Irvine, Calif.: Eating a little bit of freeze dried grape powder or drinking half a glass of red wine prevents colon cancer, says a study by researchers of University of California.

Dr. Randall Holcombe, who led the research, found that diet rich in grapes contains an ingredient called resveratrol that blocks a chemical pathway, which assists to prevent or spread colon cancer.   

In research it is found that patients taking 80gms daily of grape powder – equal to half of glass of wine or one pound of grapes reduced the inter cell signals i.e. Wnt signaling, a cellular signaling pathway related to 85 percent of sporadic colon cancer.

Dr Holcombe said, “This is truly exciting, because it suggests that substances in grapes can block a key intracellular signaling pathway involved in the development of colon cancer before a tumor develops.”

Scientists are not certain why the lower dose of grape powder is more effective than the higher one, but they believe that active components in grapes may have different effects at low dose than they do at high dose, common in the nutritional studies.

Dr. Holcombe is scheduled to show the findings at the Society for Integrative Oncology’s Fourth International Conference in San Francisco.