The Health Benefits of Greens

From Portland Farmers Market

From Rebel Home

I have recently learned that leafy greens do a lot more for health than I knew about. Leafy greens like kale and spinach are the best source of the B vitamin folate. Beans are also a great source of folate. For folate eat greens and beans.

A recent study in the British Journal of Nutrition found that those with the highest folate levels, lose 8.5 times more weight when dieting. When folate levels drop, levels of obesity, heart disease, stroke, cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease and depression goes up.

Also studies show that as folate consumption goes up, the diseases of aging like cardiovascular disease, cancer and arthritis go down. Joel Fuhrman M.D. says that leafy greens have something else in them, other than folate, that prevents plaque from forming on the arteries. They help to make the inner lining of the arteries more resistant to plaque. The plaque clogs the arteries leading to heart attacks and strokes.

I have seen a couple of articles that say that kale is the new beef. Kale tastes so good if you add tahini to it as or with a dressing. Tahini is sesame seed butter. I add to the tahini a little lemon juice, olive oil and raw apple cider vinegar-- all good for health. I cannot emphasize enough how good this combination tastes since I am not a big lover of salads usually. You can even add some raw sunflower seeds. If you are not a big eater of seeds or nuts, just add them to your salad.

WARNING
In vitamin supplements folate is called folic acid or vitamin B_9. But folic acid is an artificial form of folate. Also folic acid (pteroylglutamic acid) is a substance forming only a very minor component of the folates in unfortified food. Folic acid is dangerous to your health.

Now if someone said this to me I would ask "who says this?" This is according to Joel Fuhrman M.D. He has spent decades treating people with fasting and a change of diet instead of using drugs (medications).

Here is an article about him being on the Dr. Oz TV show explaining how Medications Do Not Really Work. Medications or drugs are very profitable and the purpose of medicine in our society is to make money. He says to not take multi-vitamin supplements that contain folic acid. He says:

Folic acid supplementation is dangerous – especially for pregnant women.

Folic acid is chemically different from dietary folate, which results in differences in uptake and processing of these two substances by the cells in the intestinal wall. 

 According to American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, taking supplemental folic acid increases your chance of getting breast cancer by 20 -- 30%. Another study showed that taking folic acid supplements increases men's chances of getting prostate cancer by 163%. Women do not get prostate cancer since they do not have a prostate, but men can get breast cancer.

They did a 6 year study in Norway and found that patients taking a folic acid supplement were 43% more likely to die of cancer. Pregnant women taking folic acid supplementation increases chances of childhood asthma by 26% according to a study done. His article above has the references to all of these studies and more.

Although it is even more dangerous to take iron supplements. They have killed many babies. To learn why iron supplements are so bad for your health see The Essential Supplements and the Dangerous Ones.

Trader Joe's food markets have an organic herb salad mix (all organic). It has in it dill, frisee, arugula, radiccchio, romaine, oak leaf, Lollo Rosa, tango, red & green chard, mizuna, parsley, and cilantro.

Then there is kale which is the new beef, spinach, collard greens, turnip greens and a lot more. My neighbor told me that I can have the radishes growing in his yard and told me to take the whole plant. I checked and saw the greens from radish plants are edible. So I ate some raw radish greens in my salad and also cooked some. It tasted much better than spinach but it may be because they were grown with compost and freshly picked.

The Healthy Benefits of Leafy Greens

Foods That Prevent Disease-- GOMBBS

This is a great article by Joel Fuhrman M.D. He is one of the country's leading experts on nutrition and the best expert in the country on not eating or fasting. He graduated University of Pennsylvania Medical School. This was the first medical school in the country making UPenn the first universtiy in the country. Harvard was the first college in the country.

He created the nutritarain diet and the ANDI scale of foods that is used by Whole Foods markets. On Youtube there is a video of Dr Oz introducing Dr Fuhrman as the country's expert on losing weight.

GOMBBS: Greens, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, Beans and Seeds

It says:

Also, several leafy greens and other green vegetables (such as bok choy, broccoli and kale) belong to the cruciferous family of vegetables. Vegetables contain protective micronutrients and phytochemicals, but cruciferous vegetables have a unique chemical composition. They contain glucosinolates, and when their cell walls are broken by blending, chopping or chewing, a chemical reaction converts glucosinolates to isothiocyanates (ITCs) -- compounds with a variety of potential anti-cancer effects. Because different ITCs can work in different locations in the cell and on different molecules, they can have combined additive effects, working synergistically to remove carcinogens, reduce inflammation, neutralize oxidative stress, inhibit angiogenesis (the process by which tumors acquire a blood supply) and help kill cancer cells.

