Lung cancer risk cut by eating raw garlic

Eating raw garlic twice a week could potentially halve the risk of developing lung cancer, according to a study published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.

Researchers from the Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China carried out a population-based case control study between 2003 and 2010, to analyze the link between raw garlic consumption and lung cancer.

The researchers collected data from 1,424 lung cancer patients, alongside 4,543 healthy controls.

Data was compiled through face-to-face interviews with the participants, who were asked to answer a standard questionnaire disclosing information on diet and lifestyle habits, including how often they ate garlic and whether they smoked.

Results of the study showed that participants who consumed raw garlic on a regular basis as a part of their diet (two or more times a week), had a 44% decreased risk of developing lung cancer.

The study authors say:

"Protective association between intake of raw garlic and lung cancer has been observed with a dose-response pattern, suggesting that garlic may potentially serve as a chemo-preventive agent for lung cancer."

Lung cancer is the second most common type of cancer in both men and women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 205,974 Americans were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009.

Long-term smoking is the most common cause of lung cancer, found to account for 9 out of every 10 cases of the disease.

Interestingly, when looking specifically at participants who smoked, researchers found that eating raw garlic still decreased their risk of lung cancer by around 30%.

The researchers say that the link between garlic and lung cancer prevention warrant further in-depth investigation.

Previous research has also shown that consumption of garlic may have preventive properties against certain forms of cancer.

A study from the New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center suggested that a compound found in garlic, selenium, may possess an anti-cancer property

Other research from the Medical University of South Carolina, found that organosulfur compounds found in garlic may play a part in killing brain cancer cells.

The widely used herb has also been cited as preventing and treating other ailments, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

Source

Protection of Dietary Polyphenols against Oral Cancer

Oral cancer represents a health burden worldwide with approximate 275,000 new cases diagnosed annually. Its poor prognosis is due to local tumor invasion and frequent lymph node metastasis. Better understanding and development of novel treatments and chemo-preventive approaches for the preventive and therapeutic intervention of this type of cancer are necessary. Recent development of dietary polyphenols as cancer preventives and therapeutic agents is of great interest due to their antioxidant and anti-carcinogenic activities. Polyphenols may inhibit carcinogenesis in the stage of initiation, promotion, or progression. In particular, dietary polyphenols decrease incidence of carcinomas and exert protection against oral cancer by induction of cell death and inhibition of tumor growth, invasion, and metastasis.

This review summarizes the preventive and possible therapeutic properties of dietary polyphenols against oral cancer in vitro, in vivo, and in clinical studies. Oral cancer is one of the most important medical problems. Chemopreventive strategies represent a promising approach to reduce the incidence and mortality of this disease. Most studies have demonstrated that dietary polyphenols could regulate numerous molecular pathways involved in cancer promotion and progression, suggesting chemopreventive and therapeutic capacity of dietary polyphenols against oral cancers. Among all polyphenols investigated, tea polyphenols have been shown to have obvious anti-carcinogenic effects. Limited investigations of other dietary polyphenols have been conducted in spite of their diversity and rich sources. Scientific evidences on other dietary polyphenols should be demonstrated to clarify the potentials of these molecules on prevention of oral cancer. Compared to a large amount of in vitro and animal studies, only a few clinical trials have been performed. Additional randomized clinical trials and cohort studies should be conducted to obtain direct evidence of dietary polyphenols against oral cancers.