Juice may help fight prostate cancer
Photo: Marina Oliphant
Pomegranate juice may prove a weapon against prostate cancer, the findings of a small study suggest.
Researchers from the University of California in Los Angeles said when they gave the juice to about 50 men with the cancer, their conditions improved significantly.
The men all appeared to have an especially aggressive form of prostate cancer. They had been treated surgically or with radiation, the study said, but soon began experiencing an increase in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) - a marker for the disease.
The researchers, led by Dr Allan J. Pantuck of UCLA, looked at how quickly the level of antigen in the men's blood doubled, a measure of how fast the cancer is progressing. The faster the PSA doubles, they said, the more likely a patient is to die from the cancer.
The men in the study were asked to drink a 230-millilitre glass of pomegranate juice a day. Researchers found the mean time needed for the antigen to double increased from 15 to 54 months.
- Published in Clinical Cancer Research journal, reported by The New York Times