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Cancer Fighting Berries

Do organic strawberries block human cancer cell growth in a Petri dish more than conventional berries?

October 27, 2010 |
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Cancer Fighting Berries, 5.0 out of 5 based on 4 ratings

Sources Cited

L. G. Wood, M. L. Garg, H. Powell, and P. G. Gibson. Lycopene-rich treatments modify noneosinophilic airway in ammation in asthma: Proof of concept. Free Radic. Res., 42(1):94-102, 2008.

M. A. Lila. From beans to berries and beyond: Teamwork between plant chemicals for protection of optimal human health. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 1114:372-380, 2007.

J Agric Food Chem. 2008 May 14;56(9):3016-23. Epub 2008 Apr 16. Berry extracts exert different antiproliferative effects against cervical and colon cancer cells grown in vitro. McDougall GJ, Ross HA, Ikeji M, Stewart D.

W. Kalt, J. B. Blumberg, J. E. McDonald, M. R. Vinqvist-Tymchuk, S. A. E. Fillmore, B. A. Graf, J. M. O'Leary, and P. E. Milbury. Identication of anthocyanins in the liver, eye, and brain of blueberry-fed pigs. J. Agric. Food. Chem., 56(3):705-712, 2008.

Acknowledgements

Transcript

This ranking of foods just by antioxidant level is, admittedly, an oversimplification. As reviewed recently in the Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences: “From Beans to Berries and Beyond: Teamwork between Plant Chemicals for Protection of Optimal Health.” Not only may phytonutrients work together, some have healthful properties beyond just their antioxidant power. Berries, for example, have antiproliferative effects on cancer cells—they can slow down cancer growth. These are the cervical cancer cells that killed this woman, Henrietta Lacks, 58 years ago, and they’re still growing, still multiplying. And adding an extract of blueberries doesn’t seem to matter much. The cancer cells are still steaming away at about 100% growth.

But look what these other fruits can do. Raspberries cut the growth in half, and strawberries blocked cancer growth by almost 75%. And the higher the strawberry dose, the more the cancer is inhibited. Ah, but which works better, conventional strawberries or… organic. At every single concentration and in single variety, organic beat our conventional—remember lower growth is better. And this was for both human colon cancer cells and human breast cancer cells.

Can’t you just rinse the pesticides off? Well, it’s better than nothing. New study looking at 3 pesticides; starts off at 100%. Rinsing only seems to take off about 15% of the pesticides. The only way to really cut down your dose is to peel the apple, eliminating about 85% of the pesticides, but also eliminating much of the nutrition as well, so eat organic whenever possible.

Organic produce has more vitamins more minerals taste better store better and, you get to not poison little babies—it’s a win-win!

Now you don’t necessarily have to eat the berries themselves for their benefits, you can eat the liver, eyes, or brains of berry fed pigs, but I’d stick with the berries.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Dianne Moore.

To help out on the site please email volunteer@nutritionfacts.org

Dr. Michael Greger

Doctor's Note

 For some context, please check out my associated blog post: Breast Cancer and Diet and  How Chemically Contaminated Are We?

  • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/adamholt/ adamholt

    Intriguing video. Thanks.

    • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/mgreger/ Michael Greger M.D.

      Lots more where that came from! :)

      More than a dozen more berry videos here.

  • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/nicolas/ Nicolas

    How much of this positive effects actually occurs inside humans? These are extracts applied directly to cancer cells, no? I’ve read that for example, anthocyanins don’t make it that far in our bodies (whether or not these are what gives the anti-cancer effect).

  • Michael Greger M.D.

    Also be sure to check out my associated blog post Breast Cancer and Diet!

  • http://www.facebook.com/diane.krstulovich Diane Krstulovich

    At what point in your career did you choose medical research over comedy? (or maybe the jury is still out on that?) Always enjoyable. No, I don’t want to eat all those nasty parts of a pig. If the choice is between berries and ANYTHING, berries wins everytime. They are so delicious!

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