The annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research has leaned in a big way towards eating up cabbages and smearing skin with broccoli and garlic after several studies presented at the meeting extolled on the virtues of the same.
After being [resented with irrefutable news, experts are now of the view that the best way of prolonging your life may be to change the way you eat, in other words diet modification may actually add up years to a normal lifespan. Eating more fruit and vegetables is the second best way of fighting cancer. The first of course is to quit smoking.In the current study, scientists from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found that rubbing an extract from broccoli on to your skin protects you from skin cancer. Other members of the cabbage family which include broccoli, brussels sprouts and cauliflower also confer the same protection. All these vegetables contain glucosinolates, which can be broken down into sulphoraphane. This is the main chemical, which has anti-cancer properties. The researchers rubbed an extract from the broccoli onto the skin of hairless mice and found that this appeared to inhibit the carcinogenic effects of the ultra-violet light, which is responsible for skin cancer. “The sulforaphane-containing extract was applied after the period of regular exposure to ultra-violet light. That’s more relevant, since most people receive some sun damage to their skin in childhood, particularly adults who grew up before effective sunscreen lotions were developed,” said lead researcher Albena Dinkova-Kostova of the JHU, adding that the research was potentially promising in designing strategies to fight skin cancer.
