
Image by Sweet One via flickr.
It can be tough to find a medical study that is both important and compelling. But that was the opportunity presented to health reporters this week in the shape of a big study on a humble condiment, vinegar.
What makes this study even more wonderful, in a way, is that it was presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, a medical meeting that’s awash in high-stakes, big money, endlessly pitched and spun drug research.
In the midst of that madding crowd was Dr. Surendra Shastri, a preventive oncologist at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai who needed an inexpensive, low-tech way to screen for cervical cancer – the leading cancer killer of women in India.
He found it in the form of sterile vinegar which bleaches suspect cells white when it’s swabbed on the cervix. Continue reading