1. I logged on to the internet to see if this story is on The Cancer Blog (of course it is!) moments after hearing about it on my local morning news. But here's how their news writer had spun it: it's eating a combination of red and green veggies that help fight cancer! Is that a different story? (They showed images of red potatoes and red peppers with broccoli and green peppers.) Yeesh.
Regards,
Richard Day Gore

Posted at 11:39AM on Jan 17th 2007 by richard day gore

2. I feared, I fought, I won

Posted at 10:04AM on Jan 19th 2007 by Gianni

3. Dear friends, sorry this is the first time i write here and i made immediately a mistake adding a comment. What i wanted to say is that diet really helped me in winning my war against cancer. So i truely believe in food as a natural treatment for all kind of illness. What i don't understand is how these scientists can say tomato sauce and tomato paste are good as fresh tomatoes. This is completely crazy to me. Is a can of tomato sauce good like a fresh one? Anybody do believe there are no chemicals and horrible stuff in those products? Is the paste made with real tomatoes of with what remains from multiple levels of production? Like just the skin? I don't think so. Do you know why tomatoes and broccoli are good against cancer? Because they are full of all kind of vitmains, and vitamins help to drain metals and scums from our prostate. That's why you should eat them, that's all
Thanks, bye everybody
Gianni

Posted at 10:19AM on Jan 19th 2007 by Gianni

4. Greetings Kristina, Richard, Gianni and other friends,

This is one more study that specifically reinforces the importance for prostate cancer of lycopene (main source is tomatoes for most of us) and broccoli. Thanks, Kristina, for calling this to our attention.

Richard - This is about more than just eating a combination of red and green vegetables, though that is not a bad idea. It's just that there is a growing body of research specifically about the favorable impact of lycopene and broccoli in helping prevent prostate cancer and in supporting treatment, including deferral of therapy (hopefully forever, depending on careful monitoring).

Gianni - I'm with you in believing that diet is very important, at least for coping with prostate cancer, but my understanding of the way these two particular foods work is very different from yours on two counts. First, cooking tomatoes or processing them is important because it breaks down the capsule around the lycopene (the red pigment). If the capsule is not broken down, as generally happens when you eat raw tomatoes, much of the lycopene never gets from the capsule to your body and goes right through you. This is well established. Second, a lot is known about how the lycopene and other elements in these foods work, but I think it has nothing to do with "drain metals and scums from our prostate." In fact, one promising supplement for preventing and coping with prostate cancer is selenium, which is a metal (but used in very small doses, typically 200 micrograms per day). If you can cite any research supporting what you said, please provide it here.

I'm walking the talk here. I consume about the amount of recommended broccoli almost every day, and I consume more than the recommended lycopene, chiefly from tomatoes, though much of it as V8 juice in addition to tomato sauce, cocktail sauce, or ketchup. (By the way, apparently broccoli is also more effective when it is cooked, something I learned recently.)

Try PubMed to get details of what published research is showing. For example, go to www.pubmed.gov and search for "lycopene AND prostate cancer" (143 hits), or "broccoli AND prostate cancer" (14 hits). Sulforafane appears to be the key element in broccoli for prostate cancer, but there has been recent research on other nutrients.

It makes a difference where the broccoli is grown, and perhaps also what kind it is and when and how it is harvested. Some broccoli has a great deal of sulforafane, and other broccoli has almost none. If anyone knows how you tell the difference when you buy it, I would like to know. Johns Hopkins University patented a particular strain of broccoli sprouts that has far, far more sulforafane per ounce than mature broccoli. As I recall the ratio, it is 50 to 1.

Jim Waldenfels (website: http://www.mycancerplace.com/profile.php?id=147)

Posted at 10:04PM on Jan 20th 2007 by Jim Waldenfels

5. A second comment: I like the findings in this research, but it is based on animal studies rather than studies involving people. While the evidence from animals here is encouraging, we need more research involving human volunteers.

I just tried this PubMed string to see if I could find the abstract for this study: "Erdman J [au] AND Canene-Adams K [au] AND prostate cancer". I got one hit from 2004 and one from 2005, both involving tomatoes, but neither the current study. Not only the abstracts but the full papers are available for free. Just click on the page icon with the green heading near the authors list.

Jim Waldenfels

Posted at 10:25PM on Jan 20th 2007 by Jim Waldenfels

6. Hello everyone,

I also am a firm believer in the broccoli & tomato diet, fresh fruits and healthy eating in general has to improve ones chances in surviving cancer, along with other diseases. I understand that eating organic foods is much healthier. Is It? If it is that much better for our health, it should be priced fairly, so that everyone could afford to eat healthy. As we all know, there are a lot of people who can not even afford food in general, let alone products that can improve our health in general. I guess one has to be in upper income bracket to maintain a healthy body.
Thank you, and Bless all of you. Jason Chambers

Posted at 3:20AM on Jan 21st 2007 by Jason Chambers

7. Thank you Kristina for sharing this article. I was aware of the article published in the Journal of Nutrition in 2005, and am glad that this article has received greater publicity.

As the author of "Avoiding Cancer One Day at a Time" (Beavers Pond Press, December 2006), I used this research on broccolli and tomatoes to illustrate an important principle in cancer prevention. Eating a wide variety of foods should be the mainstay of a cancer prevention diet. Concentrating on a wide variety of foods increases the chance of receiving the combinations of phytochemicals that can aid in cancer prevention, while minimizing overexposure to potential carcinogens in some foods.

An example of this is the Mediterranean diet. The New England Journal of Medicine in 2003 reported that the Mediterranean diet was associated with a reduced rate of death from all causes. This benefit was beyond the benefit expected from individual food components in the diet.

In response to the comments, in most cases fresh is better than cooked, but not always. Cooking vegetables does lower the risk of infection with pathogens such as salmonella and E. coli. Recent outbreaks of both in the U.S. have decreased consumption of these, frightening when we know that consuming 5 to 9 servings of fruits and veges per day halves the risk of cancer. Cooking tomatoes does result in higher levels of lycopene, and the antioxidant content of carrots is increased over 30 percent by cooking (Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2000).

Jason, I do have a comment on organic foods. I do believe that purchasing organically grown foods is important in certain cases. If you are trying to shop for organic foods on a budget, consumer reports has an excellent resource for determining which foods are most important to consume organically grown. Check out www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/organic-products-206/when-buying-organic-pays-and-doesnt.htm. I believe the more Americans purchase organically grown products,the more the price will come down. Shopping in Austria, the country with the highest percentage of organically grown produce in the world, I spent less of fruits and veges than on non-organic produce at supermarkets here. We mention other advantages of organically grown foods on our Web site at www.avoidcancernow.com.

Lynne Eldridge, M.D.
Author, "Avoiding Cancer One Day at a Time"
www.avoidcancernow.com

Posted at 5:41PM on Mar 1st 2007 by Lynne Eldridge M.D.