Planta Med 2009; 75 - SL46
DOI: 10.1055/s-0029-1234301

Stevia rebaudiana, a novel source of phytoceuticals with anticancer potential

D Bhattacharyya 1, S Ghanta 1, A Banerjee 1, S Chattopadhyay 1
  • 1Drug Development/Diagnostics & Biotechnology Division, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, 4, Raja, S. C. Mullick Road, Kolkata 700 032, India

Functional foods or nutraceuticals are assuming a middle ground between food and drugs due to a growing body of evidence that supports their role in maintaining health and contributing to the treatment of diseases. Since Hippocrates advised to "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food," we have defined medicines and foods based on what is known about each substance in terms of efficacy, safety and the significance of its perceived contribution to health.

Oxidants, by-products of normal metabolism cause extensive damage to DNA, protein and lipid leading to aging and degenerative diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, cataracts and others. At least two major human problems, aging and cancer, involve ROS mediated DNA damage [1–3].

With this as background, here, we evaluated the neutraceutical properties of Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni with a view to develop this amazing herb as „Edible source of anticancer agent'. Stevia is gaining significance in different parts of the world and is expected to develop into a major source of high-potency sweetener, for the growing natural food market. Exploiting the use of this non-caloric sweetener will open up new avenues in the food and herbal medicine as an alternative source of natural sweetener [4]. Results showed the preventive effect of the crude extract and the ethyl acetate fraction of S. rebaudiana on Fenton reaction-induced damage of pBluescript II SK (-) supercoiled DNA maintained in E. coli XL-1 strain in comparison to quercetin and stevioside, the principal sweetening agent in Stevia. Densitometric analysis confirmed the experimental data.

References: [1] Kumar, A. and Chattopadhyay, S. (2007) Food Chem. 100:1377–1384.

[2] Cerutti, P.A. 1994 Lancet 344:862–863.

[3] Ghanta, S. et al. (2007) J. Agri. Food Chem. 55:10962–10967.

[4] Kinghorn, A.D. and Soejarto, D.D. 1985 In: Economic and Medical Plant Research, Vol. 1, Ed. By Wagner, H. Hikino, H. and Armsworth, N.R. Academic Press, London.