You Become What You Eat:
Lee Wattenberg
Prevention Pioneer

For more than 35 years, Dr. Lee Wattenberg has been at the forefront of research into the use of phytochemicals to inhibit cancer. Wattenberg entered the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1946 as a student and never left. In 1965, he began his studies in cancer prevention. Wattenberg believes "cancer prevention is extremely important because it is a very difficult disease unless caught relatively early." Wattenberg's research has provided evidence that non-nutritional compounds found in vegetables and fruits may prevent cancer. "The compounds are unusual because they don't have nutritional value."

In the 1970s Wattenberg pointed to five classes of naturally occurring compounds that he thought lowered the incidence of cancer: coumarins and related lactones, phenols, isothiocyanates, indoles, and flavones. By the 1980s his research focused on the mechanisms by which phytochemicals prevented cancer. Blocking agents (or inhibitors) keep carcinogenic compounds from reaching key sites in tissues. Suppressing agents keep cancer from occuring in cells already exposed to carcinogens. He recognized that most balanced diets included some phytochemicals and began to advocate the enhanced consumption of foods containing them. By the 1990s phytochemical research had begun to target cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, for example), the monoterpenes in citrus fruits, the organosulfur compounds in foods like garlic.

For more information, at other Web sites...

Inhibition of Carcinogenesis by Some Minor Dietary Constituents (pdf format) — paper by Wattenberg et al. presenting an overview of the effects of some foods on cancer prevention, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 1990, 49 (2), 173-183 (11), hosted by the IngentaConnect.