Foods that prevent cancer and heart attacks….

Today's Post: Tuesday, 7-7-2009

Last week on Thursday, 7-2, the email I get from Al Sears, MD had an interesting article on why eating raw, unprocessed walnuts may prevent cancer -- & breast cancer in particular.

He lists the three food components that walnuts have that have that each do this. Then he lists other foods that have each of the three components.

But, each of these food components and foods also tend to prevent heart disease and heart attacks!

Even better, there are supplements that have these 3 ingredients.

That makes the foods he lists unusually good for your health to eat, or Superfoods as they have been called.

It’s very good news that each of these foods help prevent cancer AND heart attacks. Some may be better at preventing cancer while many are better at preventing heart disease. Eating these foods regularly will clearly help keep you in good health.

We list the foods and the supplements here.:

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are allergic to tree nuts, this list also contains sources for each of these 3 ingredients beside nuts! You can get the same protection from those other foods.

Dr Sears says that a new study found that eating walnuts regularly could reduce your risk of breast cancer. He said that is likely because walnuts contain phytosterols, omega-3s, and flavonoids. He says each of those 3 food components tends to prevent cancer which makes walnuts special as they have all 3 components.

(My addition is to note that each of these 3 ingredients also helps prevent heart disease. It also is worth noting these ingredients prevent OTHER cancers besides breast cancer.)

Then he lists other foods that have each of these ingredients.:

1. Phytosterols (also called sterols.) Dr Sears said that research has found that sterols both help prevent breast cancer tumors and make them smaller if they show up!

Sterols ALSO lower LDL cholesterol. In fact, by using sterols plus niacin and eating a heart health diet, you can lower LDL levels to levels that otherwise would require statin drugs. And that’s MUCH safer and has fewer side effects than statins.

Dear Sears says phytosterols (or sterols) are in:

Walnuts
Legumes ( beans and lentils)
Other nuts and seeds such as Pistachios, Sunflower seeds, & Almonds. ( I believe pecans and other nuts also have sterols.)

Brussels sprouts -- and, particularly when eaten raw, broccoli, broccoli sprouts, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, and other cruciferous vegetables, in addition to whatever sterols they have, have other powerful cancer fighting compounds. And these nonstarchy vegetables also help keep you filled and turn off hunger virtually without any net calories which is a key to losing excess fat and keeping it off. Not being fat or losing excess fat also tends to be heart protective!

Eating beans and lentils also help lower LDL cholesterol because they contain soluble fiber and a lot of it.

And, people who eat nuts, such as walnuts, pecans, almonds, etc find their protective HDL goes up as well.

Not surprisingly, walnuts tend to be particularly heart protective. But that’s because of the next ingredient to some degree.

Beta sitosterol is a sterol that has been shown to be preventive of prostate enlargement and possibly prostate cancer. (Natrol makes an inexpensive beta sitosterol supplement that they call, “Cholesterol Balance.” In part by taking 3 of those tablets each day, I lowered my LDL cholesterol from 130 to readings such as 96 & 104 – without statins.)

2. Omega-3s. Dr Sears says that Omega-3s get absorbed into cells where they help cause cancer cells to self-destruct. They reduce also an inflammatory enzyme that tends to help breast cancers and other cancers grow. Third, Omega-3s help keep your body’s genes healthy enough they help repair your DNA and prevent cancer in the first place.

Omega-3s are in these foods:

The plant form of Omega 3s, ALA, is in
Walnuts
Almonds
Pecans
& Avocado.

The form of ALA in walnuts plus their other ingredients have been found to be particularly heart protective.

The more powerful two kinds of Omega 3s from animal sources, DHA & EPA are in:
Wild-caught salmon, anchovies, sardines & some other wild caught fish and seafood;
& to a smaller extent, they are in beef from animals fed only grass.

And, Omega 3s by reducing inflammation and triglycerides also are strongly heart protective.

