Breast cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer affecting women in the United States claiming as many as 40,000 lives as of 2010. Although risks of acquiring the disease go up by age, you may be at an advantage if you love to eat peaches as the fruit appears to contain substances that can reduce your risks of developing breast cancer.

Researchers conducting experiments on mice observed that phenolic compounds, which can be found in peach extract can inhibit breast cancer metastasis, the development and spread of cancer to other parts of the body which occurs in up to 10 percent of all breast cancer cases, showing promise that the natural compound may be utilized to lessen the risk of breast cancer and metastasis.

For the study published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, researchers implanted a group of mice with aggressive breast cancer cells called MDA-MB-435 in a process known as xenograft. After about one week, the researchers fed the mice with different doses of peach polyphenols, compounds known to protect plants from the sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

"There are several studies showing that these compounds act as antioxidants and can therefore protect DNA against damage that can produce cancer," said study researcher Giuliana Noratto, a faculty at the Washington State University.

The researchers observed that the mice given high levels of polyphenols developed smaller tumors that do not have much of the blood vessel formations that stimulate the spread of cancer.

"The importance of our findings are very relevant, because it shows in vivo the effect that natural compounds, in this case the phenolic compounds in peach, have against breast cancer and metastasis," said study researcher Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, an associate professor at the Department of Horticultural Sciences, Texas A&M University.

The researchers also noted that the dose that resulted in positive effects in mice is equivalent to eating two to three peaches a day. "We are enthusiastic about the idea that perhaps by consuming only two to three peaches a day we can obtain similar effects in humans," Cisneros-Zevallos said.

Latest data from the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group show that over 200,000 Americans were diagnosed with breast cancer, more than 40,000 of which died from the disease. While breast cancer affects both men and women, the disease is more prevalent in women than in men.