Consuming mushrooms regularly has been associated with decreased risk of breast, stomach and colorectal cancers. In one recent Chinese study, women who ate at least 10 grams of fresh mushrooms each day (about one mushroom per day) had a 64 percent decreased risk of breast cancer. Even more dramatic protection was gained by women who ate 10 grams of mushrooms and drank green tea daily -- an 89 percent decrease in risk for premenopausal women, and 82 percent for postmenopausal women.

White, cremini, Portobello, oyster, shiitake, maitake and reishi mushrooms all have anti-cancer properties -- some have been shown to be anti-inflammatory, stimulate the immune system, prevent DNA damage, slow cancer cell growth, cause programmed cancer cell death and inhibit angiogenesis [creation of new blood vessels by cancer growths].

Method of MDs Reduces Breast Cancer by 90%

October is breast cancer awareness month. Medical doctors have a method or procedure to prevent breast cancer. In a study, it showed that it reduced the number of women getting breast cancer by 90%. This means that out of 10 women that would have gotten breast cancer, only 1 woman will get it if they use this preventative method.

So that is very significant. But I feel that if it were 2% or 3% (2 or 3 out of 100) that would get it, then that would be pretty good but 10% is too high. But that is what it showed it to be-- reducing breast cancer by 90% instead of reducing cancer by 97% or 98%.

So what is this method that reduces breast cancer by 90% and why haven't you heard of it? Maybe you have heard of it. Women who are at a high risk of getting breast cancer are getting this procedure done.

It is called prophylactic bilateral mastectomy or bilateral prophylactic mastectomy. Prophylactic means preventative. Bilateral means both sides. Mastectomy is when you cut off the breast. So it means cutting off both of them before the woman gets breast cancer. Susan G Koman for the Cure says:

Studies suggest that prophylactic bilateral mastectomy can lower the risk of breast cancer in women at high risk by 90 percent or more [203-208].

But if you see a previous post Vitamin D and Breast Cancer, you will see that a Doctor of Pubic Health, I mean a Doctor of Public Health, Cedric Garland, says that enough vitamin D (lifeguard levels) will "virtually eradicate breast cancer." Virtually would mean more than 90%.

Also that webpage has a link to this page, Cancer Treatment and Cancer Prevention, that is a lot more reading. But it goes into much more detail about vitamin D and breast cancer including quotes from Johns Hopkins, Harvard and others. I just found another medical doctor online, that has a website on this blog website, a subdomain of this domain. It is Robert Baker MD Health Newsletter (update on vitamin D).

Robert Baker says:

Hyper-proliferation of cells is what occurs with cancer. Vitamin D has repeatedly been shown to prevent this. Many large studies have now shown that various types of cancers are associated with very low vitamin D levels. In a well publicized cancer study that spanned 8 years, the lowest levels of vitamin D were associated with the worst outcome and highest mortality in breast cancer.

Vitamin D could have a profound effect on health care expenditures; it has been called a national health care plan in itself. It makes sense that Vitamin D is so basic to life and health. Scientists agree that life began near the equator. Early humans had unlimited access to sunlight, and didn’t have sunscreen or a wardrobe, so at one time humans’ vitamin D levels were very high.

The understanding of the importance of Vitamin D remains the most important preventive medicine development in over a century.

Also the above mentioned website, Cancer Treatment and Cancer Prevention, besides going into greater detail about vitamin D, also tells about many other things that can reduce your chances of getting breast cancer like weight reduction or weight loss (losing weight), getting exercise and details on what to eat and not to eat.

Like you can be drinking green tea all day and that will reduce your risk of getting cancer, especially breast cancer. Research shows that this will have side effects like helping you to lose excess weight and reducing your chances of getting Alzheimer's disease. Also you can be consuming the spice tumeric to reduce your chances of getting cancer.

Tumeric has the phytochemical curcumin in it that is also sold as a supplement. Curcumin is a phytochemical just like lycopene in tomatoes, resveratrol in grapes and wine, hesperidin in citrus fruits, quercetin in tea and apples, ellagic acid in walnuts, strawberries and grapes and catechins in tea, grapes and cocoa (chocolate) .

