In a demonstration of the plant’s anti-cancer properties, investigators smeared broccoli sprout extract on the skin of six volunteers for three days, and then exposed them to high doses of ultraviolet radiation, which is the leading cause of skin cancer.

They found there was an average 37 percent less redness and sunburn in the patches covered by broccoli extract.  Redness and sunburn are an indication of skin damage that could lead to cancer.

The results of the study are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Paul Talalay is a Johns Hopkins University molecular pharmacologist and the author of the study.  Talalay says sunscreen conferred no protection against the UV rays, but he says that does not mean people should stop using it.

“We want to avoid under all circumstances people doing weird things like making broccoli sprout soup and applying to their skin and thinking that they will be protected against the sun,” he said.  “They will have not have any protection whatsoever, because it’s a totally different mechanism and one cannot possibly substitute for the other.”

Applied as a thick cream, sunscreen protects the skin by deflecting the sun’s harmful rays.  But it must be constantly reapplied to remain effective.

In contrast, Talalay says, a compound made of broccoli sprouts works by penetrating skin cells and stimulating their natural cancer-fighting mechanism.

Observers call the research promising, but say more studies are needed because the results varied considerably among participants, ranging from a low of eight percent to a high of 78 percent protection against sunburn.  Talalay disagrees.

“Everybody knows you go to the beach and you get fried and I go to the beach and nothing happens to me,” he added.  “And we are in the same place.  So, the same experiment if done in a large number of individuals would be much more complex.  But I believe that the evidence certainly from animal studies is that we would get absolutely the same result.”

Talalay believes if it works in the skin, a sulphoraphane extract from broccoli sprouts is very likely to act as a hedge against cancer in other organs.

Meanwhile, researchers say there are a number of challenges in making a sun cream from broccoli sprouts, not the least of which is figuring out how to get rid of the green tint.

The study, which involved women only, was preliminary, and no one is yet suggesting a change in diet as a result.

However, the research into the nutrient, called choline, could ultimately lead to new dietary recommendations, said Eunyoung Cho, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“There may be some impact,” Cho said. “But this is one study, and it’s hard to make any conclusion based on this study.”

The role played by choline, a nutrient required by the body, has been unclear. Some researchers had thought it might provide protection against colon cancer, which kills an estimated 52,000 people in the United States each year, according to the American Cancer Society. The disease is the second biggest cancer killer in the United States after lung cancer.

In the new study, Cho and colleagues looked at nurses enrolled in a large study. They found more than 39,000 women who were free of colon cancer and then underwent at least one endoscopic examination between 1984 and 2002. Polyps — benign growths that can lead to colon cancer — were found in more than 2,400 of the women.

Women who ate the most choline in their food were 1.45 times more likely to have polyps, the team reported in the Aug. 7 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Having more polyps doesn’t necessarily mean more cancer, and future research will explore whether those who ate the most choline actually developed tumors, Cho said. Studies also need to look into the impact of choline on men.

Why might choline contribute to polyps, and possibly colon cancer, in the first place? The nutrient is a major component of the membranes of cells, Cho said, “and the tumor cell may need choline.”

Currently, health officials recommend that people prevent colon cancer by eating a lot of fiber along with fruits and vegetables. Red meat, meanwhile, is thought to increase risk.

That dietary advice isn’t likely to change even if choline turns out to be a possible villain, said Regina Ziegler, a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute, who co-wrote a commentary accompanying the new study. “What they’re finding is consistent” with the recommendations, she said.

As for now, “people shouldn’t run out and start either taking more choline or less choline,” she said.

The findings were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Tea drinking did not show any effect on the worst skin cancer, melanoma. Still, the findings support the theory that tea antioxidants may limit the damage UV radiation inflicts on the skin, according to the study authors, led by Dr. Judy R. Rees of Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

The researchers do warn that it is not okay to bake in the sun and then have a cup of tea afterwards.

The study did not mention what specific types of teas might be more beneficial than others.

The study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, used data on supplement use and diet for 42,340 men in the Health Professional Follow-Up Study. During the course of the study, 207 oral pre-malignant lesions were documented.

Vitamin C from dietary sources was significantly associated with a reduced risk of mouth cancer, but no association with the vitamin from supplements was found.

Vitamin C is needed to form collagen, a tissue that helps to hold cells together. It’s essential for healthy bones, teeth, gums, and blood vessels. It helps the body absorb iron and calcium, aids in wound healing and contributes to brain function.

You can find high levels of vitamin C in red berries, kiwi, red and green bell peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, and juices made from guava, grapefruit and orange.

Based on responses to a 124-item “food frequency” questionnaire, researchers found that women who got 40 percent of their calories from fat had about a 15 percent increased risk of developing breast cancer compared with women got 20 percent of their calories from fat. The increased risk of breast cancer associated with a high-fat diet was seen for all types of fat (saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) and seemed to be confined to women who were not using hormone replacement therapy at the start of the study.

