Recently in passing I heard that cancer patients should never eat asparagus because… well, I didn’t hear that part exactly. Some kind of enzyme? Whatever. I have many, many doubts.
When attempting to search on this in an idle moment all the hits I got for “cancer and asparagus” were talking about whether or not asparagus can cure cancer.
I’m assuming that asparagus has no magical properties and is simply yet another healthy vegetable that people should eat more of on general principles.
Nonetheless - what’s the straight dope on asparagus and cancer? Why would people think it was special one way or the other?
There are various plant compounds that, in theory, could help or harm particular cancers. Probably, most plants contain quite a variety of both of those and a good variety of compounds that have no effect.
One of the common compounds, in asparagus, is sarsasapogen:
It doesn’t seem to be noted as affecting any cancers.
Another common one is asparagine:
I’m not seeing anything about cancers with that, either.
It contains a variety of vitamins. If you’re not getting enough vitamins then that’s going to harm you but, in excess, they generally harm you (except, maybe, C). Excess vitamin intake has been linked to an increased chance of cancer. Asparagus doesn’t seem like the type of food that you’re generally going to find people eating in excess.
In general, at a brief glance, I’d just call it “some vegetable”. It doesn’t look to be one of the more notable for potential pharmacological/toxic compound interest. But you’re free to look through everything else in there and see if anything stands out.