Note that webmd.com has an article saying that orange juice lowers high blood pressure due to the hesperidin in it. After the the radiation accident in Japan articles listed what was good to protect you from radiation and hesperidin was one of them. Phytochemicals are chemicals in plant foods that can improve the health of people in many different ways. There are thousands of them and 900 have been identified already.

Note that a new study, Clear Brain Plaques with This Nutrient, says that both vitamin D and tumeric reduce your risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. But first read the blog post on vitamin D and breast cancer to just get an idea of this. Green tea and tumeric are the most powerful anti-inflammatory foods. This type of food prevents lifestyle diseases that get worse with aging like cardiovascular problems, heart disease, arthritis and cancer.

Then when you have more time, you can go to the website with much more information on vitamin D and also goes into a lot of detail about cancer and diet with different sources of where this information came from. So Dr Cedric Garland is saying that the vitamin D can virtually eradicate breast cancer but I give more information to increase your odds even more of avoiding breast cancer.

Some of that information comes from the book Anticancer (2008). It is about a doctor that got cancer and then the doctors cured it. But then it came back again just like with Steve Jobs who had his pancreatic cancer cured in 2004 and then recently died from it and also John Edwards wife.

So this doctor researched it on his own and made lifestyle changes. Then his cancer was cured and after he was free of cancer for 15 years wrote this book. His book also covered the cancer mind and that people with a type C personality are more likely to get cancer.

Vegetarian Becomes a Supercentenarian (110 Years Old)

  
Vegetarian Becomes a Supercentenarian


Picture above from Secrets of Longevity. There are opinions and there are facts when it comes to a healthy diet! The medical dictionary says "Supercentenarian: Someone 110 years old or over (no upper limit). This term was coined in 1991." Only one in 1,000 centenarians becomes a supercentenarian. Bernardo LaPallo became 110 years old a week ago-- August 17, 2011.

He lives in Mesa, Arizona and is a renowned chef. Wikipedia says that he is a pescetarian but that is wrong. Maybe they will fix it when they see this. A pescetarian is like a vegetarian but also eats fish.

A news report says that he is a vegetarian. So which one is correct? From Bernardo LaPallo's blog (November 2010):

Do you eat any animal products at all?

I do not eat meat, except perhaps once a year. Eggs, dairy and cheese comprise a small part of my diet, too.

Wikipedia says that Lapallo is the world's oldest blogger. You can say that he is not a strict vegetarian like Michael Jackson was who was stricken dead. Bernardo LaPallo suggests 5 foods for living longer on the news show. They are garlic, olive oil, chocolate, cinnamon and honey.

For much more information on how a vegetarian, vegan or plant-based diet can increase your health and longevity see Prevent and Reverse Disease With a Plant-Based Diet. It also has a video on how this type of diet can help you by Michael Greger M.D.

An M.D. (Steven Pratt) wrote a book with the 21 healthiest foods called SuperFoods Rx (2008). All of these 5 foods are among the 21 foods in the book. Other foods that are among these 21 foods include apples, avocado, beans, blueberries (includes other berries), broccoli, kiwi, oats, onions, oranges, pomegranates, pumpkin, spinach (also other greens), tea, tomatoes and walnuts. Wild salmon and yogurt were also on this list.

This 110 year old (Bernardo LaPallo) has written a 2011 book about health called Age Less Live More. Bernardo was taught herbology by the father of American herbology, Dr John Christopher. He consumes herbal products. They do not have side effects like drugs. Below is him on the TV news. Wikipedia says:

Lapallo was born in Brazil on August 17, 1901, and moved with his family to the United States at age five. He grew up in New York, were he has lived most of his life. In later years he has lived in Mesa, Arizona. At age 110, he is currently working on a second book.

On August 17, 2013 LaPallo became 112 years old.

TV News Show 109 Year Old Eats Chocolate

"The longest unambiguously documented human lifespan is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875-1997), who died at age 122 years, 164 days." --Wikipedia. Du Pinhua was a vegetarian and Buddhist who lived until she was 120 years old. "When she turned 116, she credited her longevity to not eating meat until she was 110 and to never arguing with others."

Teresa Hsu Chih is a vegetarian and is still alive at age 113 years old. She is known as Singapore's Mother Teresa. She is a Buddhist/Roman Catholic and Buddhists are known to meditate. Meditation has been shown to increase lifespan.

