Korean Black Raspberry Wine 'Has Anti-Cancer Effects'

Traditional Korean black raspberry wine or bokbunja-ju has as much antioxidant, anti-cancer effects as red wine, a study suggests.

Lee Kwang-keun, a professor of food engineering at Dongguk University, on Sunday said his team measured the capacity of bokbunja-ju from Gochang, North Jeolla Province to remove harmful active oxygen that damages cells and found that the black raspberry wine at a 1000 ppm concentration removes 76 percent of the active oxygen. That is roughly similar to red wine.

The team said that if injected with bokbunja-ju or red wine, more than half of various human cancer cells no longer grew further, showing that both have effects of curbing proliferation of cancer cells. Bokbunja-ju sets various enzymes in motion and even leads cancer cells to kill themselves.

The outcome of the research was carried in the April 2009 issue of the Journal of the Science in Food and Agriculture.

Lee said this was the first time research on the outstanding effects of bokbunja-ju has been published in a renowned international journal. The team is hoping to develop techniques to maximize antioxidant, anti-cancer capabilities of black raspberry wine in cooperation with the industry.