Administration of garlic and tomato can protect from carcinogen induced clastogenicity Archana Sengupta, PhD.*, Sharmistha Ghosh, M.Sc., Sukta Das, PhD. Department of Cancer Chemoprevention, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, 37, S. P. Mukherjee Road, Kolkata - 700026 India Received 13 April 2001; received in revised form 30 December 2001; accepted 7 January 2002 Abstract Consumption of garlic and tomato has been associated with reduced risk of many human cancers. The effects of these two dietary items were studied experimentally on carcinogen [lsqb]DMBA[rsqb] induced clastogenicity in Swiss mice. Chromosomal aberrations, which are predictor of cancer risk, were found to be reduced in bone marrow cells of Swiss mice exposed to carcinogens. Significant reduction of chromosomal aberration was noted in bone marrow on day 21 and 30 (p  0.02) although reduction was first evident after 96 hours. This is possibly the first report to suggest that oral administration of garlic and tomato can protect from the damaging effects of carcinogenic insult. It is proposed that one or other of many constituents garlic and tomato may be responsible for the definite protective effect on chromosomal aberrations. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: DMBA; Anticlastogenicity; Garlic; Tomato 1. Introduction Epidemiological, experimental and clinical studies have shown that dietary factors are important modifiers of human cancer risk [1– 4]. As majority of human cancers have been predicted to be preventable [1], there has been an increased interest in the food items, consumed worldwide, with cancer preventive potential. Garlic (the bulb root of Allium sativum. L) is used as a flavouring agent and consumed with food in all parts of the world. Apart from its use as flavouring agent, it is used in folk * Corresponding author. E-mail address: archanadi1@rediffmail.com (A. Sengupta). www.elsevier.com/locate/nutres Nutrition Research 22 (2002) 859 – 866 0271-5317/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S0271-5317(02)00357-3