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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 25, 1999 #99-03 25 Mar 1999: U.S. and Chinese Researchers Reduce AflatoxinA team of scientists from the U.S. and the People's Republic of China have used the drug Oltipraz to help detoxify one of nature's deadliest toxins, aflatoxin, in the bodies of people exposed through their food. The treatment, reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/) Aflatoxin occurs on moldy grains, corn, peanuts and other crops. Exposure to aflatoxin can cause liver cancer. In many countries around the world, particularly in Africa and Asia, large numbers of people regularly consume foods heavily contaminated with aflatoxin. In the U.S., federal and state inspections as well as proper storage and transport reduce the level of aflatoxin in the human food supply and largely divert contaminated foodstuffs to uses other than human consumption. However, a drug like Oltipraz could be useful in reducing people's exposures in developing countries where aflatoxin contaminates the food supply. This work is being supported by grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/) and the National Cancer Institute (http://www.cancer.gov/) In the U.S., the research is centered at Johns Hopkins University (http://www.jhu.edu/) He said colleagues at Qidong Liver Cancer Institute and the Shanghai Cancer Institute located and worked with a group of 240 volunteers who received one of three treatments -- a placebo, a 125 mg dose daily, or a 500 mg dose weekly. The drug Oltipraz, manufactured by Rhone-Poulenc, Paris (http://en.sanofi-aventis.com/) Note: John Groopman, Johns Hopkins University (http://www.jhu.edu/) |
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