By IANS
New York : Eating plenty of certain fruits and vegetables every day may reduce your risk of getting cancer, says new studies strengthening earlier findings that linked high intake of fruits and vegetables with a reduced cancer risk.
Eating at least five portions of fruits and vegetables a day is already known as an essential part of a healthy, balanced diet. Previous studies have shown that it could reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease and other conditions.
The latest studies found that black raspberries and raw cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, broccoli sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower have anti-cancer properties and that may reduce the risk of cancer, reported online edition of health magazine WebMD.
Eating black raspberries may protect people at high risk of getting cancer of the esophagus, Laura Kresty and colleagues at the Comprehensive Cancer Centre at Ohio State University found.
The researchers studied 20 patients who ate an ounce or an ounce-and-a-half (more for the men) of freeze-dried black raspberries daily for 26 weeks and measured markers for oxidative stress that harm the arteries and contribute to heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and cancer.
“The fruit appears protective,” the scientists said although the study did not include long-term follow-up to see if fewer people actually got cancer.
Black raspberries, she says, are found in some grocery stores. “More commonly they are the type you pick,” she says.
Similarly eating raw cruciferous vegetables like broccoli may prevent cancer of the bladder about 40 percent, said researchers led by Li Tang from Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. They surveyed the eating habits of 275 people with a diagnosis of bladder cancer and 825 healthy people.
The researchers reported their findings at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Philadelphia.
Despite the new findings, there are no magic foods, Kresty said. The big take-home message is, eat a variety of fruits and vegetables that are available in the season.
The real goal is to try to increase your overall consumption of fruits and vegetables and the proportion of your diet that is made up of a plant-based diet.