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According to an American study, cardamom, a plant of Indian origin, would help fight against triple negative breast cancer. This discovery would make it possible to seek new avenues for combating this type of cancer, which is likely to develop resistance to the usual treatments. In France, this form of cancer represents approximately 15% of breast cancers.
Cardamom has many natural virtues, including therapeutic ones. According to researchers from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, this plant would help fight against triple negative breast cancer. Its effectiveness is due to cardamon, a natural component present in the spice.
Triple-negative breast cancers represent a health issue because they are difficult to treat. This type of breast cancer includes cancers that show an absence of expression of estrogen and progesterone hormone receptors but also an absence of overexpression of the growth factor HER-2. For these tumors with increased aggressiveness, there is therefore no response to hormone therapy but also to Herceptin, a treatment for HER-2+ breast cancer.
To carry out her research, Dr. Patricia Mendonca and her colleagues studied the effects of cardamom on two triple-negative breast cancer cell lines. One composed of cells of African-American women and the other of cells of Caucasian women.
The researchers observed how cardamonin affected the expression of the Ligand-1 (PD-L1) gene. In patients with triple-negative breast cancer, PD-L1 is overexpressed, helping”breast cancer cells evade the body’s immune system“, explains the study.
Results ? The consumption of cardamon would reduce the viability of cancer cells, both in African-American and Caucasian patients. Moreover, the expression of the PD-L1 gene was decreased in the Caucasian line and not in the African-American line.
“This is the first study to describe the inhibitory effect of cardamon on PD-L1 expression, which is relevant for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer.“, explains Dr. Mendonca in a press release.These findings support other research that has shown differences in the tumor microenvironment between African Americans and non-African Americans..” New research is still to be carried out before proceeding to human tests.