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Cancer
Discover the ‘Super Food’ with Proven Anti-Cancer Benefits...
Date: 01/10/10
Regular readers of the Daily Health e-alerts will know that we’ve written many times about opting for a selection of different coloured fruits and vegetables to ensure that you get a broad spectrum of essential nutrients in your diet.
In fact, in her best-selling book Super Foods for a Super Healthy You, my colleague and editor of the Health Sciences Institute, Rachael Linkie, has dedicated an entire chapter to how the colour of fruits and vegetables is integral to unlocking their diverse range of health benefits.
This unassuming powerful green veggie could transform your health
Today’s alert, however, is about the hot and peppery green vegetable, watercress.
In previous alerts, we’ve told you about glucosinolates, a compound found in Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli and watercress, which appears to protect against cancer by encouraging the self-destruction of pre-cancerous cells.
These vegetables possess yet another powerful cancer-busting compound — phenylethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC). Watercress, is by far the richest source of dietary PEITC compared to the other green vegetables.
The latest research, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, suggests that PEITC inhibits angiogenesis, which is a necessary process for continued tumour growth and development. Angiogenesis happens when tumours (having outgrown their existing blood supply) send out signals to surrounding normal tissues to grow new blood vessels into the tumour.
Apart from inhibiting angiogenesis, PEITC also induces apoptosis (cell death) in certain cancer cells, and, in some cases, even in cells that are resistant to chemotherapeutic drugs.
The research was conducted at the University of Southampton, in the UK. Molecular oncologist Professor Graham Packham and colleagues studied a small group of breast cancer survivors, who underwent a period of fasting before eating 80g of watercress and then providing a series of blood samples over the next 24 hours.
Results showed that after eating the watercress, the anti-cancer activity of PEITC significantly increased within 6 and 8 hours, by interfering with the function of hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) — a crucial protein involved in angiogenesis.
Professor Packham concluded: “The research takes an important step towards understanding the potential health benefits of this crop since it shows that eating watercress may interfere with a pathway that has already been tightly linked to cancer development. Dietary intake of watercress may be sufficient to modulate this potential anti-cancer pathway.”
This study certainly offers a new insight into the potential anti-cancer effects of watercress, and adds to previous studies that have confirmed the cancer-fighting benefits of this vegetable. Whilst the Southampton study was a small pilot study, results like this will hopefully lead to further research to confirm these findings.
In the meantime, I for one will certainly be including more watercress in my diet. Not only does it have proven anti-cancer benefits, but it also contains as much vitamin C as oranges, more calcium than milk and more iron than spinach.
In fact, if you want to learn more about watercress and other super foods, and discover how to incorporate them in your everyday diet with 57 delicious recipes, pick up a copy of Super Foods for a Super Healthy You. It contains valuable information on how to unleash the secret healing power of food, for maximum health benefits.
Cancer Related Reading:
Flax Seed: Could a 'Waste Product' be the Cancer-Fighting Breakthrough of the Century?
Cancer Risk: Before you throw away your multivitamin...
How to Lower Your Risk of Bladder Cancer
HOT TOPICS:
Flawed Calcium Review Leaves Osteoporosis Sufferers Worried and Confused
A Simple Way to Lower Your Risk of Heart Disease
‘Wrong’ Sunlight Can Lower Your Vitamin D Levels
Sources:
Eating Watercress May Protect Against Breast Cancer, published online worldhealth.net
“In vivo modulation of 4E binding protein 1 (4E-BP1) phosphorylation by watercress: a pilot study” published by the British Journal of Nutrition, published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1017/S0007114510002217, nutraingredients.com
Back to topIn fact, in her best-selling book Super Foods for a Super Healthy You, my colleague and editor of the Health Sciences Institute, Rachael Linkie, has dedicated an entire chapter to how the colour of fruits and vegetables is integral to unlocking their diverse range of health benefits.
This unassuming powerful green veggie could transform your health
Today’s alert, however, is about the hot and peppery green vegetable, watercress.
In previous alerts, we’ve told you about glucosinolates, a compound found in Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli and watercress, which appears to protect against cancer by encouraging the self-destruction of pre-cancerous cells.
These vegetables possess yet another powerful cancer-busting compound — phenylethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC). Watercress, is by far the richest source of dietary PEITC compared to the other green vegetables.
The latest research, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, suggests that PEITC inhibits angiogenesis, which is a necessary process for continued tumour growth and development. Angiogenesis happens when tumours (having outgrown their existing blood supply) send out signals to surrounding normal tissues to grow new blood vessels into the tumour.
Apart from inhibiting angiogenesis, PEITC also induces apoptosis (cell death) in certain cancer cells, and, in some cases, even in cells that are resistant to chemotherapeutic drugs.
The research was conducted at the University of Southampton, in the UK. Molecular oncologist Professor Graham Packham and colleagues studied a small group of breast cancer survivors, who underwent a period of fasting before eating 80g of watercress and then providing a series of blood samples over the next 24 hours.
Results showed that after eating the watercress, the anti-cancer activity of PEITC significantly increased within 6 and 8 hours, by interfering with the function of hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) — a crucial protein involved in angiogenesis.
Professor Packham concluded: “The research takes an important step towards understanding the potential health benefits of this crop since it shows that eating watercress may interfere with a pathway that has already been tightly linked to cancer development. Dietary intake of watercress may be sufficient to modulate this potential anti-cancer pathway.”
This study certainly offers a new insight into the potential anti-cancer effects of watercress, and adds to previous studies that have confirmed the cancer-fighting benefits of this vegetable. Whilst the Southampton study was a small pilot study, results like this will hopefully lead to further research to confirm these findings.
In the meantime, I for one will certainly be including more watercress in my diet. Not only does it have proven anti-cancer benefits, but it also contains as much vitamin C as oranges, more calcium than milk and more iron than spinach.
In fact, if you want to learn more about watercress and other super foods, and discover how to incorporate them in your everyday diet with 57 delicious recipes, pick up a copy of Super Foods for a Super Healthy You. It contains valuable information on how to unleash the secret healing power of food, for maximum health benefits.
Cancer Related Reading:
Flax Seed: Could a 'Waste Product' be the Cancer-Fighting Breakthrough of the Century?
Cancer Risk: Before you throw away your multivitamin...
How to Lower Your Risk of Bladder Cancer
HOT TOPICS:
Flawed Calcium Review Leaves Osteoporosis Sufferers Worried and Confused
A Simple Way to Lower Your Risk of Heart Disease
‘Wrong’ Sunlight Can Lower Your Vitamin D Levels
Sources:
Eating Watercress May Protect Against Breast Cancer, published online worldhealth.net
“In vivo modulation of 4E binding protein 1 (4E-BP1) phosphorylation by watercress: a pilot study” published by the British Journal of Nutrition, published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1017/S0007114510002217, nutraingredients.com
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