Leafy greens and brown tobacco
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From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
Leafy green vegetables won't prevent lung cancer, but a study suggests they could reduce some damage to genes in lung cells.
Steven Belinsky of the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico saw that in data on more than 1,000 current and former smokers.
Belinsky says gene changes that could lead to lung cancer were less severe in people who ate lots of leafy green vegetables and foods with the vitamin folate, and who took multivitamins:
[Steven Belinsky speaks] ``These studies do in fact indicate that substances in these food groups and in the multivitamins could potentially retard the processes by which these gene changes occur in the smoker.''
The report in the journal Cancer Research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Learn more at hhs.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.