New Research News

This week brought a major advance in understanding the effects of modified citrus pectin (MCP) on cancer cells. Scientists at Columbia University published a paper showing that MCP stops the growth of prostate cancer (PC) cells in the test tube. Most significantly this effect was seen in both hormone-dependent and hormone-independent forms of the disease. There are very few treatments for hormone- independent PC, and so a report of likely benefit from a simple nutritional agent is highly significant.

Dr. Jun Yan and Dr. Aaron Katz tested two versions of MCP, PectaSol and PectaSol-C, both invented by Dr. Isaac Eliaz. In general, the new form of product outperformed the earlier version. The authors looked at apoptosis (the most prevalent form of programmed cell death) as well as at the inhibition of cell growth. A one percent solution of PectaSol-C was toxic to five cell lines. After four days of treatment, the total destruction of cancer cells ranged from 23.0 to 52.2 percent. The authors concluded that PectaSol and PectaSol-C both inhibited cell proliferation and apoptosis in prostate cancer cell lines.