Study says grapefruit juice can enhance the anti-cancer effect of rapamycin

Researchers from the University of Chicago Drug Center published a research report on April 20, saying that a small clinical test they conducted showed that grapefruit juice can improve the efficacy of the anti-rejection drug rapamycin, and a combination of rapamycin and grapefruit Juice has achieved good results in the treatment of various cancers.

The researchers reported at the 100th annual meeting of the American Cancer Research Association in Denver, Colorado that day, previous studies have shown that grapefruit juice can increase the content of certain drugs in the blood by 3 to 5 times. However, rapamycin is not easily absorbed by the body, so they hope to confirm whether grapefruit juice can increase the absorption level of rapamycin, and the combined use of rapamycin and grapefruit juice in anti-cancer effects.

Rapamycin is a new type of potent immunosuppressive agent, which is mainly used for the treatment of organ rejection and autoimmune diseases. However, cancer experts have found that rapamycin can block an important biochemical channel for cancer cell growth, so it also has good prospects in cancer treatment.

The researchers conducted clinical trials on 28 patients with advanced cancer who took oral rapamycin daily and drank about 227 grams of grapefruit juice. The results of the study showed that after taking rapamycin and grapefruit juice at the same time, the content of rapamycin in the blood was generally 2 to 4 times higher than that of rapamycin alone. In addition, the condition of 7 patients remained stable, the tumor basically did not grow, and the tumor of another patient even shrank by 30%. This patient's condition did not deteriorate after more than a year.

However, more than half of the patients participating in the trial experienced some uncomfortable symptoms, such as increased blood sugar levels, diarrhea, low white blood cell count, or fatigue.

The researchers said that grapefruit juice is rich in furan coumarin, which can reduce the rate of rapamycin in the blood. The above research shows that grapefruit juice has certain application prospects in medicine.