Betanin, the Bioactive Compound Isolated from Beetroot Enhances the Effects of Chemotherapy In Vitro

By Kyle J. Norton

Chemotherapy is an action in which a substance including drugs was used to treat any disease, particularly, in cancer.

In cancers, chemotherapy is a treatment to kill or damage cancer cells in a specific area. Besides chemotherapy, the most common treatment of cancer in conventional medicine are surgery and radiation, depending on the severity of the condition.

The aim of chemotherapy is to cure or control the progression of cancer and improve the quality of life of patients by reducing symptoms.

In other words, chemotherapy is effective to shrink a tumor before surgery or kill the remain cancer cells that cannot completely be removed by radiation and surgery.

Depending on the types and stage and grade of cancer, treatment may be a single chemo drug or several drugs.

Chemotherapy has bee found to induced serious side effects, including fatigue. hair loss, easy bruising and bleeding, infection, anemia, nausea and vomiting, and constipation due to its nature to kill cells (cancer and healthy cells) indiscriminatingly.

Betanin is phytochemicals in the class of red and yellow indole-derived pigments of Betacyanins, belonging to the group of Betalains, found abundantly in beets, chard, etc.

Researchers with an aim to discover a natural compound or whole food which enhances chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer examined the effects of betanin (BET) co-administration with the potent anticancer drugs e.g. doxorubicin (DOX) in reducing the side effects.

The study included the introduction of a new pH-responsive nanocarrier via decoration of gelatin nanoparticles (GNPs) by (methoxy poly (ethylene glycol)-poly ((2-dimethylamino) ethyl methacrylate-co-itaconic acid) (PGNPs) loaded with 20.5 % of DOX and 16.25of BET that overcomes the restrictions of BET and provides the synergistic effect of DOX@BET.

At the adjusting, the pH of the environment, the stimulated release of DOX and BET from PGNPs showed a significant synergistic effect of DOX@BET not only inhibited the tested cancer cell line MCF-7 but also the side effect caused by DOX.

In other words, the betanin enhanced chemo drug efficacy and inhibited the treatment of drug toxicity.

Based on the findings, Dr. Amjadi S, the lead scientist said, "(The synergistic effect of DOX@BET may contribute to the) developed smart nanocarrier will be a hopeful nanocarrier for cancer therapy".

In order to find out more information about the enhanced chemotherapy of researchers investigated the activity of extract of red beetroot (Beta vulgaris L.), the FDA approved red food color E162 with anticancer drug, doxorubicin (adriamycin) in human prostate cancer cells (PC-3) and estrogen receptor-positive human breast cancer cells (MCF-7).

Individual treatment of doxorubicin and the beetroot extract exhibited a cytotoxic effect in the two tested cancer cell lines in a dose-dependent manner.

The cytotoxicity induced by beetroot extract at the concentration of 29 µg/ml was significantly lower compared to doxorubicin.

Beetroot extract inhibited the cancer proliferation at a trend of gradual decrease of the growth rate of the PC-3 cells (3.7% in 3 days vs. 12.5% in 7 days) compared to doxorubicin completely inhibited the growth of the PC-3 cells in three days at the same concentration level.

In the additional differentiation of the results, researchers found that the cytotoxicity exhibited by the red beetroot extract is attributed to the effects of betanin, the major betacyanin constituent.

Based on the findings, betanin co-administration with chemo drug not only have a profound effect in enhancing the function of the anti-cancer drug but also reduce the side effect induced by conventional medicine.

Taken altogether, betanin used alone or combined with other chemo drugs may be considered medicine for the treatment of cancer, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Intake of betanin in the form of supplement should be taken with extreme care to prevent overdose acute liver toxicity.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) A novel smart PEGylated gelatin nanoparticle for co-delivery of doxorubicin and betanin: A strategy for enhancing the therapeutic efficacy of chemotherapy by Amjadi S1, Hamishehkar H2, Ghorbani M. (PubMed)
(2) Cytotoxic effect of the red beetroot (Beta vulgaris L.) extract compared to doxorubicin (Adriamycin) in the human prostate (PC-3) and breast (MCF-7) cancercell lines by Kapadia GJ1, Azuine MA, Rao GS, Arai T, Iida A, Tokuda H. (PubMed)