Eating 400kg of carrot every day can help ward off cancer, scientists say. The recent study carried out by scientists at the University of Newcastle said a compound called Falcarinol found in carrot reduced the risk of cancer developing in rats by a third.
Researchers said it is not known exactly why the natural pesticide (Falcarinol) is effective but it could be because it stimulates mechanisms in the body that fight cancer. It is also yet to know if eating boiled carrots or drinking carrot juice would have the same effect, as the experiment was conducted using raw carrots, they said.
“We now need to find out how much Falcarinol is needed to prevent the development of cancer and if certain types of carrot are better than others,” said Dr Kirsten Brandt, the lead researcher.
However, he advised that to reduce the risk of cancer and other serious diseases it is important to eat at least five portions of different fruits and vegetables each day as part of a healthy and balanced diet.
The research team carried out tests on 24 rats with pre-cancerous tumours, after a previous published study suggested it could prevent the development of cancer.
After 18 weeks, rats who ate carrots along with their ordinary feed, and those given feed and Falcarinol supplement were one third less likely to develop full-scale tumours than rats that were given just ordinary feed.
Falcarinol protects carrots from fungal diseases, such as liquorice rot that causes black spots on the roots during storage, but scientist say, a person would have to eat 400kg of carrots at once to ingest a lethal dose.
