The Three Main Anti-Cancer Actions of Fucoidan

You might be wondering, why people with certain diseases and low immunity are taking these two ingredients. What health benefits can you expect from them? Let’s review some of the most amazing health benefits obtained from medical research studies:

1-Apoptosis (Programmed Cell Death)

HIGHLIGHTS

a. For every cell, there is a time to live and to die.

b. Apoptosis induces cancer cells to commit suicide.

c. Programmed cell death is also called Apoptosis. This process is needed to destroy cancer cells that represent a threat to the integrity and health of the organism.

Research has shown that the active component of brown seaweeds known as Fucoidan may inhibit proliferation and induce apoptotic cell death in several tumor cells. For a long time, brown seaweeds have been a regular part of the diet in many Asian countries, especially Japan and Korea. Fucoidan is the collective name for algal sulfated polysaccharides extracted from the brown seaweeds, and its structure consists mainly of polymers formed by branched polysaccharides sulfate esters with a L-fucose building block.

Recently, Fucoidan has been reported to induce apoptosis in several cancer cell lines, but the mechanism is controversial because it is uncertain which cascade plays a pivotal role in the induction of apoptosis by Fucoidan. For example, one study done at Kyushu University in Japan, demonstrated that Fucoidan induces apoptosis in breast cancer cells (MCF-7) without affecting the viability of normal epithelial cells. In addition, caspase-8 is considered essential for Fucoidan-induced apoptosis. 

2-Angiogenesis Inhibition

HIGHLIGHTS

a. Angiogenesis is a key process in the promotion of cancer.

b.Natural products that inhibit angiogenesis have anticancer activity.

c.By inhibiting Angiogenesis, there are fewer chances for the cancer to spread and damage other surrounding organs.

d. Fucoidan is a natural product that has shown in research to inhibit angiogenesis in tumor tissue.

Angiogenesis corresponds to the formation of new blood vessels. Many recent studies have shown that sulfated polysaccharides (Fucoidan) are angiogenesis inhibitors. At present, the antitumor activity of Fucoidan has recently attracted considerable attention. It was reported that the antitumor effect of “Mekabu” Fucoidan appears to be mediated by IFN-γ-activated NK cells, and the antitumor action of Fucoidan is due to its anti-Angiogenic potency. To investigate the effect of Fucoidan on Angiogenesis in vivo, the scientists at the Qingdao University, evaluated several harvested tumors. They found out that Fucoidan caused significant reduction in the intratumoral VEGF expression compared with the control group. At the same time, they investigated the effect of Fucoidan on lung metastasis of breast cancer. 4T1 cell is a highly invasive breast cancer cell lines. To investigate the effect of Fucoidan on invasiveness of 4T1 tumor, the mice were euthanized, and the lungs harvested for enumeration of lung metastatic nodules metastasis after Fucoidan treatment. The results showed that compared to the control, which had an average of 34 nodules per mouse, Fucoidan resulted with significantly fewer lung metastasis.

In another study, done at the Dalian Medical University in China, using human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC)-based cell culture model, they investigated the anti-Angiogenic activity of Fucoidan extracted from the brown seaweed Undaria pinnatifida. They treated the HUVECs with various concentrations of Fucoidan. The results showed significant inhibition of cell proliferation, cell migration, tube formation and vascular network formation.

3-Immune Enhancement Activity

HIGHLIGHTS

a. By supplementing the immune system with Fucoidan and AHCC, the body may be more capable of fighting cancer.

b. At high amounts, Fucoidan and AHCC may enhance the immune system.

c. A strong immune system seeks out and destroys cancer cells.

Fucoidan

Research on Fucoidan has shown to restore the immune functions of immunosuppressed mice, and it was an immunomodulator acting directly on macrophage and T lymphocyte. Fucoidan also showed to promote the recovery of immunologic function in irradiated rats. The mechanism is associated with the arrest of lymphocyte apoptosis by Fucoidan. Fucoidan also demonstrated to induce the production of interleukin-1 (IL-1) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) in vitro, enhance the functions of T lymphocyte, B cell, macrophage and natural killer cell (NK cell) and promote the primary antibody response to sheep red blood cell (SRBC) in vivo. High molecular-weight Fucoidan prepared from Okinawa Mozuku (Cladosiphon okamuranus) promotes an increase in the proportion of murine cytotoxic T cells.

Many polysaccharides like Fucoidan obtained from natural sources are considered to be biological response modifiers (BRM) and have been shown to enhance various immune responses. Besides of directly inhibiting the growth of tumor cells, Fucoidan can also restrain the development and diffusion of tumor cells through enhancing body’s immunomodulatory activities. Fucoidan may increase the quantity of macrophages, and mediates tumor destruction through type 1 T-helper (Th1) cell and NK cell responses.