6/07 A concerned visitor sent us the following: Despite their beauty corn-lilies are highly toxic to both humans and livestock. Flour inadvertently ground from the rhizomes of corn-lilies poisoned some of the members of the Lewis & Clark expedition. They probably mistook it for the edible camas (Camassia quamash), the bulbs were an important source of food for northwestern Indians. Though the plants are generally unpalatably acrid, they are one of the first plants to appear in early spring and therefore can be hazardous to livestock if other forage is unavailable. One toxic alkaloid found in corn-lilies is a potent teratogen — an agent that produces congenital abnormalities in developing embryos. http://www.northcoastcnps.org/darling/artw97a.htm North Coast Chapter - CNPS Cyclops and the corn-lily by Gordon Leppig Weed Drug Destroys Skin Cancer Compound from corn lily promising for many types of tumors By Liz Brown A compound derived from a mountain weed has been found to almost eliminate skin cancer in mice, reinforcing previous findings suggesting that it could prevent and treat widespread forms of cancer in people. The discovery was made by American and Chinese researchers including Jingwu Xie at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The compound is called cyclopamine and is derived from the corn lily, a weed-like plant that grows in mountain meadows in the Western US. In previous studies, cyclopamine shrunk childhood brain tumors called medulloblastoma in mice and reduced pancreatic cancer in mice as well. The new findings extend its cancer-fighting capabilities to a common form of skin cancer. Oral administration Xie and colleagues have found that oral administration of cyclopamine dramatically reduced tumor development in mice genetically engineered to be prone to a common form of skin cancer known as basal cell carcinoma (BCC). "We showed 90% fewer microscopic BCC tumors after treating with cyclopamine, and 50% fewer visible tumors," says Xie, lead author of the study. Cyclopamine kills tumor cells by breaking only a single link in the chain of biochemical reactions leading to cancer, making it a safer alternative to more traditional chemotherapies. The compound blocks the "hedgehog" pathway, a signaling protein that plays an important role in the development of unborn babies but can cause cancer if activated later in life. This protein has also been linked to other cancers including prostate, brain and lung, and some types of breast cancer. Safe and effective The safety and effectiveness that cyclopamine has shown in treating BCC tumors has boosted hopes that it could find wider clinical applications. "We used drinking water to deliver the drug to the mice, and from drinking water to the circulatory system to the skin there are a lot of barriers," says Xie. "If you can treat skin tumors with an orally administered drug, you should be able to treat other kinds of tumors too." The research is reported in the journal Cancer Research (read abstract). By Liz Brown Betterhumans Staff 10/15/2004 Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.