来自爱尔兰和波兰的研究人员发现在一项针对细胞凋亡的试验中无意发现了这种化合物能够杀死癌细胞。看来食物中的天然色素大多对人体有益。
Curry Powder Ingredient Kills Cancer Cells
转自丁香园love_elia编译
Researchers from Ireland and Poland found that curcumin, a compound found in the popular Indian spice turmeric that gives curry powder its distinct yellow colour, killed oesophageal cancer cells in the lab via an unexpected cell-death mechanism that did not involve apoptosis or cell suicide.
咖喱粉能够杀死癌细胞
来自爱尔兰和波兰的研究人员发现，姜黄色素，这种化合物是在印度非常流行的一种姜黄香料中发现的，它能够使咖喱具有特别的黄颜色，在一项针对细胞凋亡的试验中无意发现了这种化合物能够杀死癌细胞。
Moreover, they found that the compound started killing cancer cells within 24 hours and the cells began to digest themselves.
而且，他们发现这种化合物在24小时开始杀死癌细胞，并且这些细胞开始自我消化。
The study was the work of lead author Dr Sharon McKenna at the Cork Cancer Research Centre, University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland, and colleagues, and appears in the 28 October issue of the British Journal of Cancer.
这项研究的主要人员是Sharon McKenna博士和她的同事，她们是爱尔兰科克大学癌症研究中心的人员，这项研究报告刊登于10月２８日出版的英国《癌症》杂志。
McKenna told the press that:
McKenna说：
"These exciting results suggest that scientists could develop curcumin as a potential
anti-cancer drug to treat oesophageal cancer."
这项令人激动的发现能够促使科学家把姜黄色素发展为一种抗癌药来治疗食道癌。
She explained that scientists have long known that natural compounds have
potential therapeutic value in treating cancerous cells and they suspected that curcumin was one of them.
她解释说，医学界早已意识到某些天然物质对治疗癌症具有潜在价值，并且认为姜黄素可能就是其中一种
First author and UCC medical researcher Dr Geraldine O'Sullivan-Coyne, had been looking for new ways of killing resistant oesophageal cancer cells explained McKenna, and when she started using curcurmin she found the cells started to die using a cell signalling system that unexpectedly did not go via the apoptosis or cell suicide path.
McKenna介绍说，UCC医学研究中心的专家Geraldine O'Sullivan-Coyne博士，一直在寻找各种低于癌细胞攻击的方法，当她用姜黄色素时，发现癌细胞死亡，出人意料的是这些癌细胞死亡并不是因为它们的自我凋亡。
Apoptosis is the most usual route by which faulty cells die: it is a cell suicide path
triggered by proteins called caspases. But O'Sullivan-Coyne, McKenna and colleagues found that not only did the cells show no evidence of suicide, when they added a
molecule that stops the caspases triggering apoptosis, it made no difference to the number of cells that died.
大多数情况下，令癌细胞死亡的方法是通过激活细胞中的半胱氨酸蛋白酶（又称凋亡蛋白酶），从而启动癌细胞自身程序性凋亡，但是O'Sullivan-Coyne, McKenna和她的同僚们发现，不仅没有显示出细胞凋亡的证据，而且当他们使用其他药物阻止半胱氨酸蛋白酶启动程序性凋亡，癌细胞还是会死亡
This strongly suggests that curcumin killed the cancer cells via another cell signalling path, said the researchers.
研究人员说：这有力的证明，姜黄色素通过另一种细胞信号途径杀死癌细胞。
Oesophageal cancer is the seventh most common cause of death from cancer in Ireland, where it accounts for 350 deaths a year, around 4 per cent of all cancer deaths in Ireland. In the UK it kills around 7,800 people a year.
在爱尔兰，食道癌时因癌症导致死亡的第七大疾病，每年导致350人死亡，在爱尔兰，这个数字占到因癌症死亡人数的4%。在英国，每年导致7800人死亡。
Fewer than 20 per cent of patients with oesophageal cancer live more than 5 years after diagnosis.
在确诊后，食道癌患者只有不到20%的比例能够生存超过5年。
Professor Gerald O'Sullivan, who heads the Cork Cancer Research Centre at UCC said that this study opens the door to developing natural chemicals in turmeric as new treatments for oesophageal cancer.
UCC癌症研究中心的主管Gerald O'Sullivan教授说，这项研究开了一扇门，能够促使姜黄发展为一种新的食道癌治疗方式。
"The incidence of oesophageal cancer has gone up by more than a half since the 70s, particularly in the Western world and this is thought to be linked to rising rates of
obesity, alcohol intake and reflux disease, so finding ways to both treat and prevent this disease is extremely important," he said, adding that:
70年代以来，食道癌的发生率已经增加了超过一半，尤其是在西方，被认为是肥胖率，饮酒，流行病等带来的危害是一样的，因此寻找某些方法来治疗和预防这种疾病是非常重要的，他补充道。
"The development of natural compounds as chemo-preventative agents is also a very promising area of research."
把天然化合物作为一种治疗途径也是一项非常有前景的研究。
Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK expressed a similar view to the ***.
英国癌症信息研究部的主管Lesley Walker博士也表达了同样的观点。
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