Science and Biomedical information about Wasabi

Anti-Cancer (continued)
(breast, prostate, colon, lung, leukemia, pancreas esophagus, bladder and others)

Wasabia japonica - Nature's Gift

ITCs in Wasabi have been shown to suppress dissemination or metastasis of cancerous tumor cells.

There is now a growing base of evidence on how isothiocyanates act against cancerous cells. Isothiocyanates act to inhibit enzymes that cause pre-carcinogenic compounds to turn into carcinogenic ones (Phase 1 enzymes) and they also can induce Phase 2 enzymes which fight against cancerous cells (Yu et al. 1996, Hecht 1999, Kirlin et al. 1999), possibly through gene expression (Yu et al. 1996, Gao and Talalay 2004), inhibit initiation of cancerous growths (Yano et al. 2000) and induce glutathione S-transferase (Morimitsu et al. 2000). 6-methylsulfinyhexyl isothiocyanate has been shown also to block the cell cycle of cancerous cells (Hashimoto et al 2004). This same molecule has been show to effect protein production in cancerous cells (Hou et al. 2000).

Metastasis, a critical stage in cancer development is blocked by ITCs and in particular 6MITC. Fuke and her co-workers (1997, 2000, 2006) and Manesh and Kuttan (2003) have shown that 6-MITC from Wasabi suppressed dissemination or metastasis of tumor cells. Wasabia japonica contains a high concentration of 6-MITC.

In numerous cases the ITCs from Wasabi have been shown to cause cancerous cells to under go apoptosis or cell death. This has been shown in leukemia cells (Nakamura et al 2001, Fimagnori et al. 2004), breast cancer cells (Nomura et al. 2005), lung cancer (Kuang and Chen 2004), colorectal cancer (Lund et al. 2001) and cancerous cells of other cell types (Watanabe et al. 2003, Fimognari et al. 2005).

An important point to be made here is that ITCs are efficacious against the cancerous cells but do no harm healthy cells. No side-effects have been encountered. Musk and co-workers (1993, 1995) showed that AITC was selectively toxic towards colorectal tumor cells. Nakamura et al. (2001) found in the case of leukemia that the isothiocyanates from Wasabi inhibit the growth of leukemic cells but do not inhibit normal cells. From this finding Nakamura et al. suggested that a remarkable therapeutic effect can be expected.

Our company has obtained its first round of experimental results assessing the efficacy of a Wasabi extract on pre-cancerous breast epithelial cells. The results demonstrated that under in vitro conditions a diluted ethanol extract is very effective in causing pre-cancerous cells to undergo apoptosis or programmed cell death. While these experiments were conducted in vitro they indicate that a Wasabi extract can eliminate pre-cancerous cells before they become cancerous. What makes these results very exciting is that breast cancer is the most frequent cancer in women worldwide and the incidence of this disease continues to rise (Stone et al. 1998, Russo et al. 2000).

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