Watercress Protects Against Carcinogens in Cigarettes

Nicotine is highly addictive, and quitting smoking is very difficult. So, anything that could protect smokers against lung cancer while they fight to quit would be incredibly valuable. . . .

This study gave eighty-two cigarette smokers either a placebo or 10mg watercress extract mixed in 1ml of olive oil four times a day for a week. During the week, the smokers all continued to smoke their regular number of cigarettes.

Amazingly, the watercress extract reduced the activation of nicotine-derived nitrosamine ketone, a carcinogen found in cigarette smoke. It was able to reduce it by 7.7%. The watercress also detoxified the benzene found in cigarette smoke by 24.6% and the acrolein by 15.1%.

Some of the people in the study lacked genes that help the body’s glutathione to remove carcinogens from the body. In these people, the watercress extract helped even more, increasing benzene detoxification by 95.4% and acrolein by 32.7%. In these people, the watercress also helped detoxify another tobacco carcinogen, crotonaldehyde, by 29.8%.

This exciting study offers hope that an extract of watercress could help prevent the cancer causing effects of smoking. Watercress is a cruciferous vegetable. Other cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli, have been proven effective for detoxification and cancer prevention. Cruciferous vegetables have, for example, been shown to reduce the risk of breast and colon cancer.

Phase II clinical trial presented at American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting; April 19, 2016 (Funded by the National Cancer Institute).

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