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Aqueous extracts from colored carrots reduce prostate cell proliferation
Author(s) -
Hanlon Paul Robert,
Barnes David M
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.4.a564-a
Subject(s) - colored , aqueous solution , chemistry , prostate , food science , medicine , materials science , organic chemistry , cancer , composite material
Risk for many degenerative diseases is inversely correlated with the dietary consumption of fruits and vegetables. Carrots are a well accepted food with documented health benefits and we hypothesize that efficacy can be achieved with a whole‐food based approach. The research presented here focuses on different varieties of colored carrots, all of which are enriched in different bioactive constituents: orange (high β‐carotene), red (lycopene), yellow (lutein), purple (anthocyanidins) and white (devoid of pigments). The first step in this investigation was to measure the effect of extracts of the different carrot varieties in a cell‐based model of a disease state. The effects of the crude aqueous extracts of these carrots, which maintain the mixtures of soluble constituents within the whole carrots, on the DU145 prostate cancer cells have been measured. The results show that the 4 mg/ml aqueous extracts from the colored carrots (which is approximately the amount of extract from 1 mg of whole carrots) all significantly reduced cell proliferation and increased LDH release in the DU145 cell line, but that the extracts from yellow, red and orange carrots are significantly more effective than the extracts from white and purple carrots. Thus, crude, aqueous carrot extracts reduced the proliferation of prostate cancer cells primarily through the induction of cell death. Work supported by Standard Process, Inc.