Vitamin B6 may enhance the cancer-inhibiting effect of curcumin
One of the potential health effects of a diet with a relatively high amount of curcumin is that it reduces the risk of some cancer types. That effect could be enhanced if that diet also contains generous amounts of vitamin B6.
Study
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The animal study that Xian Wu, a cancer researcher from Tufts University in the US, published in the Journal of Nutrition is a proof of principle study. If Wu's mice had been adult humans, they would have received about one and a half grams of curcumin and just under two hundred milligrams of vitamin B6 daily.If you want to apply the results of the study for a prolonged period of time, that's quite a lot.
Wu fattened some of his mice by feeding them a high-fat diet [HFD]. These fat mice served as models for obese people. Obesity increases the risk of colon cancer. To make sure that the animals actually got colon cancer, Wu injected a carcinogen [AOM] into their intestines.
Animals in a control group received standard chow and remained slim [LFD].
Results
The high fat diet made the mice fatter. There was a tendency for curcumin supplementation to reduce this diet-induced weight gain, but this trend was of little consequence.
More interesting was the effect of supplementation on tumor formation. There was a trend that curcumin and vitamin B6 reduced the formation of tumors in the gut. However, the effect of the combination of curcumin and vitamin B6 was stronger. The curcumin-B6-combination inhibited the tumors by 60-80 percent.
The figure below had been simplified. Click on it for an integral version.
Mechanism
The researchers were able to show that the curcumin-B6 combination made cancer genes work less hard and reduced the production of inflammatory factors.
Conclusion
Future clinical trials are needed to determine whether the antitumor effects conveyed by this combination regimen will also possess utility for colorectal cancer chemoprevention in overweight and obese human populations", summarize the researchers.
Source:
J Nutr. 2021 Dec 3;151(12):3678-88.
One of the potential health effects of a diet with a relatively high amount of curcumin is that it reduces the risk of some cancer types. That effect could be enhanced if that diet also contains generous amounts of vitamin B6.
Study
[TABLE="width: 358, align: right"]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
The animal study that Xian Wu, a cancer researcher from Tufts University in the US, published in the Journal of Nutrition is a proof of principle study. If Wu's mice had been adult humans, they would have received about one and a half grams of curcumin and just under two hundred milligrams of vitamin B6 daily.If you want to apply the results of the study for a prolonged period of time, that's quite a lot.
Wu fattened some of his mice by feeding them a high-fat diet [HFD]. These fat mice served as models for obese people. Obesity increases the risk of colon cancer. To make sure that the animals actually got colon cancer, Wu injected a carcinogen [AOM] into their intestines.
Animals in a control group received standard chow and remained slim [LFD].
Results
The high fat diet made the mice fatter. There was a tendency for curcumin supplementation to reduce this diet-induced weight gain, but this trend was of little consequence.
More interesting was the effect of supplementation on tumor formation. There was a trend that curcumin and vitamin B6 reduced the formation of tumors in the gut. However, the effect of the combination of curcumin and vitamin B6 was stronger. The curcumin-B6-combination inhibited the tumors by 60-80 percent.
The figure below had been simplified. Click on it for an integral version.
Mechanism
The researchers were able to show that the curcumin-B6 combination made cancer genes work less hard and reduced the production of inflammatory factors.
Conclusion
Future clinical trials are needed to determine whether the antitumor effects conveyed by this combination regimen will also possess utility for colorectal cancer chemoprevention in overweight and obese human populations", summarize the researchers.
Source:
J Nutr. 2021 Dec 3;151(12):3678-88.
