The natural fruit fiber that makes jelly jell can prevent the spread of prostate cancer in laboratory rats, researchers say.
Dr. Kenneth J. Pienta of the University of Michigan said a modified form of pectin blocks or slows the spread of prostate cancer by keeping free-floating cancer cells from sticking to one another or to organs in the body."We showed that this worked in laboratory rats," Pienta said Tuesday. "Now we're asking the National Cancer Institute to confirm our findings."
Preventing the spread of cancer cells is a key to improving the rate of survival for cancer patients. Pienta said that a primary cancer tumor often is successfully treated with surgery or radiation, but the patient dies anyway because the cancer had metastasized, or spread, to other organs.
"If we had a pill that prevented cancer from spreading, then about 90 percent of all cancers could be curable," he said.
Pienta said a modified citrus pectin could be such a pill.
A report on pectin research by Pienta and by scientists at Wayne State University School of Medicine was published Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. W. Marston Linehan of the NCI says in an editorial that the pectin research gives "support for further studies to determine the role of naturally occurring agents, such as modified citrus pectin, on inhibition of . . . prostate cancer."