Oregon State University (OSU) researchers have been working on creating a purple tomato for several years and predict that one should be available in the local grocer's within two years. The eggplant purple tomato will have all the healthy tomato antioxidant lycopene goodness the red orbs offer now with the added benefit of blueberries nutrition in phytochemicals believed by some to offer cancer prevention functional food benefits.

According to OSU Professor Jim Myers, the new hybrid eggplant purple tomato will be the first true purple tomato. According to an OSU backgrounder on the purple tomatoes, hundreds of years ago, explorers discovered purple tomatoes in the wild, but those tomatoes never made it to the table because the fruit was small and some were poisonous. In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists collected seeds from these tomatoes and started to breed them with modern hybrids, making them safe to eat. They discovered that the new purple tomato, unlike the traditional red, contain high levels of anthocyanins, a chemical found in dark fruit pigments such as blueberries and grapes.

Some days, science is just plain fun.

Researchers are not suggesting that people begin consuming grape seed extract because no one is certain at this point in time very much about the potential side effects of taking the extract, but they have found that grape seed extract has the ability to slow the growth of colorectal tumors in both cell cultures and in mice by 44 percent.

In the study, the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver researchers were also able to determine the molecular mechanism by which grape seed extract works to inhibit cancer growth.

As far back as 1999, the same researchers discovered that grape seed extract was effective in cancer prevention relating to skin cancer. Later preclinical work demonstrated that the extract slowed the growth of prostate cancer cells.

For an in-depth explanation of the chemoprevention benefits of grape seed extract, read Grape Seed Extract Halts Cell Cycle, Checking Growth Of Colorectal Tumors In Mice. The study is available as a PDF document and can be obtained by emailing Decicco@aacr.org or Ortiz@aacr.org.

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have received a $1.3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study how specific nutrients in broccoli, and other vegetables known to provide an anti-cancer benefit, work to fight cancer.

"Everyone knows broccoli is good for you and that it contains compounds known to lessen the occurrence of some types of cancer. We want to know how these compounds work and what their specific targets may be," says Janet V. Cross, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pathology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

By discovering exactly what the nutrients in foods like broccoli are accomplishing in the prevention of cancer, there is a potential for using the same compounds in a supplement form in cancer prevention. You can listen to Dr. Cross discuss her research in audio files available here.

According to Breast Cancer UK, maintaining a healthy weight is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of developing cancer. The organization is featuring the efforts of three women and one man as they chronicle their progress in the Ten Top Tips ten week weight loss program.

Led by specialist dietician Weight Concern Alison Chipperfield, the four volunteers Liz Ainsworth, Emma Russell, Stacey Delaney and Mike Chapman will share the personal efforts of losing weight with diet and lifestyle changes in reaching a greater level of health. To follow the weekly updates, visit Ten Top Tips Reduce the Risk.

Cancer Research UK also features a Healthy Eating area of the organization's website highlighting comprehensive information and resources in cancer prevention through diet and healthy eating tips.

According to Cancer Research UK, "Experts think that about a quarter of all cancer deaths are caused by unhealthy diets and obesity. Our diet influences our risk of many cancers, including cancers of the colon, stomach, and breast. You can reduce your cancer risk by eating a healthy, balanced diet that is high in fiber, fruit and vegetables, and low in red and processed meat and saturated fat."

Through support in funding, Cancer Research UK is involved in the EPIC study. The study -- called the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) -- is an enormous undertaking involving 521,483 individuals in 10 different European countries. EPIC is unique because the populations being tracked are so diverse in eating habits. But this is precisely what gives the study the advantage it has in making comparisons and noting trends.

Several years ago, The American Chemical Society (ACS) announced they were behind the news that fermented cabbage, or sauerkraut, had the ability to reduce breast cancer risks. Information from the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry research indicated isothiocyanates present in sauerkraut might be more effective in cancer prevention than raw cabbage. Isothiocyanates, a class of compounds known for their ability to fight cancer, are not found in raw cabbage and only occur during the fermentation of cabbage into sauerkraut.

"We are finding that fermented cabbage could be healthier than raw or cooked cabbage, especially for fighting cancer," says Eeva-Liisa Ryhanen, Ph.D., research manager of MTT Agrifood Research Finland, located in Jokioinen, Finland. "We are now working on ways of optimizing the fermentation process to make it even healthier so that consumers will eat more sauerkraut."

University of New Mexico researchers found sauerkraut might have the ability to reduce the risk of breast cancer by up to 74 percent. What brought the interest of sauerkraut to the attention of researchers was the low incidence of breast cancer in populations known for an almost daily consumption of sauerkraut.

"Other studies have shown that sauerkraut fights all forms of massy tumor cancer, including cancer of the lung, colon, prostate, breast, and liver. It's also been shown to manage digestive problems like irritable bowel syndrome, and may work to prevent heart disease." says Ryan Downs, co-owner of the Great Lakes Kraut Company, the largest producer of traditionally fermented sauerkraut in the world.

