What can Asparagus do for Breast Cancer?

Can asparagus do the job that modern medicine struggles to perform?

A short time back I had a friend ask me if I had ever heard what the deal is with asparagus and breast cancer.  At first thought, I was sure I had it figured out.  Asparagus, like other fruits and vegetables, contains a lot of antioxidants.  These antioxidants are know to help prevent cancer by fighting the free radicals with their amazing super powers and preventing the opportunity for those free radicals to alter cell DNA... thus preventing mutant cells that become cancerous.  BAM!  Well, that wasn't quite what I found when I set off to investigate the particulars of asparagus.  Asparagus, while it had antioxidants which are wonderful, also possess other unique characteristics that help it to fight hormone-dependent cancers, like breast cancer.

In a simulation study, scientists suggested that asparagus (asparagus racemosus) could offer protection against the spread (metastasis) of breast cancer cells.  The majority of breast cancer are hormone-responsive.  This means that their growth is dependent upon circulating hormones to promote the tumor growth.

In a normal scenario certain cell receptors are constantly seeking a particular hormone to connect with them to allow molecular pathways to continue.  Think of it like a chain reaction.  If you have some dynamite and a fuse on the dynamite, in order to make the dynamite explode you need a match.  This is also the case with cells.  They need particular hormones to tell them when to start doing their particular job.  This process is normally very effective.  However, in the case of breast cancer, when estrogen connects with some of these cells, it encourages growth to continue, which means the cancer begins to grow rapidly.  Certain plants contain nutrients called phytoestrogens, or plant estrogens.  It would seem that if your body's estrogen was something you wanted less of (while fighting breast cancer), then surely the plant estrogens would be just as dangerous.  What some research has revealed, though, is that these phytoestroens may actually function to block your body's estrogen by binding with these cell receptors.  So in essence, the aggressive cancer growth cannot occur because your body's estrogen couldn't encourage it - the spot was already filled by phytoestrogens and they weren't capable of sending the same cancer growth signal.

Another study looked at how well asparagus root saponins faired when their toxicity to cancer cells was tested.  The asparagus went up against breast, colon and pancreatic cancer cells and emerged victorious,  Results showed that incubation of these cancer cells with the asparagus root saponins increased the incidence of cancer cell death 12-15% over a 48-hour period.  Their investigation also looked for data on how the asparagus prevented cancers invasion of other organs.  As we've discovered over the years the scariest part of cancer can sometimes be the remission when we ponder whether it will appear somewhere else down the road.  It seemed, from their imagery, that cells that were more likely to spread to nearby cells had round shapes and moved somewhat like an amoeba.  Their shape allowed the cells to remain in close contact with each other, moving somewhat like a gang.  When the same cells were treated with varying concentrations of asparagus root saponins, they found the shape of the cells changed.  Now instead of being round amoebas, they looked more like elongated swords.  While still being bound to the same location and performed their assigned jobs appropriately, the cell shape prevented the treated cells from forming strong bonds to each other and thus reduced the cell movement. 

So what do I think?  Well, I think asparagus is amazing.  It tastes good.  It makes your pee smell funky.  And now look at the amazing benefit that eating it could have if you are faced with a battle against breast cancer!!!  Does this mean you should forego chemotherapy or radiation treatments?  NOOOOO!  Your oncologist knows far more about specialized cancer treatment than I could ever dream of knowing.  But does it mean you might want to add it to your list of weekly vegetable options?  For sure!  If you don't care for asparagus, or if you want a hit of asparagus everyday, you can also look for asparagus root capsules. 

You can even sneak some extra asparagus into things for your family.  I made this soup (pictured above) from a corn chowder recipe, but then I not only added some bite-sized pieces of asparagus, but I also took the usually-discarded bottom parts of the asparagus and pulverized them in the blender and added that to the soup base for bonus asparagus goodness!


Singla R, Jaitak V. Molecular docking simulation study of phytoestrogens from Asparagus racemosus in breast cancer progression. Intl J Pharm Sci Res. 2015;6(1):172-

Wang J, Liu Y, Zhao J, Zhang W, Pang X. Saponins extracted from by-product of Asparagus officinalis L. suppress tumor cell migration and invasion through targeting Rho GTPase signalling pathyway. J Sci Food Agric. 2013;93:1492-1498.