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Vegetables prevent Cancer



 
 
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Old December 20th, 2006, 01:52 AM posted to alt.support.diet.low-carb
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Default Vegetables prevent Cancer

Vegetables Shield Mice From Cancer In OSU Study
By Greg Bolt
The Register-Guard

Pregnant women may be able to give their offspring a better chance of
avoiding cancer by doing what they will later tell their children: Eat
your vegetables.

In a study using laboratory mice, researchers from the Linus Pauling
Institute at Oregon State University have found that a nutrient in
certain vegetables cut cancer risk in half among the offspring of
mothers given a supplement of the chemical during pregnancy. What's
more, that protection lasted through childhood into adulthood.

The study is one of the first to suggest that the diet of pregnant and
nursing mothers could play a role in how well their children are
protected against cancer.

"We think it's a really striking finding," said David Williams, lead
researcher on the study and director of the Marine and Freshwater
Biomedical Sciences Center at OSU. "I think it's really a potentially
exciting new area of research."
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More study is needed before anyone can say whether the findings can be
applied to humans. In fact, Williams said it's important that women not
boost their intake of the nutrient through over-the-counter supplements
because it's possible high levels of the chemical during the first
trimester of pregnancy could be associated with birth defects.

"I would not by any means recommend that people take a lot of this
stuff," he said.

The research, funded by the National Cancer Institute, looked at the
role played by a key phytochemical known as Indole-3-carbinol, also
called I3C or simply carbinol. The nutrient is found in what are known
as cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage,
kale and other greens.

In the study, scientists exposed pregnant mice to a powerful
environmental carcinogen called dibenzopyrene, one of a group of
chemicals produced by cigarette smoking and also from burning organic
material such as wood, coal, diesel fuel and cooking oil. One group of
mice also received a supplement of I3C and another group did not.

Of those that did not receive the supplement, 80 percent of their
offspring died early from an aggressive cancer of the lymphatic system
called lymphoma. Of those that survived to the mouse equivalent of
middle age, all developed lung cancer.

But mice given the I3C supplement produced offspring that had only half
as many lymphoma deaths. Those that survived also developed
significantly fewer lung tumors.

The pregnant mice were given I3C starting in the second trimester of
pregnancy and continuing until they finished nursing.

"We think it's really striking that the offspring themselves are never
exposed to carbinol," Williams said. "But the protection

they got from the mother either in the womb or from breast feeding was
sufficient to protect them from lymphoma out to what would be the
equivalent of a young adult in humans or even out to what would be
middle age in humans."

It's not clear yet whether the protection occurs in the womb or from
breast-feeding or both. That's something researchers plan to explore in
future experiments.

Williams said that what struck him about this study, published in the
journal Carcinogenesis, was how much the nutrient helped.
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"I was frankly surprised by the amount of protection we did see," he
said. "We were hoping to see some protection, but to have the risk cut
in half was really quite striking."

The research could lead to a better understanding of why some smokers
get lung cancer and others don't. It's possible that dietary and other
factors could play a role in whether a person is more or less
vulnerable to the disease.

Although carbinol supplements are not advised for now, Williams said no
harm would come from the amount of the nutrient a person would get from
a diet high in cruciferous vegetables. But scientists will have to do
further studies before they understand how the nutrient works and how
much of it is safe for humans, particularly pregnant women.

Williams and his colleagues already are looking at the effect of
micronutrients in other substances, such as green tea and chlorophyll.
Those studies are not yet ready for publication, but Williams described
the initial results as interesting.

"I don't think this model is just going to be limited to carbinol or
cruciferous vegetables," he said. "I think there's going to be a number
of compounds that we know are good for you that, if given to the mother
during pregnancy, protect the offspring (from disease)."

 




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