Leona Lewis wrote her first song and became a vegetarian at age 12. She has been a vegetarian for 14 years. I like this song of hers:
Leona Lewis- Happy- Youtube

Here is a 108 year old vegan in the news (February 2008). Joel Fuhrman M.D. has around 5 foods for fighting cancer and other diseases. He created an acronym for them. An acronym is the first letters of words to created a word that is an abbreviation. For example laser used to stand for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Scuba used to stand for self contained underwater breathing apparatus.

So Dr. Fuhrman's acronym is GOMBS (rhymes with combs) or more recently GOMBBS. An article on that is on this or one of my other blogs. It stands for greens; onions; mushrooms; berries and beans; and seeds and nuts. So I created an acronym to remember the vegetarian supercentenarian's 5 foods for longevity. The acronym is CCHOG. So that stands for chocolate, cinnamon, honey, olive oil and garlic.

When I wrote this the oldest living person in the world was 114 years old and that day she became 115 years old. Besse Berry Cooper (née Brown; born August 26, 1896) was born in Georgia, USA and now lives in Tennessee. She is a retired teacher.

Here is just one aspect of why a vegetarian diet is better than a diet with a lot of meat. No animal foods have fiber. Fiber helps the colon to function better. All plant foods have plenty of fiber unless it is taken out with processing. For example processing whole wheat (whole grain) into wheat (refined wheat)(refined grain) and processing brown rice into rice (white rice) takes out a lot of fiber and nutrients like antioxidants.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine says:

Dietary fiber intake provides many health benefits. However, average fiber intakes for US children and adults are less than half of the recommende­d levels. Individual­s with high intakes of dietary fiber appear to be at significan­tly lower risk for developing coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertensi­on, diabetes, obesity, and certain gastrointe­stinal diseases. Increasing fiber intake lowers blood pressure and serum cholestero­l levels.

He is alive today which would make him 114 years old but it is disputed since the birth certificate says that he was born 10 years later in 1911. He said that they made a mistake on his birth certificate.

Vitamin D Prevents Breast Cancer

Christina Applegate getting exercise and free vitamin D. She is a breast cancer survivor. Picture from this webpage.

I have good news and bad news. The bad news you already know about. That is that cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. For women their biggest cancer challenge is breast cancer. Many women that live end up losing their breasts.

Here is the good news. In the last 3 years, 6 MDs have writiten 6 books on vitamin D (now a 7th one-- see below)! (see their qualifications in the books below). In 2007 Time Magazine chose vitamin D as one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs of the year. In 2010 the RDA of vitamin D was tripled! For decades vitamin D has been the undisputed cure for rickets.

Moores Cancer Center is proposing that cancer is a vitamin D deficiency. The doctor of public health there and professor of University of California, San Diego, Cedric Garland, states that enough vitamin D (lifeguard levels) will virtually eradicate breast cancer! As far as "enough", that is why the RDA was tripled. Many experts think it is still too low but they can always raise it again later.

Webmd.com has an article: Low Vitamin D Levels Common in Breast Cancer

"Women with breast cancer should be tested for vitamin D levels and offered supplements, if necessary," says researcher Sonia Li, MD, of the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre in Middlesex, England. The findings were presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

They also had an article the month before saying that vitamin D did not help with breast cancer. But they questioned if it was the amount that they were using. They were not using enough vitamin D (only 400 IU daily). That amount is too little to affect all these other things other than bone density. What other things?

Andrew Weil M.D. says in the forward of the book, The Vitamin D Solution:

Increasing the amount of vitamin D in the body can prevent or help treat a remarkable number of ailments, from obesity to arthritis, from high blood pressure to back pain, from diabetes to muscle cramps, from upper respiratory tract infections to infectious disease, and from fibromyalgia to cancers of the breast, colon, pancreas, prostate and ovaries.

Christiane Northrup M.D., a board-certified ob-gyn, is a visionary pioneer, beloved authority in women's health and wellness and the author of the great New York Times best-sellers Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause. She has an article on the Oprah website called Prevent Breast Cancer with Vitamin D:

There's a paradigm shift going on in medicine as new research reveals a far greater role for vitamin D.

In addition to protecting the bones and boosting the immune system, studies show that Vitamin D helps prevent certain cancers, including breast, ovarian, prostate and colorectal. [footnote 2, 3, 4, 5] Exciting new research shows that, in the United States alone, thousands of new cases of breast cancer could be prevented every year if more women had optimal levels of vitamin D. [footnote 6]

Would you like to watch a 6 minute video by the great and powerful Dr. Oz (he has his own TV show)? It is called The Power of Vitamin D. It is about using vitamin D to prevent breast, colon and uterine cancer and how this works. The same things that prevent cancer can cure cancer.

