Researchers have found that extracts of the endemic Mauritian medicinal herbs can stop one of the most deadly types of cancer from growing. This type is known as oesophageal squamous carcinoma cells.
A new study has found that this particular herb contains chemical compounds that are able to prevent these cells from growing. These herbs prevent the cancer stage transition in malignant tumour cells. Investigating the medical herbs of Mauritius is a huge breakthrough and a step towards finding a treatment for this disease.
"About one-third of the local plants are used in traditional medicine, but there is still a lack of scientific evidence of their therapeutic potential, while genocide of nature is most evident on such small pieces of a lost paradise," said Alexander Kagansky, the Head of the Center for Genomic and Regenerative Medicine of the School of Biomedicine FEFU, an expert in the field of cancer epigenetics and chromosome biology, told a news portal. Adding, "In particular, further study of the active compounds from the leaves extracts prototypes of the future drugs to treat oesophageal cancer and other deadly diseases."
Modern lifestyles and diet are huge contributing factors that are causing many people to suffer from oesophageal cancer. It has become a global concern. Currently, there is no effective treatment to treat this type of cancer. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are the only forms of treatment that help prolong lives for a few months that many patients spend suffering tremendous pain.Patients with this form of cancer are unable to eat or properly digest food. Less than 15 per cent of patients reportedly survives only for five years from the time they are diagnosed.
Researchers say oesophageal squamous carcinoma with adenocarcinoma is the sixth main cause of death in the global oncological practice. These kinds of cancer are treated with toxic drugs that come with side effects that can make life worse for a patient. In order to find better treatment, researches feel modern biomedicine needs to develop new anti-cancer compounds from a wide pool of natural sources like plants, fungi and bacteria.
"Mauritius Island is a treasure island of the global biodiversity, and the story of continuing tragedy of human greed, barbarian appetite (remember the Dodo bird from the Alice story, RIP) and neglection of true wonders of the planet designed to save human lives," Kagansky told a news portal. "Our research should serve the benefit of humanity and show by evidence that on the mechanistic level people depend on natural chemistries, which will reward us by reducing deaths and suffering of ourselves, our parents, and children," he further went on to explain.
The study's findings were originally published in theJournal of Acta Naturae.
