Minerals versus Cancer, Part III
The Best Sources of Iron
If you are concerned about your iron intake, consider some of these sources:
* Lean meats and shellfish
* Whole grain or enriched cereals
* Dried apricots, prunes, or raisins
* Nuts and wheat germ
* Dried beans and peas
* Leafy green vegetables
Liver, especially pork liver, contains large amounts of iron. But it is also rich in cholesterol. Too many of us eat too much of cholesterol-containing foods. Egg yolk has a moderate iron content; it is high in cholesterol, too.
The iron in flesh foods, called heme iron, is best absorbed by the body. Yet studies have found no more iron-deficiency anemia among vegetarians than among meat eaters.
One possible explanation is vitamin C. It enhances absorption of the iron in foods. Vegetarians often consume more vitamin C than meat-eaters. The vitamin C may compensate for the absence of meat in their diets.
A Look at Lead
Lead has long been in the headlines. Lead poisoning has occurred too frequently among children – often from eating chips of old paint that contained lead.
Read more…
Categories: Cancer, NUTRITION Tags: Cancer, Canned foods, cholesterol, iron, kidney cancer, lead, lead poisoning, minerals, vegetarians, vitamin C
Vitamin C Helps You to Fight Cancer, Part III
Handle with Care
If you are nutrition-minded, you probably try not to lose nutrients in cooking.
With vitamin A, you don’t have to worry. It is tough stuff; pretty much indifferent to water, heat, and even long periods of storage. Vitamin A doesn’t dissolve in water, so it doesn’t leach into water used in cooking.
But vitamin C is very sensitive. Heat, light, and oxygen can do it in. In fact, some loss of the vitamin C in food just cannot be prevented.
With a little effort, though, losses of the vitamin can be kept to a minimum. Here are the rules:
- The sooner fresh foods can be used, the better. Vitamin C breaks down during storage.
- Try not to chop these foods finely all the time. The fewer pieces a food is cut into, the lower its exposure to oxygen, which destroys vitamin C.
- The vitamin C in cabbage, cantaloupe, squashes, and strawberries is especially unstable. The sooner they are eaten after cutting, the better.
Categories: Cancer, NUTRITION Tags: cabbage, Cancer, Canned foods, fresh foods, frozen foods, vitamin A, vitamin C
Vitamin C Helps You to Fight Cancer, Part II
How Much is Enough?
The RDA for vitamin C is 60 mg a day for adults. By the way, 60 mg of pure vitamin C crystals would measure only a fraction of a teaspoon.
The scientists who set the RDA, however, did not take the evidence on vitamin C and cancer into account.
Here is some more specific advice. Nutritionists have always recommended four or more servings a day of fruits and vegetables. I think at least two, and preferably three, should be foods supplying moderate to high amounts of vitamin C. I try to eat a food rich in vitamin C at every meal.
It is not hard. I can hardly start the day without my orange juice. So that is my first suggestion. Grapefruit juice is also a fine choice.
Here are some other tips that work for me:
Vitamin C Helps You to Fight Cancer
It is time to rewrite our nutrition textbooks. The textbooks of yesterday tell us that vitamin C prevents scurvy. They talk of the vitamin’s role in healing wounds. They explain that vitamin C aids in the formation of collagen, which holds cells together.
But an update is in order. It is not that vitamin C does not do these things. Rather, it does more – much more.
It may very well help to prevent cancer, says the Committee on Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer (of the U.S.). The panel members were impressed enough with studies of vitamin C and Cancer to advise us to eat foods rich in vitamin C every day.
Scientists have found that cancers of the stomach and esophagus are less common among people who eat diets rich in vitamin C. In fact, year-round access to foods rich in vitamin C may be one explanation for the dramatic fall in stomach cancer rates in the case of the United States.
Stomach cancer was common in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, when some fruits and vegetables were available only seasonally. We now have year round access to these fruits and vegetables, and many are rich in vitamin C. And stomach cancer is no longer common. It does remain a major health problem in some parts of the world.
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Categories: Cancer Tags: antioxidants, bladder cancer, Cancer, colom cancer, esophageal cancer, nitrites, nitrosamines, oxidation, stomach cancer, vitamin C
Cancer Inhibitors in Food, part II
Cabbage Family and Other Foods
The cabbage family is not the only group of foods that has shown potential to block the cancer process. Other foods may also have this ability – and some may be even more potent than foods of the cabbage family.
But the evidence for these other foods is not as strong. Some foods have inhibited cancer in studies on animals, but studies with humans have yet to be done. Other foods have been studied in only one or two experiments – too few for judgment. This is why some health institution such as Committee on Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer limited its recommendations to the cabbage family.
Of the other foods that might also contain inhibitors, the evidence is best for citrus fruits. The beneficial effect of these foods has ranged from weak to potent in studies with animals.
Categories: Cancer Tags: broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, Cancer, cancer inhibitors, citrus fruits, enzyme system, fiber, gree coffee beans, kale, mustard greens, spinachh, vitamin A, vitamin C
Cancer Inhibitors in Food
Do you think cancer as a mighty sword that can reach down and hurt any and all of us? At any time?
