Extract of bitter melon was found to hold the key to cure cancer. Bitter melon, a vegetable common in India and known as 'karela' in Hindi is often used in Indian and Chinese cooking.
"The goal of our study is to see if a complementary alternative medicine treatment based upon bitter melon can stop the spread of head and neck cancer," she said.
Breast Cancer - Prevention and Management with Lifestyle Changes
Lifestyle choices may or may not cause breast cancer but healthy lifestyle changes can open up avenues beyond breast cancer. Good habits will allow one to fight breast cancer and to live with dignity.
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Ray studies using bitter melon extract to prevent or treat cancer by thwarting the spread of cancer cells. In a controlled lab setting, she previously found that bitter melon extract activated a pathway that triggered the death of breast cancer cells, stopping them from growing and spreading. The effectiveness of using bitter melon extract to treat breast cancer in people has not been tested.
Then, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, she expanded her research on bitter melon extract to include prostate cancer prevention.
![Prostate Cancer: Treatment Options]( "Prostate Cancer: Treatment Options")
Treatment options of prostate cancer includes waiting, surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, cryosurgery or biologic therapy.
With that research underway, Ray discussed her bitter melon research with Dr. Mark Varvares, a SLUCare head and neck cancer specialist and director of the Saint Louis University Cancer Center, who thought her findings could have implications for treating head and neck cancer and warranted more study.
"We have pretty good indications that bitter melon extract works in cancer cell lines to halt the growth. I think it might be effective to treat solid tumors, and our grant will help us to get pre-clinical data to show whether something that looks promising in fighting breast cancer could work in other cancers," Ray said.
For her research, she will feed bitter melon extract to mice that have head and neck cancer to see if the substance sparks anti-tumor activity.
If bitter melon extract stops the growth of cancer cells in animals, the findings could lay the groundwork for studying the treatment in a phase I clinical trial of human patients who have head and neck cancer, Ray said.
Head and neck cancers, which account for 6 percent of all cancer cases, start in the mouth, nose, sinuses, voicebox and throat. They frequently are aggressive, and often spread from one part of the head or neck to another.
Source: ANI
Prostate Cancer: Treatment Options
Treatment options of prostate cancer includes waiting, surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, cryosurgery or biologic therapy.
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With that research underway, Ray discussed her bitter melon research with Dr. Mark Varvares, a SLUCare head and neck cancer specialist and director of the Saint Louis University Cancer Center, who thought her findings could have implications for treating head and neck cancer and warranted more study.
"We have pretty good indications that bitter melon extract works in cancer cell lines to halt the growth. I think it might be effective to treat solid tumors, and our grant will help us to get pre-clinical data to show whether something that looks promising in fighting breast cancer could work in other cancers," Ray said.
For her research, she will feed bitter melon extract to mice that have head and neck cancer to see if the substance sparks anti-tumor activity.
If bitter melon extract stops the growth of cancer cells in animals, the findings could lay the groundwork for studying the treatment in a phase I clinical trial of human patients who have head and neck cancer, Ray said.
Head and neck cancers, which account for 6 percent of all cancer cases, start in the mouth, nose, sinuses, voicebox and throat. They frequently are aggressive, and often spread from one part of the head or neck to another.
Source: ANI
Risk of Death in Breast Cancer Survivors Increases With Daily Consumption of High Fat Dairy Products
High fat dairy products increase the risk of death in breast cancer survivors, reports a recent research.
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 Discovery of New Mechanism Shows How Kale, Bitter Melon May Improve Treatment for Asthma, COPDScientists have discovered a new mechanism that shows how bitter tasting substances like kale and bitter melon provide clues to improve treatments for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. | Advertisement
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