Monday, February 27, 2012
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Jajpur: About 16 species of mangrove plants are proved as sources of anti-cancer drugs. These species are available in India’s second-largest mangrove forest of the Bhitarakanika National Park in Odisha and other parts of the globe, said Dr Luna Samant, a noted
Zoologist and head of Zoology department at the Ravenshaw College, Cuttack.
She was addressing a national-level UGC-sponsored seminar on ‘Conservation of wetland and its biodiversity in India with special reference to Odisha’ at a college at Balichandrapur.
Our research shows encouraging results in preventing cancer cells from progressing, dubbed chemoprevention. We did hard work to identify the 16 species of mangrove species. The state government has recently granted Rs 10 lakh to us for doing more research on it, Dr Samant said.
Our research proves that about 16 mangrove plants-derived compounds have been an important source of several clinically useful anti-cancer agents. These plants proved during our research that anti-cancer values and promising new agents are in clinical development based on selective activity against cancer-related molecular targets, she said.
She also said that the aim of cancer chemoprevention is to circumvent the development and progression of malignant cells through the use of non-cytotoxic nutrients, herbal preparations/natural plant products and/or pharmacological agents.
Encouraging dietary intake with herbal supplements may, therefore, be an effective strategy to limit DNA lesions and organic injuries leading to cancer and other chronic degenerative diseases.
The mangrove species are distributed widely in the Bhitarakanika mangrove forest and in some other coastal pockets of the state.
The leaves of many species of mangroves are used to treat rheumatism, neuralgia and other diseases.
It is widely believed among mangrove-dwellers that chewing the leaves would protect against snakebite, said Dr Samant.
We are also studying the effects of natural plant extracts such as plants from mangrove forest on breast cancer cells and trying to verify their impact on inducing death to the malignant cells by using cutting edge technology, she said.
In the past, the coastal pockets of the State were covered with mangrove forest, but now the mangrove forest in confined to Bhitarakanika, for which the Government should protect this forest, she said.
Dr Samant and her team members are looking forward to discover novel approaches for manipulating the switch-on-switch off processes of gene expression, which, in turn, could be helpful in treating cancer.
Her group is mainly emphasising on combinations of effective plant extracts and chromatin-remodelling factors to manipulate a switch-on and switch-off mechanism of genes in cancer cells.
In many instances, the cancer is undefined, or reference is made to conditions such as hard swellings, abscesses, calluses, corns, warts, polyps or tumors, to name a few.
Such symptoms would generally apply to skin, tangible or visible conditions and may indeed sometimes correspond to a cancerous condition; but many of the claims for efficacy should be viewed with some skepticism because cancer, as a specific disease entity, is likely to be poorly defined in terms of folklore and traditional medicine, added Dr Samant.
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