If you happen to be a regular reader of the HealthierTalk.com Digest (you can sign up in the right corner over there) you may have already made a change in your diet that has slashed your risk of developing colon polyps by a staggering 40%.
I encouraged you last year to permanently remove nutritionally barren white rice from your shopping list and replace it with healthier choices like brown rice. Now, a new study out of Loma Linda University in California has concluded that eating brown rice at least once a week is linked with a 40% reduction in risk of developing potentially cancerous colon polyps.
Researchers crunched the data from 2,818 volunteers in the Adventist Health Study to uncover this exciting finding. And brown rice…an ancient food that dates back to sometime between 12,000 and 11,000 BP… isn’t the only food that was found to have a dramatic effect on the risk for developing polyps.
I’ll tell you more about those other foods in a moment, but first allow me to share a little background.
Polyps are raised or flat growths on the lining of the colon, also known as the large intestine. While some polyps are benign, they all have the potential to become cancerous.
And with colon cancers being the second-leading cause of cancer death in the United States, it’s easy to see that anything that can so drastically reduce your chances of developing the potentially life-threatening growths is going to cause a bit of a stir in the scientific community.
Volunteers in the Adventist study first answered a survey on their eating habits and how often they consumed specific foods in 1976 or 1977. Then, 26 years later, the same volunteers were asked to complete a follow-up questionnaire asking if they had undergone a colonoscopy and had been diagnosed with polyps by a physician.
During the 26-year follow-up period there were 441 confirmed cases of colorectal polyps. And after researchers took into account a wide variety of potentially data-skewing factors…including a family history of cancer, education level, physical-activity level, smoking and alcohol history, use of pain medications, and use of multivitamins…they found that several foods stood out as polyp-fighting superstars.
Besides brown rice legumes, cooked green vegetables, and dried fruit all showed strong protective effects.
When cooked green vegetables showed up on the dining tables of volunteers once a day or more (as compared with less than five times a week), they had a 24% reduction in the risk of developing polyps. Eating legumes—like, for example, peas, beans, and lentils—at least three times a week was linked to a 33% reduced risk. And those who treated themselves to dried fruit at least three times a week…compared to those who only indulged less than once a week…walked away with a 26% drop in risk.
If you have a family history of polyps or colorectal cancers—or if you are overweight, don’t exercise enough, or eat a less-than-optimal diet—adopting a couple of these relatively small changes in your eating habits could make a huge difference in your life…perhaps even literally saving it.
Remember that although an ounce of prevention might not seem all that sexy it’s a heck of a lot sexier than slogging through a pound of cure later.
By Alice Wessendorf on 08/12/2011
http://www.healthiertalk.com/combat-colon-polyps-and-cancer-ancient-food-4465
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8 Reasons Why Brown Rice Is Healthier Than White Rice
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