{"id":11234,"date":"2018-08-23T01:44:03","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T01:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazines.uthscsa.edu\/mission-new\/?p=11234"},"modified":"2019-01-14T19:35:49","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T19:35:49","slug":"herbal-hope-for-oral-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazines.uthscsa.edu\/mission\/herbal-hope-for-oral-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Herbal hope for oral cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"person
Photo credit: istockphoto.com\/tab1962<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mother Nature has a way of hiding cures for diseases in plants and minerals, awaiting human discovery.<\/p>\n

This may be the case with thymol, a compound found in several plants, including thyme, oregano, rosemary and bay leaves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThymol is already known to have anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties,\u201d said Cara Gonzales, D.D.S., Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Comprehensive Dentistry. Due to its medicinal properties, thymol is already an ingredient in a leading mouthwash, cosmetics and other products.<\/p>\n

Dr. Gonzales and her team recently conducted laboratory and animal research that showed thymol may have merit as a preventive agent and treatment for oral cancer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They found that thymol was effective in preventing the proliferation of oral cancer cells.\u00a0 <\/span>In animal models of human oral cancer, the team showed thymol to be effective as an anti-tumor agent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur findings provide the first evidence of thymol\u2019s novel anti-tumor effects against oral cancer in animals,\u201d
\nDr. Gonzales said.<\/p>\n

The team further discovered thymol selectively kills cancer cells by acting on their highly active mitochondria, which produce energy to allow cancer cells
\nto grow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe show that thymol induces mitochondrial dysfunction and cell death, and it may be effective against several types of cancer,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Gonzales\u2019 research was published in the Journal of Oral Pathology & Medicine<\/i>. UT Health San Antonio has a patent on a thymol mouth rinse to prevent oral cancer and on its mechanism of action to use as a treatment for oral cancer. She hopes to conduct human clinical trials in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A compound found in plants may serve as a preventive agent and treatment for oral cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":11235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,229],"tags":[107],"ppma_author":[284],"class_list":["post-11234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-in-motion","category-summer-2018","tag-dentistry"],"yoast_head":"\nHerbal hope for oral cancer - Mission Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A compound found in plants may serve as a preventive agent and treatment for oral cancer.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magazines.uthscsa.edu\/mission\/herbal-hope-for-oral-cancer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Herbal hope for oral cancer - 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