Drinking an eight ounce glass of pomegranate juice every day may slow the growth of prostate cancer and even prevent men from dying of the disease, U.S. scientists said.

Men who drank the beverage had a longer time until doubling of their blood levels of PSA — a protein that indicates the presence of prostate cancer, a new three-year pilot study from the University of California at Los Angeles found over the weekend.

The average doubling time for the disease is about 15 months. In the study, however, drinking pomegranate juice extends this period to 54 months – an almost four-fold increase. Patients with short doubling times are more likely to die from the cancer.

The study involved 50 prostate cancer patients who had undergone surgery or radiotherapy.

All the men had experienced a post-treatment increase in blood levels of PSA (prostate-specific antigen), indicating that cancer was still present in their bodies. Over a period of three years, scientists measured the men’s PSA levels to calculate how fast they were taking to double.

The effect was so pronounced it may allow older men to avoid dying from the cancer, experts believe.  The research, published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, showed that an ingredient in the fruit may help to slow the growing pace of breast cancer tumors.

Researchers in the City of Hope Cancer Research and Treatment Center in Duarte, California, found that ellagitannins in pomegranate inhibit an enzyme which helps the body make oestrogen, a hormone which fuels most breast cancers.

Medicines as aromatase inhibitors are for post-menopausal women who have got breast cancer. The ingredient in pomegranate has the same effect as the drugs.

“We were surprised by our findings,” said Dr. Shiuan Chan, one of the researchers. However, the researchers did not recommend people start eating the fruit as a replacement for the medicines. Chan said, “They are not as potent as the real drugs.”

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Governments around the world are constantly trying to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks by using stringent screening tools in airports. These practices that border on the violation of privacy, now may potentially cause serious long term health problems.

Airport security may begin to use x-ray scanning technology on every passenger before they are allowed to board an airplane. The scanner is called a backscatter, which is an x-ray system that would be able to identify bombs or other lethal weapons attached to a traveler’s body. It provides the observer with a full nude picture of a person’s body. The scanner that will most likely end up in airports around the world, shoots a person with ionizing radiation that is equal to less than 1 percent of a dental x-ray.

Experts say that this extremely low dose will not cause any detrimental effects and is perfectly safe. However, the concern is for those frequent fliers who may be exposed to this low dose several times a week. The US government has already allotted funds for 450 of these machines to be used in airports around the country. Britain has plans to use a similar technology that uses less powerful, non-ionizing radiation.

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