Flavonoids Help For The Heart And Fight Against Cancer!
For years, researchers pondered how the French could pack away enough butter and lard to fill a Parisian pastry shop, have higher cholesterol levels than Americans, and smoke just as much as we do yet still have heart disease rates 24 times lower than ours.
While the French may take delight in puffed pastries, they also eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.
This is important because these foods, along with red wines, are good sources of flavonoids, which appear to help stop the process that allows cholesterol to suck to artery walls.
•One Dutch study examined the eating habits of 805 men ages 65 to 84.
They found that those who ate the most flavonoid-rich foods-the equivalent of about 4 cups of tea, an apple, and about cup of onions a day-were half as likely to have heart disease and a third less likely to die from heart disease as those who ate the least.
•In another study, Finnish researchers found that people with very low intakes of flavonoids during a 25-year period had higher risks of heart disease.
Much of the credit for these benefits goes to quercetin, one of the most powerful of the flavonoids.
Quercetin is a more powerful antioxidant than vitamin E which is well-known for its role in heart disease prevention.
•It's not only the antioxidant action that makes flavonoids so protective.
Evidence suggests that these compounds may also act like a non-stick coating in the bloodstream, preventing platelets, the tiny discs in the blood that cause clotting, from sticking to artery walls and causing blockages.
•In fact, flavonoids may prove better than aspirin at preventing excessive clotting.
When people are under stress, their adrenaline levels rise, making aspirin less effective, but that is not the case with flavonoids.
In one study, researchers gave a group of monkeys aspirin, then gave them a dose of the stress hormone adrenaline.
Sure enough, the monkeys' blood started clotting.
When the monkeys were given flavonoid supplements instead of aspirin, then blood continued to flow smoothly, even when they were under stress.
Best of all, flavonoids don't upset your stomach the way that aspirin can.
•Just as free radicals in the body can damage blood vessels leading to the heart, they also can damage DNA, the genetic material inside cells that tells them how to function.
This damage can lead to cancer.
Since flavonoids help block free radicals, it would seem to make sense that they would help prevent cancer as well.
•So far, a number of large studies have failed to establish a cancer-protective link.
In part, this may be because researchers have concentrated on the major flavonoids, like quercetin, rather than on some of their lesser-known kin.
•It appears that some flavonoids, like silymarin and tangeretin, which is found beneath the rind of oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruits, may, in fact, play a role in preventing cancer.
•In studies on mice, for example, researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland found that, when applied to the skin, silymarin was able to stop tumors from forming.
Other laboratory studies have found that tangeretin can help prevent the growth of human breast cancer cells.
While these compounds clearly are protective.
While the French may take delight in puffed pastries, they also eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.
This is important because these foods, along with red wines, are good sources of flavonoids, which appear to help stop the process that allows cholesterol to suck to artery walls.
•One Dutch study examined the eating habits of 805 men ages 65 to 84.
They found that those who ate the most flavonoid-rich foods-the equivalent of about 4 cups of tea, an apple, and about cup of onions a day-were half as likely to have heart disease and a third less likely to die from heart disease as those who ate the least.
•In another study, Finnish researchers found that people with very low intakes of flavonoids during a 25-year period had higher risks of heart disease.
Much of the credit for these benefits goes to quercetin, one of the most powerful of the flavonoids.
Quercetin is a more powerful antioxidant than vitamin E which is well-known for its role in heart disease prevention.
•It's not only the antioxidant action that makes flavonoids so protective.
Evidence suggests that these compounds may also act like a non-stick coating in the bloodstream, preventing platelets, the tiny discs in the blood that cause clotting, from sticking to artery walls and causing blockages.
•In fact, flavonoids may prove better than aspirin at preventing excessive clotting.
When people are under stress, their adrenaline levels rise, making aspirin less effective, but that is not the case with flavonoids.
In one study, researchers gave a group of monkeys aspirin, then gave them a dose of the stress hormone adrenaline.
Sure enough, the monkeys' blood started clotting.
When the monkeys were given flavonoid supplements instead of aspirin, then blood continued to flow smoothly, even when they were under stress.
Best of all, flavonoids don't upset your stomach the way that aspirin can.
•Just as free radicals in the body can damage blood vessels leading to the heart, they also can damage DNA, the genetic material inside cells that tells them how to function.
This damage can lead to cancer.
Since flavonoids help block free radicals, it would seem to make sense that they would help prevent cancer as well.
•So far, a number of large studies have failed to establish a cancer-protective link.
In part, this may be because researchers have concentrated on the major flavonoids, like quercetin, rather than on some of their lesser-known kin.
•It appears that some flavonoids, like silymarin and tangeretin, which is found beneath the rind of oranges, lemons, and other citrus fruits, may, in fact, play a role in preventing cancer.
•In studies on mice, for example, researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland found that, when applied to the skin, silymarin was able to stop tumors from forming.
Other laboratory studies have found that tangeretin can help prevent the growth of human breast cancer cells.
While these compounds clearly are protective.
