Readers may have noticed that there is great hype in the media reporting that Sir Tim Hunt, who is reportedly a principal scientist with Cancer Research UK, said that eating fruits and vegetables does not do anything to help cut cancer risk.

This is what Sir Hunt told attendees at the Association for International Cancer Research conference in Fife, according to BBC News.

Another study most recently registered to pubmed.gov also suggests the same thing- eating fruits and vegetables does not help and if there is any, the reduction in the cancer risk is very tiny.

Sir Hunt does not seem to be part of the research team.  BBC News did not say what research Sir Hunt conducted to reach such a conclusion.

From the abstract of the reported study, there is no detailed explanation about how the study was conducted. For instance, when they said the association between increased intake of fruits and vegetables and cancer risk was weak.  We don't know what the reference is for the comparison.  Did you compare low intake of fruits and vegetables with high intake or do you compare high intake of fruits/vegetables with meat rich diet?  We don't know.

Other interesting comments Sir Hunt made and reported by BBC NEWS include his denial of the notion that pollutants raise cancer risk.

"The two most terrible poisons in the environment causing cancer are air and water," he was cited as saying. "It is the air itself, not any pollutants in it, and water which are constantly attacking our DNA."

If water and air cause cancer, which is possible, then it's only natural to see cancer develops in our body. But if nothing else causes cancer, then why do we see many more cases of many types of cancers now than ever?

In the same BBC news report, Sir Hunt was cited saying that "lung cancer was a very rare disease before people started smoking."

How could he say in a sentence "It is the air itself not any pollutants in it (that cause cancer), and then suggested in another sentence that smoking causes lung cancer?  What does smoking do?  Smokes pollute the air!!!

Food consumers should do their home work to decide whether fruits and vegetables can help cut cancer risk. Numerous studies have suggested the possibility.

Jimmy Downs