Jack Losso, Ph.D. and an associate professor in the food science department, has been doing research in this area since 2001 and has found that ceramide, a lipid found in oysters, prevents blood from getting to tumors in the body. Without nutrients from blood, cancer cells can't multiply.
"The idea is that if you block the blood vessels, tumors can stay there for many years but won't cause disease," he said. "Also, it's been shown that ceramides, when blended with cancer cells, kills the cancer cells but doesn't hurt the normal cells, which is good."
Losso spoke at the Gulf and South Atlantic States Shellfish Conference at the Gulf Hills Hotel and Conference Center. His research has focused mostly on breast cancer, but he said he believes ceramides can help with colon and prostate cancer, too.
As part of his research, Losso extracted ceramide from oysters and mixed the lipids with estrogen-dependent cancer cells, and the cancer cells died within 24 hours to 48 hours.
"As the concentration went up, the network was completely destroyed," Losso said, adding that the viability of cancer cells goes down each day that they are mixed with the ceramides.
