Carbonated drinks may raise the risk of esophageal cancer, researchers from India reported at the 2004 Digestive Disease Week conference of cancer and gastrointestinal experts in New Orleans in May. The team found a strong correlation between the rise (450%) in per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks in the past 50 years in America and a rise (570%) in the incidence of esophageal cancer in white American men in the past 25 years. It could be coincidence, but there’s biological plausibility as well. Carbonated soft drinks cause the stomach to distend, which in turn causes the gastric reflux, a condition strongly linked with esophageal cancer.

For a trip to bountiful, enjoy your local farmers markets this summer, full of luscious, just-picked produce. Making dinner? Let the market suggest the menu – purpletipped white asparagus, fat Roma beans, tender greens, tiny fingerling potatoes with skin so thin you don’t even have to peel them, and, of course, gorgeous fruit like peaches and raspberries. A market dinner often needs only simple cooking – quick sautéing and steaming – because produce at its peak is flavor at its peak.

If you’ve got arthritis, summer’s plump, fresh, delicious cherries may be especially good for you. Researchers at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center in Davis, California, recently found that women who ate 45 cherries every morning markedly reduced inflammatory indicators linked with gout, a very painful form of arthritis. (Agricultural Research, 2004; 52: 18)