Cancer advice: Eat your berries
4/27/2006 Louisville, KY Laura Ungar The Courier-Journal (courier-journal.com) University of Louisville researcher leads campaign An apple a day may be a good thing, but a University of Louisville researcher argues that berries could be the real key to staving off cancer. Ramesh Gupta is leading a research effort that has shown certain berries may help protect against two of the nation's most deadly cancers: breast cancer and lung cancer. "We've been told we need to eat more fruits and vegetables," said Gupta, who is based at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center. "But berries certainly seem to come to the top of the list. " Gupta, who presented his breast-cancer findings to the American Association of Cancer Researchers in Washington, D.C., this month, found that eating antioxidant-rich blueberries and black raspberries reduced the size of breast tumors by 60 percent to 70 percent among rats exposed to estrogen. His lung-cancer research, given at an earlier meeting of the association, showed that a mixture of four berries -- strawberries, blueberries, black raspberries and blackberries -- reduced the incidence and number of lung tumors by 30 percent to 35 percent in mice exposed to cigarette smoke. He is planning human tests in the next two years. The research provides hope to people such as 71-year-old Harvey Plaschke of Louisville, whose wife, Amparo, died of lung cancer three years ago, at age 68. A nonsmoker, she had suffered pneumonia twice since 2000, then developed a persistent cough. She died shortly before their 40th [...]