According to a recent study conducted at the University of Kentucky, a natural compound that can be extracted from grape seed could potentially kill leukemia cells. When these cancerous cells are exposed to the extract, researchers found that about 76 percent of them would be dead within 24 hours. So what is behind this new revelation?

Researchers think that the extract basically forces these harmful cells to “commit suicide” or what’s referred to as apoptosis. Apoptosis is a kind of programmed death that occurs with the cells when they are growing or developing and something goes wrong with the process. When an individual is inflicted with leukemia this means that the disease and other cancers have somehow blocked the cell signaling pathway which enables bad cells to die off. Apoptosis is essentially how the body keeps cancers and other illnesses from affecting the body.

How Can Grape Seeds Help?

The study reveals that grape seed extract is able to activate a protein known as JNK that helps to regulate the apoptotic highway and allows any damaged cells within the body to commit suicide. Grape seed extract has been studied by numerous researchers after it was discovered that this natural substance could benefit activity in breast, skin, lung, and prostate cancer patients. However, before this study, no one had tested the extract on hematological cancers.

“What everyone seeks is an agent that has an effect on cancer cells but leaves normal cells alone, and this shows that grape seed extract fits into this category,” explains the study’s author, Xianglin Shi, Ph.D. Shi emphasizes that this research is still in its earliest stages. Although, it is promising since hematological cancers such as leukemia, are the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States.

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