Pogmegranate for cancer treatment/prevention?

Review by Kyle Bahnsen

Citation:
Lansky, E.P., Jiang, W., Mo, W., Bravo, L., Froom, P., Yu, W., Harris, N.M., Neeman, I. and Campbell, M.J. (2005). Possible synergistic prostate cancer suppression by anatomically discrete pomegranate fractions. Investigational New Drugs. 23: 11-20.

Summary:
This 2005 study, on tertiary prevention of prostate cancer was particularly interesting because it not only evaluated the use of the pomegranate fruit as a whole, but it evaluated the effectiveness of the juice polyphenols, the pericarp peel, and the pomegranate seed oil, individually. While this study was primarily focused on using the pomegranate plant as a synergist to other chemotherapeutic agents, it points to the need for future pilot studies concerned with it primary prevention properties of tumor suppression. The pomegranate fragments in this study were used on PC-3 human prostate cancer cells in vitro. Prostate cancer cells were obtained from 145 different samples, and the dose of pomegranate fragment used remained constant. Results from this randomized controlled trial demonstrated that all three of the separate pomegranate fragments (seed, skin, and oil), had synergistic affects on prostate cancer cell proliferation, invasion, and phospholipase A-2 expression.