Abstract
Moderate beer consumption can be considered as part of a healthy diet since it may protect against heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis. The protective effects of beer reside in its polyphenol content whose chemical composition appears extremely complex. In the present study, five commercial beers with different polyphenol content (ranging between 690 - 2400 μM equivalents of quercetin) were employed to investigate their cytotoxic effect in vitro on HL-60 cells derived from a human promyelocytic leukemia cell line. A significant reduction in cell viability was measured after 48 hours treatment. Lyophilized beers with higher polyphenol content showed the highest cytotoxicity compared to those with lower concentrations. However, when the assay was performed applying equal amounts of total polyphenols from different lyophilized beers, the sample possessing lowest amount of polyphenols (690 μM equivalents of quercetin) resulted the most effective in reducing cell viability. These data suggest that the biological activities of polyphenols present in beer are not simply dependent upon their total concentration, but qualitative profile and relative concentrations are even more important in determining their antiproliferative effects on cancer cells.
Highlights
The concept of chemoprevention is related to the use of pharmacological or natural products to counteract the progression of precancerous cells [1,2,3]
We previously demonstrated that a lyophilized preparation of beer with high phenolic content and antioxidant activity was cytotoxic with respect to a beer containing low polyphenols on HL-60 human leukemia cell line [24]
We extended this initial observation analyzing five commercial beers characterized by different polyphenol content
Summary
The concept of chemoprevention is related to the use of pharmacological or natural products to counteract the progression of precancerous cells [1,2,3]. Data on the chemopreventive effects of hops and beer compounds (e.g., the prenylflavonoids: xanthohumol, isoxanthohumol and hop bitter acids exclusively present in beer compared to wine) on malignant cell lines have been extensively reviewed [14,21,22,23]. Intraperitoneal treatment of xanthohumol, in doses ranging between 0.2 and 0.4 mg/Kg in rats with middle cerebral artery occlusion produced an evident reduction in infarct size compared to that in untreated animal control This property is probably due to the inhibition of free radical formation and apoptosis, contributing to an improvement of the neurobehavior [31]. We extended this initial observation analyzing five commercial beers characterized by different polyphenol content We concluded that their cytotoxic effect on HL-60 cells was related to the specific profile of active compounds and their different origin, e.g., hops versus malts
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