Camomile tea ?

[Girl111]

I have read a few articles that this tea has anti cancer properties and a certain element in there cuts off blood
Supply for the cancer cells . One article suggested it can shrink
A tumor within 24 hours.

Has anyone tried this and had any benefit ? I am
Thinking of starting my dad on this

[JDinNC]

I've heard more positive results drinking Green Tea...never heard anything on Camomile Tea.

[GrouseMan]

German Chamomile is generally used for digestive problems, tension and irritation. It is often very good at soothing the stomach, and it also is an anti-inflammatory agent I think. I generally also use it when I have a cold as well to help me sleep. I've NEVER heard it being used to shrink tumors. I check 6 different books on Medical Herbs and see no reference to its use in treating cancer. Its such a well known and oft used herb, if it had such properties one would think it would be well described by now. Can you cite any references?

As a former cancer research chemist, that also has an interest in medicinal botany, I would be very interested. There are indeed many very beneficial drugs originally discovered from plants, and some of these are indeed used to treat cancer. The Podophylotoxins from the American May Apple, are used to make Etopiside, and tenopiside, two topoisomerase II inhibitors used in treating several forms of cancer. Then there are the Taxanes, Taxol and Taxotere which come from the Pacific Yew tree. Madagascar periwinkle produced vincristine another anti-cancer compound. Irinotecan is a semi synthetic compound derived from compounds in the bark and stem of Camptotheca acuminata (Camptotheca, Happy tree), a tree native to China, and traditionally used in Chinese medicine.

I have worked in the area of semisynthetic podophylotoxin like drugs very early in my career. We used resin from the may apple and extracted out the natural products separated them and purified the core part of the molecule we needed as a starting material then made modifications to that structure. I was an inventor on one patent on these sorts of compounds - but they were never developed commercially.

So you see - if there was any hint that chamomile tea contained a potent anti-cancer compound that could shrink a tumor in 24 hours the pharmaceutical industry would have been all over it!

NOTE however - I don't recommend that anyone go out and start adding American May Apples, Pacific Yew, Periwinkle, or Happy Tree to your treatments. May apples are VERY poisonous. The others like as well.

Regards,

GrouseMan

[lichens]

The chemical compound that may have some anticancer properties in camomile tea, as well as in parsley and celery, is apigenin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apigenin

There are a couple of abstracts on NIH describing it:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23485682

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19885610

[GrouseMan]

Interesting - apigenin is similar in chemical structure to the initial MEK inhibitors we worked on back in the late 80's. PD098059 as an example is a weak MEK1 inhibitor used as a molecular probe for this signaling pathway, which eventually lead to PD184352 a much more potent MEK1 and MEK2 inhibitor. I believe Bayer is promoting some compounds like PD184352 into the clinic now.

http://www.selleckchem.com/products/PD-98059.html
and
http://www.selleckchem.com/products/CI-1040-(PD184352).html

Bayer's compound is called Refametinib though there appear to no longer be any active clinical trials taking place.
http://www.cancer.gov/drugdictionary?CdrID=589128

Though this page towards the bottom list a couple:
http://www.selleckchem.com/products/ref ... -9766.html

So if you drink a lot of chamomile tea perhaps it will help some small amount along with everything else....

Regards,

GrouseMan