Could Cancer Prevention Someday Be As Easy As Eating Strawberries?

April 6, 2011— -- Preventing esophageal cancer could someday be as easy as eating strawberries, according to preliminary new research.

At the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers presented data that suggests eating freeze-dried strawberries is the key.

"Our study is important because it shows that strawberries may slow the progression of precancerous lesion in the esophagus," wrote Dr. Tong Chen, lead author and an assistant professor at The Ohio State University in Columbus. "Strawberries may be an alternative or work together with other chemopreventive drugs for the prevention of esophageal cancer."

Esophageal cancer is the third most common type of cancer affecting the gastrointestinal system. Statistics from the National Cancer Institute show esophageal cancer caused more than 14,000 deaths in 2010 and during that same year, nearly 17,000 new cases were diagnosed.

Study participants with precancerous lesions ate 60 grams of freeze-dried strawberries daily for six months. The reason for using freeze-dried strawberries versus fresh strawberries, Chen said, was because freeze-drying provided a concentrated amount of cancer-preventing ingredients like flavonols.

Results showed that growth of the lesions slowed significantly in 29 of the 36 participants.

While experts not involved with the results say the findings are encouraging, they stress the findings are too preliminary to suggest any strong link between eating strawberries and preventing cancer. Since it's only a Phase 1 study, there was no control group.

"It is therefore premature and in fact not possible to tell whether or not the observed effects were by chance alone and would have happened regardless of what the patients were given, such as sugar pills," said Dr. Fritz Francois, assistant professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York.

"In our own work with oral precancerous lesions, a large number regress on their own," said Susan T. Mayne, professor in the Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.