African Peper, Goat Weeds Endorsed For Cancer Treatment

AS Nigerians and indeed the rest of the world continue to live longer because of new innovations in medical care and with improved health promotion and education, a report forecast from the United Kingdom (UK), released last week, has predicted that the number of people who will get cancer during their lifetime will increase to nearly half the population by 2020.

But recent studies suggest that eating food prepared with African pepper and other spices and goat weed can prevent cancer.

German and Camerounian researchers following laboratory experiments conducted at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Germany have concluded that African medicinal plants contain chemicals that may be able to stop the spread of cancer cells.

The study was published last week in the journal Phytomedicine. The researchers said the plant materials would now undergo further analysis in order to evaluate their therapeutic potential.

Prof. Thomas Efferth of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Biochemistry – Therapeutic Life Sciences at Mainz University said: “The active substances present in African medicinal plants may be capable of killing off tumor cells that are resistant to more than one drug. They thus represent an excellent starting point for the development of new therapeutic treatments for cancers that do not respond to conventional chemotherapy regimens.”

Nigerian and Chinese researchers have also in a study published recently in Pharmacognosy Magazine showed that Ageratum conyzoides (goat weed) possessed anticancer and antiradical properties in most cancer cell lines. The cancer cell lines include: Human non-small cell lung carcinoma (A-549), human colon adenocarcinoma (HT-29), human gastric carcinoma (SGC-7901), human golima (U-251), human breast carcinoma (MDA-MB-231), human prostate carcinoma (DU-145), human hepatic carcinoma (BEL-7402), and mouse leukemia (P-388) cancer cell lines.

The study is titled “Anticancer and antiradical scavenging activity of Ageratum conyzoides L. (Asteraceae).”

In another study published recently in Phytotherapy Research, Nigerian and Indian researchers concluded: “These results indicate that Xylopia aethiopica (African pepper) fruit extract (XAFE) could be a potential therapeutic agent against cancer since it inhibits cell proliferation, and induces apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in human cervical cancer cell line C-33A.”

The study is titled “Anti-proliferative Action of Xylopia aethiopica Fruit Extract on Human Cervical Cancer Cells.”