New York, Oct 30 - British researchers may have discovered why by diets rich in fruits and vegetables can lower cancer risk.
Patrick Gunning and scientists at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich said it could be due to a complex carbohydrate called pectin. In lab experiments they found it binds to and may inhibit a protein believed to facilitate the spread of cancer throughout the body.
The findings, published in the FASEB Journal, offer another reason to eat fruits and vegetables.
"At present, given what we know from our study and the others, we feel that the best advice is to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables in the likelihood that it will supply bioactive fragments from the pectins," Gunning said.
He and his colleagues found that certain sugars in pectin bind to galectin-3, a protein on the surface of tumor cells that helps the cells grow and spread throughout the body.
This binding, in turn, may allow pectin to inhibit galectin-3, and thereby slow or even reverse the spread of cancer cells, Gunning explained.
Gunning said there are still many questions that need to be answered, including how the body takes up the particular fragments within pectin.
Pectin is often used as a gelling agent in jams and jellies, but Gunning advised against loading up on the condiments. Research has not shown processed fruit products to be greater cancer fighters than fresh fruit and, Gunning pointed out, jams and jellies are typically high in added sugar.