Taipei, Feb. 14 (CNA) A study by a medical professor has found that an extract from blueberries can help combat bladder cancer and bladder cancer with chemotherapy resistance, a local university said Tuesday.
Wang Ying-jan, a professor at National Cheng Kung University in southern Taiwan, discovered that pterostilbene, an extract from blueberries that is also found in pterocarpus indicus, commonly known as New Guinea rosewood, is helpful in bladder cancer treatment.
Wang said the extracted substance can induce apoptosis in bladder cancer cells. Pterostilbene also has antioxidant and antiseptic features and anticancer activity and can lower blood fat levels, he added.
The research also found that bladder cancer patients who continue to smoke while receiving chemotherapy tend to present worse post-chemo conditions than those who do not smoke, signaling a chemotherapy resistance feature in nicotine.
Wang's research, which was documented in three separate theses, has already been published in 2008 and 2010 in Toxicological Sciences, a monthly medical research journal published by Oxford University in the United Kingdom.
(By Chang Jung-hsiang and Jamie Wang) ENDITEM/J