In addition, you can take purified fish oil supplements that contain the Omega3s DHA and EPA. Nordic Naturals and Carlson are two well thought of sources for those supplements.

Flavonoids.

Walnuts also contain ellagic acid, a flavonoid that inhibits the growth of cancer cells
Ellagic acid is an antioxidant believed to help prevent cancer from forming and help prevent any cancers that form from reproducing which stops the growth of the cancer.

Foods that are high in ellagic acid include:
Walnuts
Pecans
& most Berries including blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, & strawberries.

Bilberry extract, pine bark extract or pycnogenol, and grape seed extract are also high in flavonoids.

Here again, each of these foods has other health protective components. Eating them has been shown to increase the protective HDL cholesterol. Their antioxidants also help prevent your LDL cholesterol from becoming oxidized LDL which is much more harmful to your heart.

So it really can help you prevent both cancer and heart disease to eat these foods and take these supplements.

If you also stay away from tobacco smoke which helps cause both heart disease and cancers as well, your risk of both cancer and heart disease will be quite low indeed.

Even more heart protection in red wine....

Today's post: Friday, 4-24-2009

The Mediterranean diet, the traditional version that often includes red wine & olive oil is known to be protective for your heart.

And, in France, they eat more cheese and butter than Americans but have less heart disease.

(Some of that, an analysis of total yearly food intake for France and for the United Sates showed, is due to how dramatically much less full fat milk and hamburger the French were eating and how much more vegetables they were eating. In addition, their rate of heart disease is medium rather than low; & the parts of France that eat the most butter and cheese have the most heart attacks.)

But it now looks as if some of their lower incidence of heart disease may come from what was their higher rate of consumption of red wine. (In recent years, the consumption of red wine in the United States has gone up quite a bit due to publicity about its likely health benefits.)

I just got an email from a doctor who specializes in preventative medicine.

He included information I had briefly read once; but the details he included were extremely important.

It seems that there is an ingredient in red wine, particularly some kinds of red wine, AND that is also in olive oil to some degree, that lowers your LDL cholesterol and which does so even when you have eaten a bit too much of a food high in saturated fat. This same ingredient also tends to lower the kind of inflammation that helps trigger heart disease. And, this is in red wine in addition to the resveratrol, flavonols, and alcohol which also tend to benefit your heart.

It’s called saponin, or more accurately saponins, as there are apparently several naturally occurring kinds.

It’s much higher in red wine than in white wine. And the kinds of red wine that have the most are those with higher alcohol content and the Burgundy, Zinfandel, and Pinot Noir varieties of red wine.

Sterols are naturally occurring substances in vegetables, nuts and other foods. It seems that saponins are a kind of sterol. The molecule of sterols is apparently similar to cholesterol but in a way that causes your body to reduce the amount of LDL cholesterol in your blood when you take in enough sterols.

There is also some evidence that sterols slightly increase your protective HDL cholesterol too!

You don’t need red wine to get them of course. Vegetables, nuts, olive oil, and sterol supplements also can provide you with sterols. (Taking sterol supplements, eating those foods, and drinking red wine have helped me to have LDL readings that average about 100 while my HDL tends to be about 90. Of course the high HDL and low LDL are helped by my taking 600 mg of niacin each day and by regular, vigorous exercise and by eating foods high in soluble fiber as well such as apple sauce, beans, and oatmeal.)

But it’s still nice to know that something fun and relaxing like drinking some red wine often can protect you from heart disease at the same time!

(Important note: One or two glasses of red wine with dinner but less than 14 a week for men and 7 a week for women tends to produce the best net health results.

Drinking more than that not only costs more, it also tends to help make you fat and can cause injury accidents and legal liability if the person injured or killed is someone besides the drinker. And, it has done and done often as the British like to put it.

So enjoy red wine and its health benefits. But be tough on yourself about stopping at a consumption level that does you more good than harm.)