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Apple A Day Keeps Breast Cancer Away
 March
1, 2005 - An apple a day can help keep breast cancer away at least in
rats, according to a study by food scientists at Cornell University. "We
found that tumor incidence was reduced by 17, 39 and 44 percent in rats
fed the human equivalent of one, three or six apples a day,
respectively, over 24 weeks," says Rui Hai Liu, Cornell associate
professor of food science and lead author of the study.
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The Cornell researchers treated a group of rats
with a known mammary carcinogen and then fed them either whole apple
extracts or control extracts. Liu, who says this is the first study of
the effects of apples on cancer prevention in animals, also found that
the number of tumors was reduced by 25, 25 and 61 percent in rats fed,
respectively, the equivalent of one, three or six apples a day.
The report is published
online -
Click Here - and will be published later this month in theJournal
of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
In an article in the journal Nature five years ago,
Liu and his colleagues credited phytochemicals -- antioxidants -- in
fresh apples with inhibiting human liver and colon cancer cell growth.
Antioxidants help prevent cancer by mopping up cell-damaging free
radicals and inhibiting the production of reactive substances that could
damage normal cells.
"Studies increasingly provide evidence that it is the additive and
synergistic effects of the phytochemicals present in fruits and
vegetables that are responsible for their potent antioxidant and
anticancer activities," Liu says.
"Our findings suggest that consumers may gain more
significant health benefits by eating more fruits and vegetables and
whole grain foods than in consuming expensive dietary supplements, which
do not contain the same array of balanced, complex components," says
Liu.
He notes that the thousands of phytochemicals in
foods vary in molecular size, polarity and solubility, which could
affect how they are absorbed and distributed in different cells, tissues
and organs. "This balanced natural combination of phytochemicals present
in fruits and vegetables cannot simply be mimicked by dietary
supplements," he explains.
Furthermore, Liu notes that the health benefits of
consuming fruits and vegetables extend beyond lowering the risk of
developing cancers and cardiovascular diseases to include preventive
effects for other chronic diseases, such as
cataracts, age-related macular degeneration, central neurodegenerative
disease and diabetes.
Says David R. Jacobs, professor in the Division of
Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota: "Dr. Liu
is in the forefront of a group of investigators, including myself, who
find extensive evidence that extremely important health aspects of food
work through the combination of substances that make up that food, a
concept we call food synergy. Risk of many chronic diseases in modern
life appears to be reduced by whole foods, but not by isolated large
doses of selected food compounds. Dr. Liu's current work on apples and
breast tumors in rats is a perfect example of this principle."
The study, which was coauthored by Jiaren Liu, a
postdoctoral associate at Cornell, and Bingqing Chen of Harbin Medical
University, China, was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Federal Formula Funds, the U.S. Apple Association and the Apple Products
Research and Education Council.
Related World Wide Web sites: The following sites
provide additional information on this news release. Some might not be
part of the Cornell University community, and Cornell has no control
over their content or availability.
Rui Hai Liu:
http://www.foodscience.cornell.edu/faculty/liu/liu.htm
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry:
http://pubs.acs.org/journals/jafcau/index.html
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