Vegetables, Fruits, Related Dietary Antioxidants, and Risk of Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Esophagus: A Case-Control Study in Uruguay

Abstract

Abstract

The role of vegetable and fruit consumption in the aetiology of squamous cell carcinoma of the oesophagus: A case‐control study in Uruguay

“…56 Other anti-oxidants such as lycopene, beta-cryptoxanthin, beta-sitosterol and flavonols may be responsible for the protective effect of plant foods in oesophageal carcinogenesis. 9 The strong effect of high intake of citrus fruits found in our study supports a particularly important role of vitamin C. 9,18 Other mechanisms for cancer prevention have been suggested. 51 Among them, adsorption of carcinogens and modulation of antioxidants enzyme systems could be of importance.…”

“…In fact, vegetables were included in their final model, whereas fruits were not. Other reports displayed lower risks for fruits compared to vegetables 6,7,9,10,[15][16][17][18][19]23,25,33,41,43,45 (15/38, 39.5%). Thus, the following question arises: is the overall body of evidence now sufficient to Adjusted for age, sex, residence, urban/rural status, birthplace, education, smoking status, years since quit, number of cigarettes smoked per day, alcohol drinking, matè temperature, stewed meat and total energy intake.…”

“…5 Five Uruguayan studies conducted by our group have examined the associations between foods and nutrients and oesophageal cancer risk. [6][7][8][9][10] According to these studies salted meat is a risk factor, whereas high intake of fresh fruits and vegetables was associated with strong reductions in risk. Studies conducted in other populations also reported a strong protective effect of plant foods.…”

“…12,15,24,25 Although our previous studies reported a stronger reduction in risk for high fruit consumption compared to high vegetable intake, the statistical power of these analyses was low and comparisons were conducted between categorical variables. 6,7,9,10 This is an important drawback since the absolute amount of consumption of vegetables and fruits could be different. 46 To perform a direct comparison it is necessary to model these foods as continuous terms adding a fixed amount of intake.…”

An Insight of Pulses: From Food to Cancer Treatment

“…Plants generally contain β-sitosterol (24α-ethylocholesterol), campesterol (24α-methylocholesterol) and stigmasterol (Δ22-24α-ethylocholesterol) and their unsaturated equivalents, i.e., stanols [154][155][156][157]. Phytosterols are reported to act as anticancer agents against esophageal, colon, prostate, stomach and breast cancer by inducing apoptosis of the respective cultured cancer cells [158][159][160][161][162][163][164]. But, phytosterols are not associated with a reduced risk of rectal cancers [165][166][167].…”