In a commentary on the study, two researchers from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston think that focusing on controlling body fat, rather than fat intake, would be more effective in preventing breast cancer.

The “modest associations” that have been observed between high-fat diets and increased breast cancer risk “stand in sharp contrast to the robust evidence for a strong link between (body fat) and the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer,” write Drs. Stephanie Smith-Warner and Meir Stampfer.

SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, March 21, 2007

Joseph C. Anderson, M.D, and his colleagues at SUNY Stony Brook, compared the drinking habits of 360 red and white wine drinkers with similar lifestyles as part of a study examining the prevalence of colorectal neoplasia.

They found that drinking red wine significantly reduced the risk of colorectal neoplasia by 68 percent, but drinking white wine did not. Researchers suspect that higher concentrations of the compound resveratrol in red wine may provide a protective effect against colon cancer.

The research highlights the potential role of red wine in chemoprevention of colon cancer, but when it comes to proven prevention strategies, doctors say screening for colorectal cancer remains essential and is the most proven preventative measure that individuals can use to reduce their risk of developing this disease.

Screening tests can find precancerous polyps, allowing removal before they turn into cancer.

Colorectal cancer is one of the most detectable, and if found early enough, the most treatable forms of cancer, according to the American College of Gastroenterology.

Previous research found that, individually, both the green tea polyphenol epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a known antioxidant, and cox-2 inhibitors helped fight prostate cancer in animals.

In this study of cultured human prostate cancer cells and mice, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that a combination of EGCG and the cox-2 inhibitor celecoxib (Celebrex) was 15 percent to 28 percent more effective in slowing the growth of cancer cells than either agent alone.

The study, which was funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, was published March 1 in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

“Celecoxib and green tea have a synergistic effect — each triggering cellular pathways that, combined, are more powerful than either agent alone. We hope that a clinical trial could lead to a preventative treatment as simple as tea time,” Hasan Mukhtar, professor of dermatology and a member of the Paul Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center, said in a prepared statement.

“Prostate cancer typically arises from more than one defect in the cellular mechanics, which means that a single therapeutic might not work fighting a particular cancer long-term. If tests in human trials replicate (the results of this study), we could see a powerful combined therapy that is both simple to administer and relatively cost effective,” Mukhtar said.

The study, funded in part by the British charity Cancer Research UK, sized up 223,000 women worldwide and determined that women with a waistline less than 31 inches have half the risk of developing womb cancer than their heavier counterparts.

There has been a significant rise in cases of womb cancer in Britain. And the link between the disease and weight gain is most prevalent among postmenopausal women who have never used hormone replacement therapy or the birth control pill.

According to the National Sizing Survey conducted in 2004, the average British woman now has a 34-inch waist. This is more than six inches bigger than the average size of a woman in the 1950s, says Dr. Lesley Walker of Cancer Research UK.

“Women are larger than they were when they existed on a wartime diet and were generally more active and this is having serious consequences,” Walker says.

More than 6,000 women in the UK are diagnosed with womb cancer each year. The disease kills about 1,000 annually.

The research should encourage mothers greatly to take multivitamins and folic acid during pregnancy as it is a simple solution which can reap huge rewards.

The study found that a regime of multivitamins and folic acid helped lower the chance of a baby developing a brain tumor by 27 percent, leukemia by 39 percent and neroblastoma by 49 percent. These are some huge numbers for just taking a simple vitamin every say.

Doctors in the study stated that only 40 percent of Canadian mothers took multivitamins which are highly accessible and cheap.

The researchers discovered that DNA damage to white blood cells was reduced by 22.9%. Furthermore when exposed to dangerous chemicals, such as hydrogen peroxide, the damage was much lower than expected.

Importantly, antioxidant levels in the subjects also improved during the trial which help to combat free radicals that damage tissues. In contrast, harmful compounds in the blood decreased by 10%. Additionally the most beneficial effects were seen in smokers who participated in the study.

“Questions still remain about how the compounds in vegetables work in the body to reduce the risk of cancer but the results of this study add to the body of evidence that eating fruit and vegetables is important in the prevention of this series disease,” said Claire MacEvilly, a nutritionist at MRC Human Nutrition Research.

Professor Ian Rowland, who led the study, said the results were ‘highly significant’ because they were found in a real life situation. Most previous research in the area has been conducted in test tubes or in animals, using chemicals derived from cruciferous vegetables. He said benefits were slightly reduced for those eating cooked watercress – such as actress Elizabeth Hurley, who has been known to drink seven cups of watercress soup a day.

The study was supported financially by The Watercress Alliance, made up of British watercress producers, Vitacress Salads, Alresford Salads and The Watercress Company.