"The technology is not particularly difficult," she added. "It's just a novel approach to evaluate toxin exposure in humans."
In their study, Jubert and her colleagues gave very low doses of aflatoxin labeled with carbon-14 isotopes as a tracer to four human volunteers. They then gave the volunteers the same doses of aflatoxin along with doses of either chlorophyll or chlorophyllin, which previously had been shown to reduce carcinogen bioavailability in trout and rats. Using an accelerator mass spectrometer, they measured the rate of aflaxtoxin bioavailability. This technique is extremely sensitive, the researchers say, allowing measurement of minute amounts of any labeled compound.
Their research revealed rapid absorption of aflatoxin, which was significantly limited after the chlorophyll and chlorophyllin treatments.
"The beauty of this kind of 'Phase 0' study is the use of ultra-sensitive technology and 'microdoses' of environmental carcinogens to study toxicokinetics within the human body," said John Mata, an OSU pharmacologist and second author on the study. "These measurements can be important because they allow us to better design future studies to understand the effects of dietary constituents on cancer risk.
"In this case, clearly the results merit further study," Mata added. "We showed that aflatoxin is absorbed quite rapidly and that chlorophyll and chlorophyllin have an ameliorating effect, preventing the toxin from getting into the bloodstream. Further studies can more precisely explore the interactions, as well as dosage levels."
Jubert and Mata also have tested the feasibility of using similar technology on human exposure to other toxins, including smokers who ingest carcinogens through cigarette smoke.
Mata, a professor in OSU's College of Veterinary Medicine, is a
|Contact: John Mata|
Oregon State University