Smokers and former smokers who eat lots of broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables may be less likely than other smokers to develop lung cancer. Researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. reported that news recently in Washington, D.C. at an American Association of Cancer Research meeting on cancer prevention.
"The first thing to do is to quit smoking," because that is "still the best thing to do to reduce the risk" of developing lung cancer, researcher Li Tang, PhD, says. Besides quitting smoking, Tang recommends smokers and former smokers eat more cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, turnip greens, mustard greens, and collard greens - especially in their raw form.
Tang cautions that "nothing is the magic bullet" guaranteed to prevent lung cancer. But there's no downside to eating more vegetables. Exercise: The brain's fountain of youth Daily physical exercise keeps the brain young, mouse studies suggest. But don't wait too long to start.
The brain-boosting effects of exercise diminish rapidly after early middle age, say researchers working in the lab of Yu-Min Kuo, PhD, of Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University Medical College. Kuo's team previously found that young brains create new brain cells and integrate them into existing brain networks. As animals get older, however, this process dramatically slows. And this slowdown in brain cell creation is linked to impaired memory and learning.
Mice that started exercise in early middle age did much better than mice that didn't start exercising until later middle age. Interestingly, the brain changes seen in exercising mice weren't caused by a drop in stress hormones, as some studies predicted. Instead, the positive changes came from increased production of signalling molecules that promote brain cell growth and survival.