Researchers probe the potential health benefits of palm oil

This June, Davos Life will embark on a human clinical trial involving late-stage prostate-cancer patients at a research hospital in Kuala Lumpur. “The reason the clinical trials are being done is because the preliminary findings are so promising,”

Preliminary research suggests that the form of vitamin E packed into the oil-palm fruit, tocotrienol, could help fight cancer and prevent strokes. Though tocotrienols can be found in rice bran, barley and wheat, palm oil is the richest source of tocotrienol, says Pramod Khosla, an associate professor in the department of nutrition at Wayne State University in Detroit. He says numerous test-tube studies done over the past two decades in the U.S., Canada and Malaysia show tocotrienols are “very effective” in killing cancer cells. Now researchers worldwide are embarking on the critical next step: human clinical trials on cancer patients.

Read full article published in the Time Magazine.