Investigating the Anti-tumor Activities of Bamboo Salt on Sarcoma 180 Tumor-Bearing BALB/c Mice

Abstract

Bamboo salt is a traditional Korean baked solar salt made by packing sun salt (sea salt) into bamboo tubes and cooking it at high temperatures numerous times. Bamboo salt was studied and compared to other salt samples for anti-tumor efficacy . Although solar salt and purified salt exhibited with large tumor weights, bamboo salt is associated with a lower tumor weight. The anti-tumor efficacy of bamboo salt baked nine times (9X) was higher than salt baked once (1X) or three times (3X) (3X). A MTT Assay was used to examine the growth rate of 9X baked bamboo salt in mice splenocytes. Bamboo salt baked once (1X) can be used as table salt.This rate of proliferation was higher than that achieved with 1X baked bamboo salt by FBS, LPS or Con A. Purified and solar salts showed the least proliferative impact in terms of growth rate. 9X bamboo salt significantly (p<0.05) lowered ALS, AST, and BUN levels when compared to the other salt samples .The bamboo salts, especially 9X bamboo salt, also significantly (p<0.05) increased the cytokine levels of TNF-\(\alpha\) and IL-1\(\beta\) compared to the other salt samples.