Scientists at Imperial College London has crunched data on over 6,000 foods and turned up ‘more than 110 cancer-beating molecules’, particularly those called flavonoids, a group of polyphenols, as well as some in repurposed drugs such as metformin and rosoxacin.
The massive team led by Dr. Kirill Veselkov from the Dept. of Surgery and Cancer includes not just scientists but clinicians, sensory scientists, microbiome scientists, gastronomists and even a chef.
Using AI technologies combined with the Vodaphone Foundation who allowed processing time via an App on phones while people slept, they reviewed an enormous number of compounds in foods and even drugs that could be repurposed to fight cancer, even if that wasn’t the original aim.
The project is ongoing, but the latest findings, described as ‘ground breaking’ by the team identified many natural compounds found in the colourful Mediterranean Diet and particularly flavonoids that are bioactive compounds giving many of the fruits and vegetables their bright colours. But they also found strong evidence of anti-cancer molecules in old, non-cancer drugs like Metformin and the anti- microbial Rosoxacin.
There is increasing and convincing evidence that polyphenols - of which flavonoids are a subgroup - have strong benefits against cancer. In this study, polyphenol compounds particularly strong for anti-cancer activity were those found in cabbage, carrots, oranges and grapes.
The next step is to confirm the clinical properties they have identified.
In 2012, Professor Robert Thomas reported his work on Polyphenols and a clinical trial on how his multi-food product Pomi-T could reduce the size of the prostate and the PSA level in men with Prostate cancer.
Co-incidentally, The American Chemical Society launched 12 studies into the benefits of different polphenols with different cancers.
Go to: Polyphenols, cancer and Pomi-T
CANCERactive - the appliance of Science