Reducing pancreatic cancer risk

Eating more raw vegetables every day, especially yellow and dark green ones, may help cut the risk of pancreatic cancer in half.

Researchers at UC San Francisco have found that eating five or more servings of yams, corn, carrots, onions or other similar vegetables is linked with lower risk of the disease — one of the most deadly and hard-to-treat cancers. Dark green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, and cruciferous ones such as broccoli also worked well, they said.

Light green veggies and tomatoes were slightly less beneficial, according to the study, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute. The results will be published in the September issue of the medical journal Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

In interviews with 2,233 men and women, including 532 pancreatic cancer patients, researchers cataloged how much produce they ate for a year. They also asked about other factors such as overall diet and smoking.

They then compared the habits of the cancer patients with the 1,701 others. Those who ate at least five servings had half the cancer risk compared with those who ate two or fewer servings.

Courtesy of the LA Times