A drink with as little as one gram of lemon grass contains enough citral to prompt cancer cells to commit suicide
in the test tube according to new Israeli research. At first, Benny Zabidov, an Israeli agriculturalist who grows greenhouses
full of lush spices on a pastoral farm in Kfar Yedidya in the Sharon region, couldn't understand why so many cancer patients
from around the country were showing up on his doorstep asking for fresh lemon grass. It turned out that their doctors had
sent them.
"They had been told to drink eight glasses of hot water with fresh lemon grass steeped in it on
the days that they went for their radiation and chemotherapy treatments," Zabidov said. "And this is the place you
go to in Israel for fresh lemon grass."
It all began when researchers at Ben Gurion University (BGU) of
the Negev discovered last year (2005) that the lemon aroma in herbs like lemon grass kills cancer cells in vitro, while
leaving healthy cells unharmed.
The research team was led by Dr. Rivka Ofir and Prof. Yakov Weinstein, incumbent of the
Albert Katz Chair in Cell-Differentiation and Malignant Diseases, from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at BGU.
Citral is the key component that gives the lemony aroma and taste in several herbal plants such as lemon grass (Cymbopogon
citratus), melissa (Melissa officinalis) and verbena (Verbena officinalis.). According to Dr. Ofir, the study found that citral
causes cancer cells to "commit suicide: using apoptosis, a mechanism called programmed cell death." A drink with
as little as one gram of lemon grass contains enough citral to prompt the cancer cells to commit suicide in the test tube.
The BGU investigators checked the influence of the citral on cancerous cells by adding them to both cancerous cells and
normal cells that were grown in a petri dish. The quantity added in the concentrate was equivalent to the amount contained
in a cup of regular tea using one gram of lemon herbs in hot water. While the citral killed the cancerous cells, the normal
cells remained unharmed.
The findings were published in the scientific journal Planta Medica, which highlights research
on alternative and herbal remedies. Shortly afterwards, the discovery was featured in the popular Israeli press.
