Grapefruit May Help Cure Cancer

A cure for some cancers may be found right on your breakfast table. Huang-Ge Zhang, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Louisville, has recently discovered how to safely treat patients with cancer-fighting antibodies using cells found in grapefruits.

A grapefruit's nanoparticles, which has been penned grapefruit derived nanovector's (GNV's) in the study, are developed by the extraction of its lipids, and Zhang and his team found that they serve as a less harmful vehicle for delivering anti-cancer antibodies for treatment.

Zhang, his partner Qilong Wang, and their team of researchers published their findings in Nature Communications on May 21, and outlined their findings during a study of a trial treatment for colon cancer. The trial showed that there were no toxicity effects, such as nausea or fatigue, on the patients during the treatment and that using the grapefruit's nanoparticles was a less harmful, all-natural way to treat cancer.

Zhang strongly believes that treatment delivery methods for curing patients should be risk-free and delivered through natural lipids as opposed to synthetic ones, which is currently the most common variation of nanoparticles. When asked why he believed that grapefruit could help cure cancer, Zhang told the school's newspaper,  University of Louisville today, "The fruits and vegetables we buy from the grocery today were passed down from generation to generation as favorable and nutritious for the human body. On the flip side, outcomes were not favorable for our ancestors who ate poisonous mushrooms..."