Potent Anti-Cancer Compound Found in Raw Carrots

Snacking on raw carrots could significantly reduce your cancer risk.

A European study has revealed that a natural pesticide in carrots called falcarinol reduces the cancer risk of rats by a third and, while no human studied have been carried out so far, it is suspected that eating raw carrots could provide similar benefits for humans.

Researchers from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the University of Southern Denmark divided 24 rats with pre-cancerous tumours into three groups and gave each group a different diet to eat. After 18 weeks the rats that were given raw carrots with their ordinary feed, along with a second group that had falcarinol added to their feed, were one-third less likely to develop full-scale cancerous tumors than the control group, which was not given any carrots or carrot extract to eat.

Nutrition experts have long recommended that people eat carrots because of their apparent ability to prevent cancer, but prior to this study the particular compound responsible for this effect was not known. Epidemiological studies have shown that individuals with the highest carrot consumption can lower their risk of cancer by up to 40 percent.

The research team was intrigued that the vegetable's natural pesticides may be the real cancer-fighters, not vitamins or other nutrients.

Lead researcher Dr Kirsten Brandt, a senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne’s School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development in the UK, said this discovery may answer the longstanding question, "Why is it that eating vegetables is so much better for your health than just taking a vitamin pill with the same amount of vitamins and minerals?"

Dr Brandt said these findings reinforce the message that people should eat five servings of fruit and vegetables everyday.

"Perhaps the single most significant implication of this study is that it reaffirms dietary common sense in our era of dietary silliness," said Dr. David Katz, an associate clinical professor of public health and director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine in the USA.

Katz noted that some of the popular "low-carb" diets actually banish carrots because they have a high glycemic (sugar) index. He says Dr Brandt’s research, “helps reveal the folly of this oversimplified and rigid interpretation of what constitutes good food."

"We may have to wait to know for sure that falcarinol can help prevent cancer in humans," Katz said. "But we needn't wait to derive likely health benefits from eating carrots often - and I, for one, don't intend to."

The study, published in the February 2005 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, was conducted using raw carrots and it is not known if cooked carrots or carrot juice would have the same effect.