The Best Cancer-Fighting Veggies

From Health magazine

Not all vegetables are created equal. Some are much better than others at lowering your risk of diseases associated with aging—like cancer—according to a new study in Food Chemistry.

Researchers say antioxidant compounds in dark-green vegetables like spinach and “fragrant” vegetables like onions and garlic inhibit the growth of tumor cells. 

 Eat More… : Eat Less…
 Brussels sprouts : Potatoes
 Kale : Carrots
 Cabbage : Tomatoes
 Garlic : Lettuce
 Spinach : Cucumbers

The bad news: These veggies make up only 1% of fruit-and-vegetable consumption in the United States, while those that have almost no cancer-preventive power (like potatoes) make up 60%. All veggies can help control your weight, but to get more of an anticancer punch, try these swaps:

Last Updated: February 23, 2009
Filed Under: Nutrition and Eating Well

Dogs Sniff Out Clues in the Fight Against Cancer

By Sean Kelley

They’ve got funny names for cancer researchers, like Captain Jennings and Tibbs. They’re also a little furry and have a tendency to lick their white-coated colleagues. But these canine lab assistants may one day make it possible to detect cancers early enough to keep them from becoming fatal.

The Pine Street Foundation, a cancer education and research center in San Anselmo, Calif., is hoping one day to train these dogs to sniff out, literally, early-stage ovarian cancer—a disease that kills two-thirds of the 22,000 women diagnosed with it each year, according to the American Cancer Society, because it is often caught only after it has spread beyond the ovaries.

In 2006 the foundation published a study showing it was possible to train dogs to identify, based on breath samples, which patients had lung and breast cancer. Now the organization is recruiting ovarian cancer patients and dogs for a new study.

Nicholas Broffman, executive director of the foundation, says the dogs are helping to answer an important question that may one day lead to earlier detection of diseases like ovarian and pancreatic cancers, which are often caught only in very late stages: Does cancer have a smell?

Last Updated: February 24, 2009
Filed Under: Healing Pets