Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/zIBhW8YLjwg   Broccoli and its cruciferous vegetable cousins can inactivate a gene that cancers use to overwhelm our immune systems and our bodies.  This latest finding comes from Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center’s Cancer Research Institute.   We know that eating broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, collard greens, Brussel sprouts, and kale seems to reduce the risk of cancer.  The Harvard researchers report that a tiny molecule in these vegetables, indole 3 carbinol or I3C, blocks one gene, WWP1, and releases a second gene, PTEN that is a potent human cancer cell suppressor.  By this round about mechanism, these veggies metabolically disable tumor cells.   So all we have so do is eat some broccoli, cauliflower, or cabbage to cure cancer.  No so fast.  Only tiny amounts of the magic I3C are in the usual servings of these vegetables, so you’d have to consume whopping quantities to consistently have an effect.     Nonetheless, eating them regularly is beneficial while resear