Chemicals Facts About Green Vegetables Proven To Protect Against Breast Cancer

Chemicals Facts About Green Vegetables Proven To Protect Against Breast Cancer

(NaturalNews) Eating more cruciferous vegetables has been shown once again to play an important role in the mitigation of cancer, this time in helping women with breast cancer to live longer. A Chinese study recently presented at the 103rd annual meeting of theAmerican Association for Cancer Research (AACR) revealed that the more cruciferous vegetables women with breast cancer eat, the more likely they are not only to survive their condition, but also to add more years onto their lives.

Based on data collected for the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival Study, a comprehensive, large-scale study of breast cancer survivors in China, it appears as though consumption patterns of cruciferous vegetables, or vegetables from the cabbage family, are directly proportional to survival rates. The breast cancer-specific mortality rate among women who consumed the most cruciferous vegetables, for instance, was as much as 62 percent less than among those who consumed the least or no cruciferous vegetables.

At the same time, the overall mortality rate among women who consumed cruciferous vegetables on a regular basis was found to be anywhere from 27 to 62 percent less than among women who consumed little or no cruciferous vegetables. And risk of breast cancer recurrence among cruciferous-eating women was as much as 35 percent lower than among non-eating women.

"Commonly consumed cruciferous vegetables in China include turnips, Chinese cabbage (bok choy) and greens, while broccoli and brussels sprouts are the more commonly consumed cruciferous vegetables in the United States and other Western countries," said Dr. Sara Nechuta, a postdoctoral research fellow at Vanderbilt University and author of the study.

"Second, the amount of intake among Chinese women is much higher than that of U.S. women. The level of bioactive compounds such as isothiocyanates and indoles, proposed to play a role in the anti-cancer effects of cruciferous vegetables, depend on both the amount and type of cruciferous vegetables consumed."

Cruciferous vegetables contain a variety of anti-cancer nutrients that have been shown in previous studies to both fight cancer cells and prevent them from forming. Sulforaphane, an organosulfur compound found in broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, for instance, is a powerful anti-cancer nutrient that also performs a number of beneficial functions in the body (http://www.naturalnews.com).

Isothiocyanates are another anti-cancer nutrient in cruciferous vegetables that activate cancer-fighting genes. Both systemically and genetically, cruciferous vegetables help fight and prevent cancer, and are a great way by which to protect yourself against this pandemic condition.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.independent.ie

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/761792
(If this link does not work directly, try searching for "Cruciferous Veggies Boost Survival in Breast Cancer Patients")

http://www.naturalnews.com/025441_vegetables_cancer_cruciferous.html

Menthol smokers have more strokes: study

REUTERS - Among smokers, people who prefer mentholated cigarettes tend to have more strokes than non-menthol smokers - and this seems to be especially true for women and non-African Americans, according to a North American study.

The author of the study said that while no cigarettes are good for the health, the findings - published in the Archives of Internal Medicine - suggest people should especially stay away from mentholated varieties.

"They're all bad, but having said that, from a harm-reduction perspective this study does lend to the view of avoiding - at a minimum - mentholated types," said Nicholas Vozoris, a clinical associate at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.

For the study, Vozoris used information taken from U.S. health andlifestyle surveys that included 5,028 adult smokers. The surveys were conducted from 2001 through 2008.

Overall, about 26 percent of those participants said they usually smoked mentholated cigarettes, and the rest smoked non-mentholated ones.

Some experts say menthol makes it easier to start smoking and harder to quit because its taste masks the harshness of tobacco.

Of menthol smokers, 3.4 percent said on the surveys they'd had a stroke. That compared to 2.7 percent of the non-menthol smokers.

After taking into account smokers' age, race, gender and number of cigarettes smoked, Vozoris found mentholated cigarette smokers had more than double the risk of stroke compared to those who opted for non-mentholated cigarettes.

The difference was especially clear in women and people who reported a race other than African American on their surveys. Among those study participants,strokes were over three times more common in menthol smokers.

Vozoris told Reuters Health that the study couldn't prove that the mentholated cigarettes themselves caused the extra stroke risk, rather than some unmeasured difference between menthol and non-menthol smokers.

He added that women and non-African Americans seemed to be driving the link between mentholated cigarettes and strokes, but he wasn't sure why and the study didn't answer that either.

Choosing mentholated cigarettes wasn't tied to an increased risk of high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, chronic lung disease or heart attack compared to standard cigarettes.

Gordon Tomaselli, president of the American Heart Association and chief of cardiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said it was interesting that the study showed an association between smoking mentholated cigarettes and strokes but not high blood pressure.

Vozoris said it's possible the menthol in cigarettes has an effect on the blood vessels that supply the brain in particular.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking any type of cigarettes increases a person's risk of heart disease two- to four-fold compared to non-smokers.

Tomaselli, who wasn't part of the study, added: "(This) reminds us that the effects of cigarette smoke is pretty broad-based and (it affects) a number of organ systems." SOURCE: http://bit.ly/I6DHPs

(Reporting from New York by Andrew Seaman at Reuters Health; Editing by Elaine Lies)

Source: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/menthol-smokers-more-strokes-study-000527903.html