Two Iowa State professors will be receiving a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to fund their research in investigating cancer-prevention properties in food.

The USDA will give Suzanne Hendrich and Patricia Murphy, both professors in food science and human nutrition, a $490,000 grant.

Hendrich and Murphy are doing research on three phytochemicals — isoflavones, saponins and phenolic acids — found in legumes. They are trying to determine whether sufficient amounts of these phytochemicals can prevent cancer and heart disease.

Phytochemicals are non-nutrient chemicals found in plants.

The professors’ next step is to determine if the body can absorb the compounds or just digest them.

“If we can’t absorb them, then they really won’t do us much good in preventing cancer, unless it is cancer of the [gastro intestinal] tract or something of that nature,” Hendrich said.

If the phytochemicals are found to be helpful, the professors also hope to find whether the components can be taken as a supplement or whether they will only provide protection when eaten as a whole food.

Murphy said she has been studying and testing isoflavones for nearly 20 years.

“I have always been interested in naturally occurring toxins and protectants in foods,” Murphy said.

Hendrich joined Murphy in her research seven years ago.

Near that time, many federal agencies, including the USDA, also became interested in these possible protectants.

“Research has been going on in this field for some time in many different places throughout the world, but we finally think that we know how to measure these compounds in foods,” Murphy said.

Associate professors at South Dakota State University and the University of Nebraska also think they know how to measure these phytochemicals. Murphy and Hendrich turned to the professors of those universities when they discovered one of the requirements of the grant was to have a partner in research.

Susan Cuppett at the University of Nebraska is an expert at measuring phenolic acids. Dr. Chunyang Wang at South Dakota State University is in the process of developing a much faster way to test the phytochemicals.

“We can only do one sample in an hour. Wang is working on a method to measure the same chemicals in only minutes,” Murphy said.

Murphy said the only possible setback is that thorough testing has to be done on the new phytochemical testing method to prove that it gives the same results as Murphy and Hendrich’s method.

The current project is slated to last three years, but Murphy is sure that new findings will keep the project going longer if the funding is available.

“We are hoping this basic information will be put into food databases to aid consumers in making choices about what foods they eat,” Hendrich said.

Their studies also will aid other researchers in doing more in-depth studies of the same kind.

“It is hard for us to do true in-depth studies because of the compliance factor,” Murphy said. “If the subjects aren’t compliant, it is impossible to tell if the component is effective and in what doses.”