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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in men. If chemicals from coffee can help reduce the risk, it is a line of investigation worth pursuing. Researchers from Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medical Science in Japan tested a range of coffee compounds against prostate cancer in mice. Specifically, they used cells that were resistant to standard cancer drugs, such as cabazitaxel.
The scientists looked at the effects of six coffee compounds. Then, they narrowed their focus to just two: kahweol acetate and cafestol. Both chemicals are hydrocarbons that naturally occur in Arabica coffee. In their preliminary experiments, they showed that when they added kahweol acetate and cafestol to prostate cancer cells in a petri dish, the cells grew less rapidly.
Next, they tested the two compounds on prostate cancer cells that they had transplanted into mice. In all, they used 16 mice: four were controls and had no treatment; they gave a further four kahweol acetate; four had cafestol, and they treated the remaining four with both kahweol acetate and cafestol.
Kahweol acetate and cafestol inhibited the growth of the cancer cells in mice, but the combination seemed to work synergistically, leading to a significantly slower tumor growth than in untreated mice,” explains study leader, Dr. Hiroaki Iwamoto. The effects were striking, and Dr. Iwamoto continues: “After 11 days, the untreated tumors had grown by around [3.5] times the original volume (342 percent), whereas the tumors in the mice treated with both compounds had grown by around just over [1.5] (167 percent) times the original size.”