Food research bears fruit. (Herbal Medicine).

Plenty of foods can cause adverse health effects, such as food laden with animal fats, which can result in dogged blood vessels, or sweets, which can destroy your teeth. But researchers from around the world are also finding that there are foods that may protect you against disease. They discussed some of their findings at the International Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies (Pacifichem 2000), held 14-19 December 2000 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Jonel Saludes, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of San Agustin in Iloilo City, the Philippines, reported that extract from the leaf of the noni plant, which grows abundantly in Hawaii, Australia, and the Philippines, contains chemicals that effectively kill even resistant strains of tuberculosis bacteria in vitro. "We found that this extract and the compounds obtained from it are as effective against Mycobacterium tuberculosis as some of the drugs currently used for the treatment of tuberculosis," said Saludes.

Noni, also known as Indian mulberry or cheesefruit, has been a staple of native healers, Saludes said. He noted that the extract compounds have yet to be tested in animals or human beings.

Japanese researchers reported that avocado may protect the liver, if results in animals translate to humans. Hirokazu Kawagishi, a professor of applied biological chemistry at Shizuoka University, fed laboratory rats diets containing avocado and 22 other fruits over a two-week period. Then the rats were given feed containing D-galactosamine, a compound that kills liver cells. Kawagishi said that aside from avocado, fruits that proved to provide the most protection against liver damage were watermelon, papaya, lychee, kiwi, Japanese plums, grapefruit, figs, and cherries.

Another Japanese team found that the pungent, green condiment wasabi, often used to flavor sushi and other foods, contains components that can prevent bacteria from creating conditions that lead to tooth decay. Laboratory studies showed that compounds in wasabi, made from a plant in the cruciferous family, prevent the bacterium that causes tooth decay, Streptococcus mutans, from adhering to the teeth. The researchers believe multiple chemicals in the plant may have a synergistic protective effect.

Researcher Hideki Masuda, director of the Material Research and Development Laboratories at Ogawa & Company in Chiba, suggested that eating a small amount of wasabi each day could prevent tooth decay. "My ultimate goal is that someday the ingredients in wasabi will be put into toothpaste so people can more easily get protection against tooth decay," he said.

Meanwhile, in Canada, a combination of animal and laboratory studies suggest that moderate drinking of beer, especially a glass of stout, might help protect a person against developing cataracts. "Rich, dark ales and stout like Guinness contain a lot of antioxidants, and antioxidants appear to prevent cataract development," said John Trevithick, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario in London.

Trevithick demonstrated that in animal models, antioxidants could reduce the formation of cataracts by as much as 50%. In experiments with rat eye lenses, Trevithick found that antioxidants that act similarly to those in beer protect mitochondria in lens cells. Damaged mitochondria in lens cells can lead to an increased incidence of cataracts.

In another presentation, U.S. researchers reported that women whose lifelong diet is rich in soy products appear to have a reduced risk of breast cancer, bolstering earlier findings on this food-disease relationship. After analyzing tests on Chinese women, the scientists said they can track the impact of soy in the diet: "Women with the highest levels of soy in their diet have about a fifty percent decrease in the risk of breast cancer compared to those with the lowest levels," said Adrian Franke, a research specialist at Honolulu's Cancer Research Center of Hawaii. Franke and colleagues at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, measured isoflavones in the urine of women in Shanghai, China, and found that those levels correlated well with soy intake, giving scientists a biomarker for soy consumption.

Such findings don't surprise William Fenical, an organic chemist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. "We are just on the forefront of really knowing what the effect of foods are on our health," he said.