Esophagus Study Bears ‘Fruit’

Cancer is a hard thing to peg. What I mean is that unlike some diseases, where being diagnosed with it means a lifetime of inconvenience but rarely death – like Crohn’s disease – or where diagnosis signals all but certain death – like Ebola – cancer is not this way at all. The mortality risk of cancer largely depends on where the cancerous tumor is located and how far along its progressed.

For the most part, though, this “depends” doesn’t apply to esophageal cancer.

A long tube that starts at the base of the throat and connects the mouth to the stomach, the esophagus is clearly an important part of the human body. But for such an important organ, it does little to signal to the body that it’s hurt when inflicted with a cancerous tumor. Because of this, when people are diagnosed with esophageal cancer, the cancer has often spread to other parts of the body, making survival rates few and far between. In fact, according to the American Cancer Society, only 18 percent of esophageal cancer patients live longer than five years after diagnosis (a much improved rate compared to 1960, when only 4 percent of whites and 1 percent of blacks survived longer than five years).

The rate of esophageal cancer has been increasing at a rate of about 2 percent per year. But researchers are hopeful that this increasing trend might subside simply by doing what your mom told you to do throughout your young (and, perhaps, middle-aged) life: eat your fruits and vegetables. In this study, though, the emphasis is on fruits.

Researchers from Kaiser Permanente Northern California recruited 900 participants, a third of whom had Barrett’s esophagus (a precursor to esophageal cancer), another third had gastroesophageal reflux disease (or what is more commonly known as acid reflux disease) and the final third had none of these esophagus-related issues. They were used as the control group.

To gauge what the participants ate from day to day, each was given a questionnaire that included 110 food items. This helped the researchers assess how frequently they ate certain kinds of foods.

The food frequency indicator indicated to the researchers the frequency with which the participants ate certain kinds of foods and if diet was linked to their esophageal issues, or more to the point, the lack there of. They found that diet indeed played into adversely effected esophagi, as those without esophageal issues ate more foods high in vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene – three nutrients found in abundant supply in fruits. Alternatively, those with GERD or Barrett’s esophagus ate considerably smaller amounts of these nutrients.

The numbers broke down this way when comparing those without Barrett’s esophagus to those with: the highest consumers of vitamin C were 52 percent less likely to get Barrett’s, were 44 percent less likely if consuming high amounts of beta-carotene and a whopping 75 percent less likely if consuming high amounts of vitamin E.

What qualified as “high” amounts? Those that consumed at least 184 milligrams per day of vitamin C, 6.8 milligrams of beta-carotene and 19 milligrams of vitamin E.

Published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, the researchers write that there was an inverse relationship between the consumption of these nutrients and the likelihood of developing Barrett’s esophagus. In plain English, the more eaten, the less the risk.

Some of the fruits highest in vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene are papaya (one medium size=95mg of vitamin C), dried, uncooked apricots (1 cup=4mg of vitamin E) and mangoes (about 1 mg of beta-carotene per medium mango), respectively.

Estimates have the number of people being diagnosed with esophageal cancer at just under 16,500 Americans for 2008, with approximately 14,300 dying from it. With any luck, the good researchers’ findings will bear some ‘fruit’ by way of a decline in these diagnoses in 2009 and beyond.