Brain tumors are the number one cause of cancer related death in children.
Although brain tumors account for only 15% of pediatric tumors, they are less amenable to treatment than most other forms of cancer.
So what can you do to protect your child? According to new research, avoiding meat and eating cruciferous vegetables are two ways expectant mothers can guard against the development of brain cancer in their children.
A research study conducted by the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California and the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles looked at the amount of meat women ate during pregnancy and compared that figure with the number of brain tumors diagnosed in their children over the next twenty years.
The study revealed that the more meat the mothers consumed, the more likely their children were to have brain cancer.
In fact, children whose mothers ate cured meats twice daily during pregnancy developed more than two times as many brain tumors as children whose mothers abstained entirely from meats.
The research teams at the University of Southern California and the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center decided to test their findings further to see if the original results were a purely American phenomenon.
They collaborated with nine study centers from seven countries and studied 1218 international cases with 2223 controls.
This larger international study yielded the same results.
Diets in more than two thousand mothers of children with brain tumors and more than a thousand mothers of healthy children were analyzed and compared.
Again, the researchers found that children whose mothers ate meat during pregnancy had a significantly increased risk of developing brain tumors.
Conversely, this study found that children whose mothers regularly ate cruciferous vegetables had a significantly decreased chance of brain tumor development.
Many scientists believe that it is the nitrosamines in cured meat which cause brain tumors.
Nitrosamines have been shown to cause brain tumors in lab animals when their mothers are fed cured meats.
The reason cruciferous vegetables reduce cancer risk is because they contain the phytochemical sulforaphane, which stimulates enzymes that prevent cancer.
Sulforaphane has repeatedly shown the ability in lab experiments to help maintain healthy cells and blood vessels in the brain, which typically prevents migration of cancer cells.
Cruciferous vegetables include a wide variety of species: mustard greens, arugula, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, cabbage, radishes, turnips, bok choy, and kohlrabi.
Broccoli and cauliflower have the highest concentration of sulforaphane.
Since the research on sulforaphane is still in its early stages, there is no known minimum dietary requirement for it.
On the other hand, cruciferous veggies have always been part of a healthy diet.
Now we just have one more excellent reason to eat them regularly!