If you do, then you should think again. Exciting new research shows that nature gives us weapons that can fight back. And these weapons are not in exotic places. They are in common foods.
The substances I am talking about are not considered nutrients, because their absence does not cause a deficiency disease. These substances are little-known food elements. Only a handful of research scientists are familiar with them.
Scientists call them inhibitors. In laboratory animals, these substances show an impressive ability to inhibit the cancer process.
How Cancer Inhibitors Work
A cancer agent, such as one found in cigarette smoke, might cause cancer in half of the animals that are exposed to it. But when an inhibitor is given along with the cancer-causing chemical, fewer animals will develop cancer. The inhibitor prevents the cancer-causing chemical from doing its damage.
Categories: Cancer Tags: brassica family, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, Cancer, cancer inhibitors, cauliflower, colon cancer, cruciferous vegetables, dietary fiber, digestive organs, indoles, rectal cancer, stomac cancer, vitamin A, vitamin C
Vitamin C and Cancer
Beyond the Cancer Question
I would drink my orange juice and eat my green peppers even if it weren’t for research linking vitamin C to prevention of cancer.
Some of my reasons are the same ones that bolster the advice to eat more fruits and vegetables that supply carotene. Like these plant foods rich in vitamin A, foods rich in vitamin C are also low in saturated fat and sodium.
What’s more, fruits and vegetables that contain vitamin C are cholesterol-free. And they provide small to moderate amounts of dietary fiber. Eaten in large amounts, the fiber in these fruits and vegetables helps to lower blood cholesterol levels.
There is more. Vitamin C is rarely recognized for its role in iron absorption. Yet we have known for many years that vitamin C helps the body to absorb iron.
Categories: Cancer, NUTRITION Tags: Cancer, cancer prevention, carotene, dietary fiber, heart disease, iron, iron absorption, saturated fat, scurvy, sodium, vitamin C
Vitamin C, Cancer, and Kidney Stones, Part II
Vitamin C
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin. Unlike most mammals and other animals, humans do not have the ability to make their own vitamin C. Therefore, we must obtain vitamin C through our diet.
Function
Vitamin C is required for the synthesis of collagen, an important structural component of blood vessels, tendons, ligaments, and bone. Vitamin C also plays an important role in the synthesis of the neurotransmitter, norepinephrine. Neurotransmitters are critical to brain function and are known to affect mood. In addition, vitamin C is required for the synthesis of carnitine, a small molecule that is essential for the transport of fat into cellular organelles called mitochondria, where the fat is converted to energy (1). Research also suggests that vitamin C is involved in the metabolism of cholesterol to bile acids, which may have implications for blood cholesterol levels and the incidence of gallstones (2).
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Categories: Kidney Stones, NUTRITION Tags: antioxidant, Cancer, immune system, kidney stones, linus pauling institute, natural vitamin C, supplements, sweet red pepper, vitamin C, vitamin c supplementation
Vitamin C, Cancer, and Kidney Stones
Controversy over Vitamin C Supplements
Many of the health institution in the world, including The Committee on Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer, took a stand against use of vitamin C supplements to meet it’s recommendations.
I think that scientists who take this position have one of two reasons. One is a very good one. But the other, in my opinion, is not so good.
The studies that tie vitamin C to cancer prevention usually link foods containing vitamin C rather than the vitamin itself to reduce risk of cancer. There is always the possibility that it is something else in these foods, rather than the vitamin C, that is protecting our health. If this is the case, people who take a vitamin C pill rather than eat vitamin C-containing foods will miss the unknown protective substance. Personally, I think that it is probably the vitamin C itself that is protective, though I also believe that other substance in these same foods may have anti-cancer ability.
Categories: Kidney Stones Tags: Cancer, enzyme G6PD, G6PD deficiency, kidney stones, natural vitamin C, niacin, vitamin B-12, vitamin C, vitamin C supplements
Sunshine for Your Health: Good or Bad?
Sunshine… on my shoulder… makes me happy… Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry…
(a lyric written by John Denver).
Our bodies make vitamin D when the sun shines, and new research suggests the positive effects on health are greater than we ever guessed. But too much sun causes skin cancer. It’s a dilemma provoking fierce discussion among scientists.
For any expectant mother, a brief stroll in the summer sunshine would seem a pleasant diversion from the rigors of pregnancy, a chance to relax in the warmth and to take in a little fresh air. It is a harmless – but unimportant – activity, it would seem.
But there is more to such walks than was previously realized. In a new study, Bristol University researchers revealed they had found out that sunny strolls have striking, long-lasting effects. They discovered that children born to women in late summer or in early autumn are, on average, about 5mm taller, and have thicker bones, than those born in late winter and early spring.
Categories: Public Health Tags: breast cancer, diabetes, melanoma, multiple sclerosis, prostate cancer, scurvy, sunlight, sunshine, tuberculosis, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin D deficiency