Harvard Medical School article Time for More Vitamin D (health.harvard.edu) (This article was first printed in the September 2008 issue of the Harvard Women Health Watch) says:

Hardly a month goes by without news about the risks of vitamin D deficiency or about a potential role for the vitamin in warding off diseases, including breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and even schizophrenia.

However, in one of the few randomized trials testing the effect of vitamin D supplements on cancer outcomes, postmenopausal women who took 1,100 international units (IU) of vitamin D plus 1,400 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium per day reduced their risk of developing non-skin cancers by 77% after four years, compared with a placebo and the same dose of calcium.

That is enough information to create a serious interest in the possibility of vitamin D helping with breast cancers and other cancers. You can find a lot more of this and other things that you can do to reduce your chances of getting breast cancer, like drinking green tea and eating more fruits and vegetables at Fighting Cancer with Vitamin D and More.

The quote from Harvard tells about a study that showed that vitamin D can reduce all non-skin cancers by 77%! Johns Hopkins Medicine has an article called Vitamin D and Prostate Cancer. It says:

In addition, vitamin D is believed to help maintain a strong immune system and to regulate cell growth, differentiation (the process whereby new cells develop into distinct types of cells), and apoptosis (the programmed cell death that keeps cell proliferation in check). Out-of-control cell proliferation is the hallmark of cancer.

Studies over the years have pointed to an association between geographic location and the risk of dying of certain diseases. For example, people who live in more southerly latitudes (and who receive year-round sunshine) appear to have a lower risk of dying of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers, such as colon and breast, than do those who live in northern latitudes. Researchers suspect that the higher sun exposure, which creates more vitamin D in the skin, may be responsible.

More women die of lung cancer than breast cancer but many lose their breasts from the breast cancer. Also they say that 90% of lung cancer is caused by smoking cigarettes. Also see 8 Foods That Can Reduce Breast Cancer Risk.

Here is something interesting about cancer and sunlight. Dermatologists say that sunlight causes melanoma (skin cancer). The chance of an American getting melanoma in any year is about one out of 5,000. Sunscreen and sunblock causes skin cancer. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) lists the number of people getting melanoma in each of these states in 4 different levels from highest to lowest.

Texas, Arizona and New Mexico are right above (north of) Mexico and get very bright sunlight especially with the high elevations in Arizona and New Mexico. These 3 states are in the lowest category of melanoma.

Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are at the top of the country with a latitude that is higher (further from the equator) than parts of Canada. These 3 states are in the category with the highest amount of melanoma cases anywhere. Is it possible that dermatologists invested money in companies selling skin products and billions of this come from people buying sunblock and sunscreen that causes skin cancer?

At the latitude of Boston, MA there are 3 months of the year (around first day of winter-- shortest daylight) where you cannot get any vitamin D from sunlight. At the latitude of Montreal, Canada, there are 5 months of the year where you cannot any vitamin D from sunlight.

There is now another book on vitamin D by an M.D. in a popular book series called Vitamin D for Dummies. The author also wrote Diabetes for Dummies that sold over 1 million copies. It is the only book in this series about a nutrient.

Joseph Mercola D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathy) says:

Despite all the bad press linking sun exposure to skin cancer, there's almost no evidence at all to support it. There is, however, plenty of evidence to the contrary. Over the years, several studies have confirmed that appropriate sun exposure actually helps prevent skin cancer. In fact, melanoma occurrence has been found to decrease with greater sun exposure, and can be increased by sunscreens.

One of the most important facts you should know is that an epidemic of the disease has in fact broken out among indoor workers. These workers get three to nine times LESS solar UV exposure than outdoor workers get, yet only indoor workers have increasing rates of melanoma -- and the rates have been increasing since before 1940.

The Lancet is the world's leading general medical journal and specialty journals in Oncology, Neurology and Infectious Diseases.
The Lancet says:

Sunlight is the main environmental cause of most cutaneous melanomas. Exposure to intense bursts of ultraviolet radiation, especially in childhood, starts the transformation of benign melanocytes into a malignant phenotype. Paradoxically, outdoor workers have a decreased risk of melanoma compared with indoor workers, suggesting that chronic sunlight exposure can have a protective effect. Further, some melanomas form on sun-exposed regions; others do not.