Colourful food can prevent cancer: Expert

Dr Kumar was speaking at the international conference on ‘Frontiers in Carcinogenesis and Cancer Prevention’ at Dayanand Sagar Institutions on Wednesday.

She said that different biological agents were being tried on people with higher risk of getting cancer owing to family history. Dr Kumar, whose team is working on 55 agents in a project funded by National Institute of Health to reverse or halt the progress of cancer, said that an on-going study on consuming green tea showed optimistic results. The three-and-a-half-year-old clinical trial with 74 patients, all at high risk of developing prostate cancer in another two years, were given capsules of pure green tea extracts.

Tea capsules

The team identified polyphenon ‘E’ compound in the green tea leaves, which were plucked from India and Sri Lanka. The tea capsules were being produced in Japan. “We asked one group to have two doses of the capsules every day, while the other group would continue without any intervention. While the study is still going on, we have found that the capsules are safe and had no toxicity till now,” she said. The preliminary report of the study would be published in peer-review journal some time in March-April, Dr Kumar said.

She also added that with more people in India consuming non-vegetarian food, the cancer risk was higher.

So, she recommended that high plant food diet and lean meat like fish and chicken were preferable for consumption.