A 20 - yr - long study see at the link between diet and continuing diseases has discovered something peculiar : It appears sure-enough cleaning woman that   are raw to bitter savour have an increase peril of cancer compared to women that do n’t .

This enquiry , published in theEuropean Journal of Nutrition , is one of the findings from the UK Women ’s Cohort Study , get going in 1995 . The team split up 5,500 women into three categories : super - taster , taste-tester , and non - taste-tester .

" The difference of opinion in cancer relative incidence between the women with the highest bitter - taste sensation sensitiveness and those with the low was striking , " lead generator professor Joshua Lambert of Penn State said in astatement . " Super - taste tester had about a 58 percent higher risk of cancer relative incidence , and the tasters had about a 40 percent high risk of develop cancer , compared to women who were classify as non - taste-tester . "

The destination was to see how diets , specially veggie intake , involve risk . Bitter vegetables , such as broccoli , are known for their probable welfare in helping prevent sealed conditions including cancers . The researchers initially believed that people peculiarly affect by the blistering taste would exhaust less of those and have a   eminent risk of cancer . And that ’s the twisting . It turn out that there is little sport in the amount of bitter vegetables consumed by the super - taste tester compared to the non - taste tester .

" Our hypothesis that women with not bad bitter - taste sensitivity would eat fewer vegetables , order them at heighten risk for cancer , was perhaps too narrow-minded a construct , " Lambert bestow . " If you have an aversion to acerbic sense of taste , you are also less probable to fuddle alcohol , and alcohol is a risk divisor for cancer . So , do the jeopardy of deplete too few vegetables outweigh the welfare of not drink in alcohol in terms of your overall Cancer the Crab risk , or vice versa ? We just do n’t know , yet . "

As correlativity does not imply causation , more work needs to be done . While the   team suspect diet to be the cause between this departure , in what form this takes   place is unclear . It might be small-scale departure or major I . There ’s also quality , measure , or even more subtle parameters . The original research was done using a 217 - detail food - frequency questionnaire ,   and while it seems telling , it does n’t provide a complete picture .

" Maybe , if we pull back and look at the whole - diet level , we will see that women who are superintendent - sampler have a poorer calibre overall dieting compared to woman who are non - tasters , " Lambert concluded .