Phytoestrogens in fruit and vegetables help lower lung cancer risk

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Main Category: Nutrition / Diet
Article Date: 28 Sep 2005 - 16:00 PDT

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If you eat lots of fruit and vegetables your intake of phytoestrogens will go up and you will probably be reducing your chances of developing lung cancer significantly, say researchers at Texas University Medical Center.

You can read about this study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The researchers found that lung cancer patients tended to consume lower quantities of phytoestrogens than people who do not have lung cancer. In other words, lung cancer patients tended to eat fewer quantities of fruit and vegetables.

The researchers noticed that people who eat adequate quantities of fruit and vegetables have a 46% lower chance of developing lung cancer.

What are Phytoestrogens?

Phytoestrogens are naturally occurring phenolic plant compounds. In their structure, they are similar to the mammalian oestrogen, oestradiol - they have very mild oestrogenic properties. Their oestrogenic properties are between one five hundredth to one thousandth of mammalian oestrogen.

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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