Cancer-fighting molecules discovered in everyday foods like carrots, tea and grapes

EVERY day fruit and veg may contain cancer-busting chemicals that closely resemble those used in licensed drugs, a new study suggests.

Oranges, carrots and grapes have all been found to have molecules similar to the ones found in existing anti-cancer meds.

Flavonoids are antioxidants which give brightly coloured fruit and veg their vibrant hues.

And they also may help to prevent cancer by suppressing inflammation, controlling cell replication and even causing tumours to die.

Scientists from Imperial College London say that they now hope to create "personalised food passports" that act as "gastronomic medicine" to reduce our risk of disease.

One in two of us will develop cancer at some point in our lives.

But research suggests that up to 40 per cent of cancers could be prevented by living a healthy lifestyle - particularly one rich in fruit and veg.

Scientists "fed" 7,962 molecules into an algorithm which was trained to recognise the properties of 199 approved cancer drugs.

110 molecules were found to have cancer-busting properties defined as having an "anti-cancer drug-likeness"of over 70 per cent.

The fruits and veg with the most cancer-fighting properties were:

• oranges
• grapes
• carrots
• celery
• coriander
• dill
• tea

Good news for tea drinkers

Tea was found to "strongly exhibit anti-cancer drug-like properties", due, scientists concluded, to it being a rich source of the molecules catechins, terpenoids and tannins.

They concluded that the chemical trio reduced DNA damage, suppressed inflammation and caused cancer cell "suicide".

"Food represents the single biggest modifiable aspect of an individual’s health," the researchers wrote.

"The machine-learning strategy described here is a first step in realising the potential role for “smart” nutritional programmes in the prevention and treatment of cancer."

Scientists are now hoping that their findings might be adapted to suit the dietary needs of other diseases, like diabetes.The data was processed by , a crowdsourcing app from the Vodafone Foundation that uses the power of mobile phones to speed up cancer research.

The future of medicine

Future work is needed first to see how much of these "hyperfoods" we should be eating and whether cooking or storing them has any effect on their powers.

"We envisage this first list of 'cancer-beating' foods will serve as one of the pillars in the foundation for the future of gastronomic medicine," the study concluded.

"It should aid the creation of personalised "food passports" to provide nutritious, tailored and therapeutically-functional foods for the population."

It's no surprise that eating more fruit and veg can help to fight the disease.

Back in May, we revealed that eating more fruit and veg can help women to slash their breast cancer death risk by a fifth.

U.S. experts followed nearly 50,000 healthy postmenopausal women for two decades.

Nearly half were asked to reduce their fat intake by 20 per cent and eat at least one daily portion of fruit, veg and wholegrains.

Overall, their risk of breast cancer death fell by 21 per cent.

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