The Great Lakes Kraut Co. offers an abstract of the research discussing the breast cancer prevention benefit of sauerkraut as a PDF document. For more information about sauerkraut, and sauerkraut recipes, visit Great Lakes Kraut Company.

Women who include fatty fish -- salmon; herring; mackerel; lake trout; sardines; albacore tuna and seafood such as prawns, lobster, crayfish -- more than once a week into their diet significantly decrease the risk of developing kidney cancer, according to Karolinska Institutet researchers.

This is the conclusion of a 15 year study of 61,433 women who reported their eating habits of including fatty fish versus leaner fish. Fish classified as leaner fish are cod; haddock; hake; pollock; sole; turbot; dogfish and shark.

Lean fish does not appear to offer any cancer prevention benefit. However, fatty fish offers high levels of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D, which are considered important in functional food cancer prevention.

While this study focused on women partipants, it makes common sense that including fatty fish in more than one meal a week would benefit men and children as well. The study will be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The abstract, Long-term Fatty Fish Consumption and Renal Cell Carcinoma Incidence in Women, is available now.

Isothiocyanates, chemical compounds found in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts and watercress are able to kill cancer cells that have become resistant to chemotherapy drugs, according to the Free Radical Research Group research team from Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Otago.

Basically, isothiocyanates drive cancer cells, and the protein Bcl-2 that seems to aid cancer cells in surviving, to apoptosis or in more descriptive terms -- a self-destructing suicide. The researchers are hoping this discovery might lead to the development of cancer-fighting drugs derived from isothiocyanates.

In the meantime, as they work on better cancer-fighting drugs based on beneficial chemical compounds found in foods, it won't hurt us to eat more veggies. Okay, except for the current recall of E. coli contaminated spinach. Right now, don't eat your spinach.

While the study suggests that not all cruciferous vegetable are equal in the ability to kill cancer cells, and specifically refers only to broccoli, Brussels sprouts and watercress -- other cruciferous vegetables include arugula, cauliflower, cabbage, Bok Choy, rutabaga, Chinese cabbage, Daikon, radishes, turnips, kohlrabi, kale, and turnip, mustard and collard greens.

One day, look for these enhanced food products to appear on supermarket shelves, because more and more, consumers are demanding that the food they buy offer health benefits beyond what has been traditionally offered, and scientists are discovering ways to make that happen. Recently, University of Maryland researchers created, and patented the process, of transforming wheat, corn and rice flours into antioxidant powerhouses in the newest offering of functional foods. They have also devised a means of developing a flour based on fruit seeds that were discarded in the making of fruit juice.

The researchers assure that the process of enhancing flours is environmentally friendly -- which is another concern of many consumers. We want to be eat for good health, but we also want to be good to the earth. Antioxidants are known to offer cancer prevention benefits and are naturally found in whole foods such as fruits, vegetables and berries. Using antioxidant-enriched flours will be one more way to incorporate antioxidants into our daily diet.

This finding, along with the news of mandarin orange juice liver cancer prevention benefit, will be presented during the four-day conference Functional Foods and Health, at the 232nd national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Drinking eight ounces of mandarin orange juice a day might have the ability to decrease the risk of developing liver cancer, according to researchers in Japan.

Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine researchers conducted a small one-year study involving participants with chronic viral hepatitis and found that none of those who drank mandarin orange juice developed liver cancer. In the group that did not drink mandarin orange juice, a small number of participants did go on to develop liver cancer. In the same study, researchers indicated that drinking mandarin orange juice might also have a positive health protective effect for atherosclerosis and insulin resistance.

Interestingly, Japanese researchers followed this inquiry after noticing that residents of a Japanese town noted for its high consumption of mandarin oranges suffered lower rates of liver disease, atherosclerosis and diabetes.

These findings, along with several others showing the health benefits of functional foods, will be presented during a four-day conference Functional Foods and Health, at the 232nd national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Over the last two decades, the growing awareness about nutrition and the fact that all foods are not the same when it comes to good health, has spurred the trend of consumers demanding more food value for money spent. Companies vying for those dollars have been paying attention, according to a top ten list of functional foods published in an issue of Food Technology magazine. According to the Institute of Food Technologists, a nonprofit group that promotes sound science in the discussion of food issues, functional foods are foods or food components that provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition.

Five of the ten functional food trends are:

• Food for kids that are lower in fat, calories, sodium and sugar and higher the nutrients.
• Organic foods that are grown without pesticides or cancer-causing toxic chemicals.
• Phytochemicals that provide the antioxidants known to lower the risks of cancer.
• Good fats in the way of healthier oils, like olive oil, that provide cancer prevention benefit. Foods that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, like salmon.
• Small portions of food such as the 100-calorie snack.
  

Basically, the trends in what consumers want, and what the market is beginning to offer to meet that demand, are foods that provide good nutrition, taste good and are fun. To read more about functional food trends, go here.