Could our favorite flavorings be damaging our DNA ?

A new study finds that coffees, teas and "liquid smoke" flavoring could be activating a repair gene in our bodies.

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(TIME.com) -- Plants are all-natural sources of all things good for us, right? It turns out some of our favorite plant-based flavorings may do more harm than good.

Scientists from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center report in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology that teas, coffees and "smoky flavoring" could be damaging our DNA at levels comparable to that caused by chemotherapy drugs.

The food chemistry and biology researchers tested the effects of some popular foods and food flavorings on cell cultures in the lab and discovered that a well-known repair gene called p53 that protects cells from becoming cancerous, was highly activated by compounds in black and green teas, coffee and liquid smoke flavoring, which is used to add smokey flavor to sausages and meat substitutes.

The foods caused a 30-fold increase in p53 activity when they were added to the cells, which is comparable to the effect that the chemotherapy drug etoposide can have on the cancer-suppressing gene.

p53 is stimulated when DNA is damaged, and the gene triggers a series of responses that attempt to repair the affected DNA. The greater the damage to the DNA, the more p53 becomes activated, and researchers have come to view p53 levels as a marker for DNA in distress.

To measure the p53 activity, the researchers tagged the gene in a bunch of human cells to a fluorescent marker that would glow when the gene was activated, and then added diluted amounts of the foods and flavorings.

They let the cultures sit for 18 hours. Cultures with the black and green teas, coffee and liquid smoke all began to glow, indicating that p53 was hard at work doing damage control. Tests with other flavorings, including fish and oyster sauces, smoked paprika, wasabi powder and kim chee, didn't activate p53 to the same levels.

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Could our favorite flavorings be damaging our DNA ?