Study: Compounds that Give Fruits and Vegetables Their Color Fight Cancer

On Aug. 19, at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, Mass., Dr. M. Monica Giusti, an assistant professor in the Food Science and Technology Department at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, presented the findings of a recent study of anthocyanins' effect on cancer cells. Very simply put, anthocyanins are pigments or compounds found in reddish or purplish fruits and vegetables, including purple cabbage, beets, blueberries, cherries, chokeberries, raspberries, bilberries, purple carrots and purple grapes.

The press release of the event states that, according to Dr. Giusti, the results of laboratory experiments on rats and on human colon cancer cells suggest that anthocyanins significantly slow the growth of colon cancer cells.

Dr. Giusti said that red, purple and blue fruits and vegetables "contain many compounds, and we're just starting to figure out what they are and which ones provide the best health benefits."

As Dr. Giusti and her team studied human colon cancer cells grown in laboratory dishes, they tested the cancer fighting effects of extracts from a variety of fruits and vegetables, including grapes, radishes, purple corn, chokeberries, bilberries, purple carrots and elderberries - all plants with extremely deep colors and, therefore, high in anthocyanins.

First, Dr. Giusti and her colleagues figured out how much extract was needed from each plant to cut the growth of human colon cancer cells in half. Different plant extracts were then added to flasks containing colon cancer cells. Using an analytical technique called high-performance liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry, they figured out precisely how each compound was chemically structured.