Excessive Food Preservative May Slow or Eliminate Tumor Growth

Furthermore, the conclusions suggest that nisin delays or stops tumor growth by interfering the cell cycle in negative cells but not the positive cells. Therefore, nisin can stop cancer cell production but does not damage the good cells.

01 Nov 2012 --- Years ago, the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the World Health Organization approved nisin as safe for human intake. This implies that testing nisin in a clinical setting to examine its cancer-battling properties could be a quick and easy process.

Antibacterial agents, like nisin, change cell properties in bacteria, making it harmless. It has only been since lately that scientists have started looking to nisin, and other antibacterial agents, to see if they changed properties in other cells, like cells in tumors, or cancer cells.

Oral cancer is a leading cause of death around the world. Oral squamous cell carcinoma makes more than 90 percent of oral cancers. Survival rates for oral cancers have not improved in decades.

Yvonne Kapila, the study's principal investigator and professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, says:

  "The poor five-year survival rates for oral cancer underscore the need to find new therapies for oral cancer. The use of small antibacterial agents, like nisin, to treat cancer is a new approach that holds great promise. Nisin is a perfect example of this potential because it has been used safely in humans for many years, and now the laboratory studies support its anti-tumor potential."

This University of Michigan study examined the use of antimicrobials to fight cancerous tumors, specifically nisin, to slow reproduction of cells or cause cell death through triggering a protein called CHAC1 in cancer cells, which causes cells to die.

The results are the first to show CHAC1's new job in encouraging cancer cell death under nisin treatment. The findings also point out that nisin could work by making pores in the cancer cell membranes, allowing a rush of calcium.

It is still unknown exactly what role calcium plays in nisin-induced cell death, although it is widely known that calcium is a critical regulator in cell death and survival.

Furthermore, the conclusions suggest that nisin delays or stops tumor growth by interfering the cell cycle in negative cells but not the positive cells. Therefore, nisin can stop cancer cell production but does not damage the good cells.