July 18, 2010 Agricultural Research Service (ARS) chemist Thomas
Wang, who specializes in cancer prevention research, has
reported evidence that for some dietary compounds, length of
exposure over time may be key to whether or not ingestion leads
to a beneficial, or detrimental, effect. Scientists do not know
exactly why one person develops cancer and another does not. But
they do know that certain nutrients might increase or decrease
cancer risk. There are "layers" of factors involved in the
development of cancer, and Wang is studying the layers involving
peoples' diet complexity and gene expression. Wang works at the
ARS Diet, Genomics and Immunology Laboratory, part of the
Beltsville (Md.) Human Nutrition Research Center. He published a
complementary cell-culture and animal-model study showing that
concentrations of resveratrol -- a highly bioactive compound
found in grapes and other plant foods -- actually turned out to
be a double-edged sword when it came to mitigating cancer risk.
First, Wang exposed hu