2012 Volume 107 Issue 11 Pages 875-881
Previous studies1) reported that a new beverage made from the distilled residue of sweetpotato shochu by the addition of rice-koji. This beverage contained rich bioactive components, such as polyphenol compounds. Its animal ingestion tests confirmed its beneficial effects on the lipid metabolism and blood sugar levels.
In this report, we examined the effect of this new beverage on its biological defense ability, using mice. Results showed that a mouse tumor inoculated intraperitoneally with sarcoma-180 was suppressed significantly in size by ingestion of the beverage. The beverage also showed a growth suppressive activity against cancer cells. At the same time, the activity of natural killer cells in the mouse spleen was observed to be stronger (significance level of 0.1%) than that in the control mice spleens. Therefore, the ingestion showed an ability to suppress the growth of mouse tumors through anti-oxidative and/or biological defense abilities of bioactive compounds such as polyphenols in the beverage.
