Eating diets full of raw vegetables, particularly broccoli sprouts and black raspberries could prevent or slow the growth of some common forms of cancer. “Eat your fruits and veggies!” has received some scientific backing.

Presenting their findings on cancer prevention at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, researchers from the Ohio State University suggest that black raspberries may protect against esophageal cancer.

The propose that the fruit may thwart the disease by reducing oxidative stress in patients with Barrett’s esophagus (BE), a pre-cancerous condition that usually arises due to gastroesophageal reflux disease.

According to the researchers, BE patients have a 30- to 40-fold increased risk of developing esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), a deadly cancer with a 15 percent five-year survival rate. Moreover, a number of treatment options are available to BE patients for symptom relief, researchers say, but none has proven curative or eliminated the risk of cancer progression.

“In addition to gastroesophageal reflux disease, increasing body mass index or body fatness is strongly associated with EAC development; whereas, plant-based diets and particularly increased fruit consumption has been associated with decreased risk for EAC,” said Laura A. Kresty, Ph.D., assistant professor of at Ohio State University.

According to Kresty, research using animal models of BE showed that black raspberries inhibited chemically induced oral, esophageal and colon cancers. The studies showed that berries reduced measures of oxidative stress (the destruction done to cells by oxygen ions or small reactive molecules containing oxygen), decreased DNA damage, inhibited cellular proliferation rates, and reduced the number of pre-cancerous cells in the esophagus and colon.