Women who lack the ability to detoxify properly may be protected from breast cancer by cruciferous vegetables (the GSTP1 Ile105Val genetic polymorphism, and breast cancer risk)
Cabbage family vegetables (Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower
and Brussels sprouts) provide ingredients that stimulate detoxification in our
body improving the ability of our liver to neutralize and remove dangerous chemicals,
drugs, and substrates. A cooperative effort by scientists from Vanderbilt University
Medical Center, Nashville, TN, and researchers in Shanghai compared the intake
of cabbage family vegetables and their ability to reduce the number of women
who develop breast cancer specifically in women who have a gene impairment.
This impairment leaves them with faulty glutathione detoxification related to
a specific major and protective detoxification enzyme known as GSTP1. Glutathione
is an antioxidant enzyme in our body and many major detoxification mechanisms
rely on glutathione.
The researchers analyzed data on 3035 women with breast cancer and compared
them to 3037 women without cancer. The women were participants in the Shanghai
Breast Cancer Study. Diet and genetic data were completed for 87% of cancer
cases and 85% of healthy control subjects.
With analysis it was found that a defect in genes that promote Glutathione related
detoxification (the GSTP1 Val/Val gene) was significantly associated with a
150% increased risk of developing breast cancer; the women fail to detoxify
specific toxins that damage the breast. The association was significantly greater
in premenopausal women with a 169% increased risk whereas in postmenopausal
women there was a 120% increased risk. Subjects with the gene defect who reported
eating greater amounts of white turnip and Chinese cabbage had a significantly
lower postmenopausal breast cancer risk; both of these vegetables are cruciferous.
Women with the genetic challenge to detoxification who didn’t eat cabbage
related vegetables had a 174% increased risk of breast cancer development and
if they were premenopausal with the gene defect and did not consume these vegetables
their risk of breast cancer jumped by 208%. The study is published in the March
2008 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Zinc is much lower in diseased elderly patients than in the healthy
Canadian researchers compared the blood mineral levels for Copper and Zinc in
668 hospital patients over the age of 70 and compared these levels to 104 healthy
individuals of the same age and living in the same area. The level of Zinc and
Copper was checked by a medical doctor upon admission to the hospital. The ill
patients had markedly lower Zinc than the healthy elderly. Besides being lower
in Zinc in general 20% of the hospitalized elderly were very low for Zinc compared
to 0% of the healthy elderly. 36% of the respiratory patients and 20% to 27%
of the cancer, infectious disease, trauma, blood disease, and genitourinary
disease patients were low. 0% of the healthy patients and only 1.4% of hospitalized
patients were low in Copper. However, the ratio of Copper to Zinc was much greater
in diseased patients than in the healthy. The lack of Zinc is related to disease
and not to aging in the diseased elderly. The study is published in the March
2008 issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.