Carrot Fungus: It’ll Either Kill You or Cure Cancer

Andy sent me an email pointing out this curious article about an anti-cancer compound found in carrots. It's probably some kind of typo or poor choice of words, but if you read the first and last sentences together it sure sounds like this carrot cure is going to kill you before it has a chance to kill the cancer:

Eating 400kg of carrot every day can help ward off cancer, scientists say. The recent study carried out by scientists at the University of Newcastle said a compound called Falcarinol found in carrot reduced the risk of cancer developing in rats by a third....
Falcarinol protects carrots from fungal diseases, such as liquorice rot that causes black spots on the roots during storage, but scientist say, a person would have to eat 400kg of carrots at once to ingest a lethal dose.

Food Health/Medicine

Posted on Thu Feb 10, 2005


Comments

The main page of the article's website is curious. All the articles claim incredible medical miracles...but the headliner is:

"Sex Star Sarah Parker
Posted by raoulduke  on  Fri Feb 11, 2005  at  12:34 AM
Isn't kg the abbreviation for kilogram?

Forget I asked. I looked it up. It is.

A kilogram is equal to 2.2 pounds.

400 kilograms is 880 pounds.

A rabbit the size of an elephant couldn't eat that much carrot in one day. I think I'd rather get cancer than eat approximately four times my body weight in carrots every day.
Posted by Barghest  on  Fri Feb 11, 2005  at  01:22 AM
They said eating that much everyday will ward off cancer. But if you eat them all at once, that is a lethal dose.
Posted by Stephen  on  Fri Feb 11, 2005  at  08:01 AM
Wouldn't eating over 800 pounds of something all at once be pretty lethal, no matter what you were eating?
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Fri Feb 11, 2005  at  08:04 AM
Yes, if you eat a lethal dose of carrots, or anything else, you will not get cancer!

Have fun,
-barefoot ken bob
Posted by Ken Bob Saxton  on  Fri Feb 11, 2005  at  10:12 AM
Not to mention more than a cup or two of carrots/day will turn you bright orange (if you start out pinky/peachy like me.)
Posted by cvirtue  on  Fri Feb 11, 2005  at  06:17 PM
I think the blub is trying to say that eating 400kg of carrots infected wtih liquorice rot will kill you? Or perhaps, that eating 400kg of carrots will be lethal to the cancer?
Maybe this is a case of poor translation.
Posted by Katey  on  Sat Feb 12, 2005  at  12:29 PM
400 kilograms of carrots would contain enough vitamin A and related compounds to kill you. I doubt if anyone has ever offed themselves that way, but there are people who've developed serious liver toxicity by taking vitamin pills and other "nutritional supplements."
Posted by Big Gary  on  Sat Feb 12, 2005  at  03:25 PM
Surely when it says "lethal", it means lethal to the cancer.
Posted by Conor  on  Mon Feb 14, 2005  at  10:13 AM
I think you were given the quot wrong. I've reproduced it below.

"Dr Brandt recommended consumers should eat one small carrot every day, together with other vegetables and fruits.

Falcarinol is toxic in large amounts - but to obtain a lethal dose you would have to eat 400 kilograms of carrots at once."

If you guys are just fooling around, that's great, but if you are serious, you should look into the protection given not only by carrots, but by all members of the umbellifera family which included celery, dill, parsnips et. each of these vegetable must fight fungus to survive and it only makes sense that we can borrow some of the fungal fighting power that allows a carrot to remain crisp and ornage in soil filled with fungus that's watered repeatedly.
Posted by Dave Rousett - Scientific Nutrition  on  Sat Dec 17, 2005  at  04:44 PM
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