The double status of olive: Antioxidant and prooxidant roles
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Abstract
Throughout history, olives have been positively associated with numerous health benefits. Much ofliterature has focused on olive's role as an antioxidant, defending cells by reducing oxidative stress and neutralizing ROS, thus diminishing cancer risk. Numerous studies, both in vitro and in vivo, have linked olive's antioxidant properties to their high polyphenol content. However, these same chemical constituents of olives can also act as powerful prooxidants, triggering oxidative stress in a cell, thereby inducing cytotoxicity and cell death. This paper presents olive's dual role in combating cancer, reviewing evidence of its antioxidant activity and providing new evidence for its pro oxidant activity. Our lab compared the effect of an olive fruit extract (OFE) on normal HF-l fibroblasts and HSC-2 carcinoma cells, both derived from the human oral cavity, and demonstrated the greater cytotoxic effects of olive extract toward the cancer cells than the normal cells. We found that MCF-7 breast cancer cells treated with OFE displayed similar effects as OFE-treated HSC-2 cells, suggesting that OFE affects different types of cancer cells in a uniform manner. The cytotoxic effects of OFE appear to be due to induction of oxidative stress in the cancer cells, indicating that, like other polyphenols, the constituents of OFE have prooxidant activity as well.