Real Men Eat Brussels Sprouts - Brief Article

If the news that tomatoes may fight prostate cancer has you drowning everything in ketchup, a recent study may make you hold the Heinz. When researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle compared tomatoes with a host of other vegetables, they found no significant association between tomato consumption and reduced prostate cancer. But they did find that total vegetable intake, and in particular vegetables from the cabbage family, had a preventive impact on the disease.

Men who ate four daily servings of vegetables were 35 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer than those who ate only two servings a day. But the guys who included veggies from the cabbage family like broccoli, Brussels sprouts and kale just three times per week had an even greater benefit: They were 41 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer than those who only ate one serving a week.

Researchers speculate that to digest these vegetables the body needs to produce an enzyme that also happens to fight cancer-causing compounds. But Alan Kristal, Ph.D., one of the study's primary researchers, cautions against giving any one theory too much credence. "Biochemistry is extremely complicated," he says. "This is only one potential explanation."

As for the handful of studies that have demonstrated the effects of lycopene, believed to be the cancer-fighting compound in tomatoes, the Hutchinson researchers point to a serious design flaw: Those studies were not controlled for total vegetable intake, making it difficult to assess the role of any one vegetable. A more likely explanation, they feel, is that men who included tomato products in their diet ate plenty of other vegetables as well. The Hutchinson study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (January 2000), was unique in that it accounted for 99 different foods--from tortilla chips to strawberries--and considered the impact of dietary habits on its 1,230 participants for five years prior to the study. Researchers also used younger men (40 to 64), who are at lower risk for prostate cancer, to better understand the impact of lifestyle factors such as diet.

But if, like former president George Bush, you feel consuming broccoli on a regular basis is more than you can stomach, don't despair. Says Kristal, "We are not talking huge amounts here. Nobody's saying you have to eat broccoli or Brussels sprouts every day." Getting men to pay attention to their diets has never been easy. "Men are interested in very few things, yet prostate cancer happens to be one of them. Hopefully, this news will get them to eat a few more vegetables," adds Kristal.

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