We have written extensively on the subject of Bee Propolis before. (Bee Propolis article:
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Propolis, a substance the bees make to protect the hive, may contain up to 180 natural compounds. However, not all Propolis was created equal. The content of the propolis obviously depends totally on the local environment of the bees.
The most extensive research has been conducted to date on Brazilian Bee Propolis. One of the ingredients, CAPE or Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester has previously shown strong anti-cancer properties.
Now, researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine have shown that CAPE stops the growth of early-stage human prostate tumours grafted into mice. The results presented in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, suggested that CAPE stopped cell division rather than actually killing off the cancer itself.
If you feed CAPE to mice daily, their tumours will stop growing. After several weeks, if you stop the treatment, the tumours will begin to grow again at their original pace, said Richard B. Jones, PhD, assistant professor in the Ben May Department for Cancer Research and Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology and senior author of the study.
So it doesn’t kill the cancer, but it basically will indefinitely stop prostate cancer proliferation, he added..
It appears that CAPE suppresses the activity of certain growth proteins such as those in the Akt and p70S6 kinase pathways. The next step is Clinical Trials.