A lack of vitamins found in fruit and vegetables could be damaging people's DNA, a process associated with the development of cancer, experts told a conference sponsored in part by the National Institute for Health Science.

"Whenever you turn around...the poor are eating such poor diets I think they are battering their DNA, causing cancer and maybe damaging their brains," Bruce Ames of the University of California, Berkeley said at the close of the June conference. "You can solve all of these problems with a high grade multivitamin pill," Ames said "it is very hard to get people to change their diets and they are just not doing it. I think you should tell them to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and take vitamins as insurance."

Reuters, June 20, 2000