These two stories show the benefits of eatting more veggies to fight head & neck cancer and more broccoli and soy to fight breast & ovarian disease! Eat your veggies!

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LOS ANGELES - New research is strengthening evidence that following mom’s admonition to eat your vegetables may be some of the best health advice around.

A large study of 500,000 American retirees has found that just one extra serving of fruit or vegetables a day may reduce the risk of developing head and neck cancer.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that diet plays a role in cancer. Cancer experts now believe that up to two-thirds of all cancers come from lifestyle factors such as smoking, diet and lack of exercise.
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“It may not sound like news that vegetables protect from cancer, but there is actually some controversy in the literature. It is important that we do these large studies,” said Dr. Alan Kristal, associate head of the cancer prevention program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute queried men and women aged 50 and older about their diets, then followed participants for five years to record all diagnoses of head and neck cancer, which is the sixth-leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide.

Tobacco and alcohol use increase the risk of head and neck cancers, which affect the mouth, nose, sinuses and throat.

The study found eating six servings of fruit and vegetables per day per 1,000 calories cut the risk of head and neck cancer by 29 percent compared to eating one and a half servings.

The typical adult consumes around 2,000 calories a day.

“Increasing consumption by just one serving of fruit or vegetables per 1,000 calories per day was associated with a 6 percent reduction in head and neck cancer risk, said Neal Freedman, cancer prevention fellow at the NCI.

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LOS ANGELES - Eating foods like broccoli and soy has been linked to lower cancer rates, and California researchers said on Sunday that they may have discovered the biological mechanism behind the protective effect.

Using cells in a lab dish, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that diindolymethane (DIM), a compound resulting from digestion of cruciferous vegetables, and genistein, an isoflavone in soy, reduce the production of two proteins needed for breast and ovarian cancers to spread.

“We think these compounds might slow or prevent the metastasis of breast and ovarian cancer, which would greatly increase the effectiveness of current treatments,” said Erin Hsu, a UCLA graduate student in molecular toxicology.
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The UCLA team, which reported its finding at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, will next test the theory in mice.

The findings highlight “an entirely unique mechanism ... Preventing the invasion and metastasis of cancer cells is crucial,” said Dr. Alan Kristal, associate head of the cancer prevention program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

Cancer cells express very high levels of a surface receptor known as CXCR4, while the organs to which the cancers spread secrete high levels of CXCL12, a ligand that binds to that particular receptor.

This attraction stimulates the invasive properties of cancer cells and acts like a homing device, drawing the cancer cells to organs like the liver or brain.