But across the country, doctors like Shanthi Sitaraman, MD, say they won't change the dietary advice they have been giving patients. One glass of wine daily is plenty. Regular screenings for colorectal cancer after age 50 are also essential, doctors say. Research is yielding other clues to preventing this disease. These foods are rich in a carotenoid known as lutein.
Carotenoids are the pigments that give certain fruits and vegetables their yellow and orange colors.
They are also found in broccoli and in dark, leafy greens. In the lutein study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , researchers compared the diets of nearly 2,000 people with colon cancer with those of more than 2,400 without the disease. Participants who reported eating the most foods rich in lutein were much less likely to develop colon cancer than those consuming the least lutein-rich foods. Exactly how lutein may reduce the risk of colon cancer is not fully understood, says researcher Martha L. Slattery, PhD, MPH, of the University of Utah Medical School in Salt Lake City. She and her colleagues speculate that this occurs because carotenoids are antioxidants, which may destroy the free radicals that are believed to accelerate aging and contribute to the formation of cancers and heart disease.