'Herbs help in reducing cancer risk'

TNN / Nov 18, 2005, 03:59 IST

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Several herbs including vegetables, especially broccoli, have the capacity to reduce the risk of developing cancer.

LUCKNOW: Several herbs including vegetables, especially broccoli, have the capacity to reduce the risk of developing cancer, said Farah Naaz of the department of biochemistry, Jamia Hamdard while speaking on the concluding day of the International conference on Toxicology, Environment and Occupational Health on Thursday.
She stated that 'aflatoxin' is a toxic substance found in fungus which usually appears on nuts, and has the potential to cause liver diseases and can also be carcinogenic.
If taken in large quantity and becomes chronic, it can even cause Hepatitis. An experiment was conducted to analyse the effect of broccoli on this toxic, she said.
For the purpose, three separate groups of mice were used. While only water was administered to one group, the other was given aflatoxin while the third group was administered aflatoxin along with ethanolic extract of broccoli.

The experiment showed that ethanolic extracts of broccoli alleviates damages caused to liver by aflatoxin, she added.
A lecture on 'management of environmental-mediated oxidative stress' through herbal preparations was delivered by AA Mahdi of the department of biochemistry, King George's Medical University.
He stated that herbal preparations were now effectively being used for the treatment of various diseases. He laid stress on 'stress' factor stating that it is any condition that seriously perturbs normal cell behaviour.

Human body is susceptible to changes around it, which may be induced by chemical, physical, biological or environmental factors invariably leading to free radical mediated oxidative stress.
Over-production of free radicals has been considered as an important factor for various diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinsons, diabetes and arthiritis.
"Our biological system has numerous in-built mechanism to counter the free radical-induced cell damage. These include enzymatic as well as non-enzymatic components," he said.
Aluminium has been reported as a major factor responsible for the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. Hence, now a days there is much interest in the use of herbal preparations as alternative and complimentary medicine for treatment of various diseases.
He stressed the use of various herbal preparations such as 'haldi' for inflammatory disorders, 'tulsi' as adaptogen, 'neem' as antiseptic, 'harshingar' for rheumatoid arthritis and rheumatic fever and 'brahmi' for memory enhancement.

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