Berries Helps to Fight and Prevent Cancer

Life offers relatively few unambiguous win-win situations, but here’s one: berries, those sweet, natural treats that almost everyone loves may provide potent anticancer compounds.


That’s the conclusion of Christine Sardo, who manages clinical trials on berry consumption and cancer prevention for Ohio State University’s College of Medicine. “We are promoting the concept of ‘fruitraceuticals’ as opposed to pharmaceuticals for cancer, and emphasizing prevention vs. treatment,” she told about 300 health practitioners at the Nutrition and Health Conference in New York City in May. The annual conference, sponsored by Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and the University of Arizona’s School of Medicine, brings together the world’s leading nutrition scientists to discuss their latest findings.

Sardo’s revelation was among the conference highlights. She detailed a study published in the March 1, 2006, issue of Cancer Research, in whichOSU Public Health professor Gary Stoner and four co-authors fed rats the cancer-causing chemical N-nitrosomethylbenzylamine three times a week for five weeks. After 20 additional weeks, rats that ate a diet consisting of ten percent black raspberries showed reductions in oral, esophageal and colon cancers of about 50 percent compared to rats that did not eat berries. “The berries prevented the entire spectrum of tumors from being initiated and promoted,” Sardo said

By Brad Lemley


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