A short briefing on apoptosis and what it means for your old and damaged cells and even cancer cells; with a list of natural compounds that can cause apoptosis and ‘clean’ you up.
What is apoptosis?
You’ve probably heard the word, but what does it mean? Apoptosis is a totally normal and planned death of old and damaged cells in your body. It’s an important process that helps keep you healthy because damaged cells die off leaving you only with healthy ones.
Apoptosis is a highly regulated, energy-dependent process that allows cells to self-destruct in a controlled manner without damaging surrounding tissue.
This ‘programmed cell death’ occurs in multicellular organisms and is essential for maintaining tissue quality, balance and immune system regulation.
What does ‘programmed’ mean?. Well when the cells are old or there’s something wrong with them, the programme kicks in to break down the cell, without damaging cells around it. If something goes wrong and you get too much, or too little cell death, that you are likely to become ill.
For example, cells with damaged genetic material, if allowed to live. could proliferate uncontrollably and lead to cancer.
Can you help keep apoptosis at normal rates?
Yes. Without boring you, there are several ways of causing apoptosis in a cell - for example, via mitochondria increasing cytochrome c: or by increasing levels of cellular enzymes called Caspases that break down proteins in damaged cells; or by enhancing p53, a protein that can suppress damaged cells.
So can foods and natural compounds help ‘keep you regular’?
Yes. And when they do, they regulate and reduce the number of bad cells in circulation. Yes, these foods can cause apoptosis of the deformed cells.
The following can each and all play a part -
Curcumin, EGCG, quercetin, genistein, resveratrol, sulforaphane, xanthones (from mangosteen), berberine, luteolin, apigenin, flavokawain A, shikonin, α-mangostin, corosolic acid, eupafolin, dehydrocostus lactone, celastrol,isoangustone A, hemanthamine, hemanthidine, 6-methoxydihydrosanguinarine, pyranocycloartobiloxanthone A (PA), biseugenol B.
These are all natural compounds that induce apoptosis in cancer cells.