The test may one day replace unreliable food logs and help scientists accurately identify the most beneficial anticancer foods.

‘The urine test looks for compounds belonging to isothiocyanates (ITCs) family found in cruciferous vegetables and predicts their anti-cancer properties.’

For their study, the researchers focused on cruciferous vegetables, which showed a protective benefit against lung cancer in a study of more than 63,000 people who participated in the National Institutes of Health''s Singapore Chinese Health Study. Cruciferous vegetables, a major food in the Asian diet, include cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy and watercress, among others. 




"We know these foods are beneficial to health, and the ten-minute method we developed, which can test for the presence of specific compounds linked to these vegetables, will help researchers quantify exactly how much of these molecules are being consumed," said the study's lead author, Marcin Dyba, from Georgetown Lombardi. He'll present the study''s findings on April 18, at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in New Orleans.
The urine test will also allow scientists to figure out which compounds associated with cruciferous vegetables have the strongest link to cancer prevention. Those findings could then be tested in animal models, and if any of the molecules are found to be significantly protective against cancer, the information could lead to stronger dietary recommendations or to a dietary supplement, he said.
"We are very interested in understanding how and why the compounds work," Dyba said. "You couldn''t do this work just using self-reported food logs."
The Georgetown scientists validated the effectiveness of their tool using urine that was collected as part of the Singapore Chinese Health Study.
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The new urine test looks for specific members of the isothiocyanates (ITCs) family (among other compounds), found in cruciferous vegetables. Animal and cell studies have shown that different types of ITCs have varying anticancer properties and potency, suggesting they are not equal in protecting against cancer, Dyba said. "We developed our test because there has been no way to find out which specific ITCs works best," he said.
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Source-Newswise