tests on rats have shown encouraging results, said BHU sources.

The medicine is the result of a study funded by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi. The study which has continued for almost four years in the Mycology and Plant Pathology Department of the BHU is supervised by Professor H B Singh. The findings of the study had been published last year in the premier online US journal — Chemico-Biological Interactions.

Dr Brahma Nand Singh, a member of the research team, has now been invited to work with renowned cancer research scientist Professor Shi Wen Jiang at the Department of Bio-medicine (Savannah), USA. He will now embark on research on the role of babool in cancer therapy by reactivating tumor suppressor genes at various stage of the disease.

Singh said they found that Indian Babool can prevent hepatocellular carcinoma, also called liver cancer.

The tree has strong chemo-preventive potential in the form of six compounds present in the methanolic extract of the bark of Acacia nilotica. These compounds play an essential role in prevention and therapy of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neuro-degenerative diseases and inflammation by inducing antioxidant defense system.

The team inducted liver cancer in rats by injecting them with drugs. One of the drugs they used was N-nitrosodiethylamine, a potent hepatocarcinogenic and is present in tobacco smoke, water, cheese, fried meals and in a number of alcoholic beverages.

The researchers in their tests on rats found that the Indian babool has more cancer preventive phytomolecules (antioxidant polyphenolic compounds) than the Australian babool and that it stabilises and increases all the components of the defense gene pools. The babool extract abolishes the activities of liver injury and tumor markers by decreasing the damage to bio-molecules such as DNA, RNA, lipids and proteins that are essential for life.

H B Singh said, “It’s a path-breaking finding among cancer studies. For the first time, our research has established a link between babool phytomolecules and cancer prevention.”

Source