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Cancer News | AIRC |November 18, 2006
Fruit or vegetable combinations offer more health
protection
By The
American Institute for Cancer Research
(Dubai Health & News) That salad of mixed vegetables you
ate for lunch may not look like a scientific breakthrough. But dishes
that combine a number of vegetables together may be just what the doctor
ordered. Cancer researchers are finding new evidence that the many
phytochemicals in plant-based foods seem to work best as a team to
protect us from cancer.
The phytochemical lycopene is a good example of how cancer prevention
research is evolving. Research on this phytochemical, found in tomatoes
and some other vegetables and red fruits, like watermelon, shows promise
as protection against prostate cancer. Scientists also have found that
lycopene from cooked tomato products - such as tomato paste - is more
easily used by the body than lycopene from fresh tomatoes.
Now lycopene's anti-cancer effects are being researched in combination
with broccoli. John W. Erdman, Ph.D., Professor of Food Science and
Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana in the United
States, decided to see if cancer protection would increase if
participants ate both foods.
Dr. Erdman's team fed one group of rats only broccoli powder and another
group only tomato powder. Each contained all of the individual plants'
phytochemicals and nutrients. Still another group received a combination
of tomato powder and broccoli powders. A final group of rats was fed a
normal diet supplemented with finasteride (a drug prescribed for an
enlarged prostate, a noncancerous condition).
The scientists found that the diet that combined tomato and broccoli
powder resulted in much less prostate tumor growth than any of the other
groups, including those receiving the drug.
More Vegetables and Fruits Offer Better Cancer Protection
Dr. Erdman is continuing to study the synergy between tomato and
broccoli powders to further confirm the results of this study.
"Separately, tomatoes and broccoli appear to have enormous
cancer-fighting potential," he says. "Together, they maximize
the cancer-fighting effect."
This interactivity is likely to be taking place in any diet high in a
variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans, he says.
Fruits are being studied as well for this synergistic effect. Rui Hai
Liu, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Food Science at Cornell
University in New York City, has examined antioxidant activity in
various fruits. Although Dr. Liu found that cranberries had the
strongest phytochemical activity of 11 fruits he studied, he says,
"The antioxidant activity of cranberry and apple together is much
higher than the separate measurements for these fruits," he says.
Dr. Liu estimates that there are probably more than 8,000 phytochemicals
in plant foods, and each one works with others to perform many
protective functions. These include stimulating the immune system,
warding off damage from free radicals and putting the brakes on cell
growth.
So combine a wide variety of vegetables and fruits into salads or other
dishes to get the most protection from cancer.
Source: The American Institute
for Cancer Research (AIRC)
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