Why might watercress protect against cancer?

THAT'S THE WHY:You can't have missed the message that eating cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and watercress is generally a useful thing to do.

In fact, when it comes to veggies, the crucifers are pretty much the model goody-two-shoes, bursting as they are with vitamins, minerals and other beneficial compounds.

A particular string to their bow is that they contain isothiocyanates (ITCs), and some of these compounds have been shown to kill off cancer cells in the lab and in animal models.

Now of course there’s a long and often wiggly line between something looking promising in a lab incubator, or even a mouse, and delivering the desired result in the human body.

It’s also difficult to study the health effects of individual food ingredients on large groups of humans over time.

But the results keep coming, and a new lab study shows one potential mechanism by which ITCs may have an anti-cancer effect. Details of the study at Georgetown University Medical Center were published last month in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

The findings centre on a protective molecule in our cells called p53. In a sizeable number of cancers (about half), something appears to have gone wrong with p53.

So it’s of interest that the research found that PEITC, which is particularly abundant in watercress, can bind to mutant p53 in cells and deactivate it, yet it leaves the normal p53 well alone.

That’s not to say eating crucifers is a sure bet for preventing cancer, but it’s yet another trophy in their cabinet.