Tuesday 28 October 2008

Deep Purple?

There is a another GM story (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn15040-purple-tomatoes-could-ward-off-cancer.html) about UK scientists (at the John Innes Centre) inserting a gene from a Snapdragon flower to create purple tomatos, high in anthocyanin antioxidants. The scientists involved found that mice that were prone to a cancer lived longer when fed with this fruit and hope for similar beneficial anti-cancer effects in our own species. Having said that, the evidence for a protective effect of antioxidants in 'super foods' (like Blueberries), although apparently convincing in theory, is not good. It will be interesting to see how this mixture of Super versus Frankenstein food/Nutritional hope versus Science fact pans out.

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