Boosting Immunity Through Diet
Inadequate fruit and vegetable intake may help explain the loss of immune function associated with aging that is linked to an increased risk of dying from pneumonia and influenza.
Inadequate fruit and vegetable intake may help explain the loss of immune function associated with aging that is linked to an increased risk of dying from pneumonia and influenza.
The antioxidant, phytonutrient, and vitamin content of basil grown in water (hydroponic) is compared to basil grown in soil.
The Standard American Diet is worsening, and falls far from the CDC goals for minimal fruit and vegetable intake, with some states doing worse than others.
The risk of glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness, appears to be dramatically reduced by kale or collard greens consumption, thanks to the phytonutrient pigments lutein and zeaxanthin.
A healthy diet may not only prevent the complications of diabetes, but also reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration—another common cause of blindness.
The variety of fruit and vegetable consumption may decrease disease risk, independent of quantity.
In addition to quantity and quality, the variety of fruits and vegetables consumed matters, as many phytonutrients are not evenly distributed among the various families and parts of plants.
Dietary interventions, including increasing fruit and vegetable intake and decreasing meat intake, may not only help slow the progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but may actually improve lung function.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is now the third leading cause of death. The good news is that. in addition to smoking cessation, there are dietary interventions that can help prevent COPD.
Fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with a lower risk of heart disease. But which is more protective—raw or cooked?
Even after controlling for a variety of dietary and nondietary factors, those eating plant-based diets appear to have lower overall cancer rates.
One teaspoon of flax seeds may double one’s daily production of lignans—phytonutrients that appear to play a role in both breast cancer prevention and survival.
The effect of raw and cooked broccoli consumption on survival rates of bladder cancer patients.
A case report of a woman after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery trying to eat right.
Growing your own broccoli sprouts is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve your diet.
The anti-proliferative effects of cruciferous vegetable phytonutrients may decrease the metastatic potential of lung cancer, the number one cancer killer of women.
There are a few examples of plant enzymes having physiologically relevant impacts on the human diet, and the formation of sulforaphane in broccoli is one of them.
The most powerful natural inducer of our liver’s detoxifying enzyme system is sulforaphane, a phytonutrient produced by broccoli.
Four cups of broccoli sprouts a day may exceed the safe dose of the cruciferous phytonutrient sulforaphane.
6,000 cups of broccoli a year is probably too much.
In a test tube, the broccoli phytonutrient sulforaphane appears to target breast cancer stem cells. But how do we know it’s even absorbed into the body? Have women undergoing breast reduction surgery eat some an hour before their operation, and directly measure the level in their tissues.
A new theory of cancer biology—cancer stem cells—and the role played by sulforaphane, a phytonutrient produced by cruciferous vegetables.
Eating broccoli appears to make DNA more resistant to damage.
The effect of kale juice on LDL and HDL cholesterol, and the antioxidant capacity of the blood.
Comparing the immune system-boosting effect of cooked versus raw kale.
In the context of a healthy, plant-based diet, the nitrates in vegetables can safely be converted into nitric oxide, which can boost athletic performance, and may help prevent heart disease.
The addition of vitamin C to processed (cured) meats such as bacon may actually make them more carcinogenic.
Phytonutrients, such as vitamin C, prevent the formation of nitrosamines from nitrites—which explains why adding nitrite preservatives to processed meat can be harmful, but adding more vegetables, with their nitrite-forming nitrates, to our diet can be helpful.
If the nitrates in vegetables such as greens are health-promoting because they can be turned into nitrites, and then nitric oxide, inside our bodies, what about the nitrites added to cured meats—such as bacon, ham, and hot dogs?
If nitrates can boost athletic performance and protect against heart disease, which vegetables have the most—beans, bulb vegetables (like garlic and onions), fruiting vegetables (like eggplant and squash), greens (such as arugula), mushrooms, root vegetables (such as carrots and beets), or stem vegetables (such as celery and rhubarb)?
The nitrate in vegetables, which the body can turn into the vasodilator nitric oxide, may help explain the role dark green leafy vegetables play in the prevention and treatment of hypertension (high blood pressure) and heart disease.
Young infants, and perhaps those with recurrent oxalate kidney stones, should avoid beets. But most commonly, the chief side effect is beeturia, the harmless passage of pink urine, though not all are affected—akin to the malodorous urine (“stinky pee”) that sometimes results from asparagus consumption.
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover studies convinced the scientific establishment that nitrate-rich vegetables (such as beets) could noticeably improve athletic performance.
The natural flora on our tongue (lingual bacteria) are essential for the athletic performance-enhancing effect of the nitrates in vegetables such as beetroot.
To understand how beets could reduce the oxygen cost of exercise while improving athletic performance, one must review the biochemistry of energy production (ATP synthase), and the body’s conversion of nitrates to nitrites into nitric oxide.
Beets found to significantly improve athletic performance while reducing oxygen needs—upsetting a fundamental tenet of sports physiology.
Harvard study found that men and women eating low carb diets live significantly shorter lives, but what about the “eco-Atkins diet,” a plant-based, low carbohydrate diet?
A case report in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly Journal of the American Dietetic Association) of a man who went on the Atkins diet, lost his ability to have an erection—and nearly lost his life.
Even when fiber and fruit and vegetable intake are kept constant, choosing foods richer in antioxidants may increase stool size, which is associated with lower cancer risk.
Even when choosing the same quantity of fruits and vegetables, those making higher antioxidant choices experienced a reduction in C-reactive protein (inflammation) levels.