A CHEMICAL found in liquorice could help fight pancreatic cancer, a study suggests.
Researchers discovered isoliquiritigenin can suppress the disease, which kills around 9,000 people in the UK every year.
A chemical found in liquorice could help fight pancreatic cancer, a study suggests
Pancreatic cancer kills around 9,000 people in the UK every year
It could pave the way for new and improved treatments with fewer side effects and ultimately help save lives, scientists said.
A team at Hong Kong Baptist University studied the compound’s effectiveness in mice.
They found that isoliquiritigenin lowered the survival rate of cancer cells by up to 80 per cent and boosted the impact of drugs commonly used to treat the illness.
Just 30mg/kg of isoliquiritigenin reduced tumour size to around the same as those treated with the conventional chemotherapy drug gemcitabine.
And it produced far fewer side effects. The rodents did not experience significant weight loss or a drop in red and white blood cells as they did with gemcitabine.
When taken together though, cancer cells were suppressed by at least 18 per cent – meaning combining the two chemicals could be even more beneficial.
Joshua Ko Ka-Shun, an associate professor who led the study, published in the journal Phytomedicine and presented at the Annual Congress of the European Association for Cancer Research 2023 in Torino, Italy, said: “This compound is worth considering for further development into a new generation of chemotherapy treatment.
“[Pancreatic cancer] is difficult to identify, and usually at a late-stage when it is detected, with not many treatment options available, so finding a suitable treatment is urgent.
“Isoliquiritigenin possesses the unique property of inhibiting pancreatic cancer progression through the blockade of autophagy, which is a natural process where the body’s cells clean out damaged or unnecessary components.
“The blockade of late-stage autophagy in our experiment results in cancer death.”
He said he hopes to adopt the use of isoliquiritigenin for humans within 10 years.
Pancreatic cancer is the 10th most common form of the disease in the UK.
Around 10,449 new cases are diagnosed every year, with 9,000 deaths, according to the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK.
The illness often produces no symptoms so it is sometimes dubbed a “silent killer”, but the NHS says signs can include:
- The whites of your eyes or your skin turning yellow (jaundice), and you may also have itchy skin, darker pee and paler poo than usual
- Loss of appetite or losing weight without trying to
- Feeling tired or having no energy
- A high temperature, or feeling hot or shivery
- Feeling or being sick
- Diarrhoea or constipation, or other changes in your poo
- Pain at the top part of your tummy and your back, which may feel worse when you’re eating or lying down and better when you lean forward
- Symptoms of indigestion, such as feeling bloated
Experiencing these problems doesn’t mean you have cancer, but it’s important to get checked by your GP.
