from /Bottom Line's Daily Health News/
*Apples Fight Breast Cancer*
An apple a day may not only keep the doctor away -- new
research shows
that it may specifically be helpful in protecting against
breast cancer.
At Cornell University's department of food science and
Institute for
Comparative and Environmental Toxicology, researchers
randomly divided
rats treated with a known mammary carcinogen into different
groups,
feeding them either low, middle or high doses of Red
Delicious apple
extracts (the equivalent of one, three and six apples a day
in humans,
respectively) or a control extract. Rats fed the strongest
apple extract
experienced the lowest cancer rate (40% developed cancer)...
followed by
the group fed middle-strength extract (43%)... and the
lowest strength
extract (59%). In comparison, 71% of those fed the
apple-free control
extract developed mammary cancer over the 24-week study
period. The
study appeared in the December 10, 2008, online edition of
/Journal of
Agricultural and Food Chemistry/.
WHAT'S THE SECRET?
According to researcher Rui Hai Liu, MD, PhD, associate
professor of
food science at Cornell University, the study demonstrated
not only that
apple extracts effectively inhibited the growth of mammary
tumors in the
rats but that the more administered, the greater the
anticancer effect.
"Not only did animals treated with apple extract have fewer
tumors
overall, the tumors were smaller, less likely to be
malignant and grew
more slowly when compared with tumors in the untreated
animals," he said.
Why are apples so powerful against breast cancer, I
wondered? Dr. Liu
explained to me that apples are one of the best sources of
phenolics and
flavonoids, which are phytochemicals (bioactive compounds)
that have
powerful antioxidant and anti-proliferative (antigrowth)
effects in the
body. In two previous studies, Dr. Liu and his colleagues
discovered
that phytochemicals from apples effectively inhibited the
growth of
human breast cancer cells. In another study, Dr. Liu found that
phytochemicals from apple peels inhibited an important
inflammation
pathway, NFkB, in human breast cancer cells, thereby
reducing the
proliferation of the cancer.
Dr. Liu told me that although other fruits and vegetables
also contain
phenolics and flavonoids, apples are one of the best dietary
sources of
fruit phenolics. In fact, of the top 25 fruits consumed in
the US,
apples provide 33% of the phenolics that Americans consume
annually.
"Americans love to eat apples, so it makes sense to
encourage them as
part of a balanced diet for optimal health," he said, adding
that this
doesn't mean anyone should forsake other fruits and
vegetables. "It's
clear that regular consumption of fruits, vegetables and
whole grains
can help to prevent chronic diseases, such as heart disease
and cancer,"
Dr. Liu said.
Source(s):
Rui Hai Liu, MD, PhD, is an associate professor in the
department of
food science at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
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