Six Tasty Foods to Boost Your Health

PROPER nutrition can be powerful medicine. But there's more to healthful eating than broccoli and oat bran.


In recent years scientists have found that some foods frequently overlooked--even some once considered bad for us---actually may help prevent everything from cancer to heart problems. While no one food is a magic bullet for good health, you could benefit by adding one of the following tasty foods to your diet.


1. Avocados.


Long viewed as greasy and fattening, the avocado is gaining respect precisely because it is an excellent source of monounsaturated fat---the-healthy kind that lowers bad LDL cholesterol.


A recent Mexican study compared diets low in saturated fat. During the first diet, volunteers ate avocados as their major source of fat. Then they ate the same diet without avocados. In both diets bad LDL cholesterol levels decrease. However, the diet without avocado produced significantly lower levels of the good HDL cholesterol and higher levels of triglycerides.

The Australian Avocado Growers' Federation financed a similar study at the Dietary and Cardiology departments of the Wesley Hospital in Australia. Reserachers there found that a three-week diet high in monounsaturated fat, which included between half and 11/2 avocados per day, was just as effective in lowering bad LDL cholesterol as the low-fat, high-complex-carbohydrate diet recommended by the American Heart Association. Still, dieters should beware, since avocados contain about 350 calories each.


2. Tomato Sauce


Love Italia food? Pour on the sauce, some researchers say. A six-year Harvard University study of 47,000 men found that men who ate at least ten servings a week of tomato-based food were 45 percent less likely to get prostate cancer than those who had less than two servings a week. Men who ate four to seven servings cut their risk by 20 percent.


Women benefit as well. An Italian study including both sexes reported that eating three or more servings of raw tomatoes per week significantly decreased  the risk for stomach and rectal cancers.


Tomatoes are a uniquely rich source of lycopene, an antioxidant that may stop the cell damage that can trigger cancer. Other studies have linked raw tomatoes and lower cancer risk, but the Harvard study found that cooked tomato sauce offered even better protection. Scientist believe that the heat bursts tomato cells so they release even more lycopene. And cooking them in oil dramatically increases the amount of lycopene the body can absorb.


3. Orange Marmalade


Orange are a great way to get your vitamin C, which several studies have shown may reduce risk of lung, cervical and stomach cancers. But you may be tossing away some of the fruit's most healthful parts. Flavonoids cluster in the orange's peel and in the white, pithy part underneath. A smear of orange marmalade, made with jellied orange peel, on your morning toast can give you a small amount of these healthful chemicals.


A compound formed naturally in the stomach's juices during digestion is believed to be a factor in gastric cancers. This is especially true among people who eat processed rather than fresh foods. In a study at Beijing Medical University, researchers gave 32 people two grams of a powder made from dried orange peel after each meal. The powder lowered the amount of these toxic compounds by 53 percent in those with healthy stomachs and by 62 percent in those who already had gastric cancer.


4. Salmon


New research suggests that a once-a-week serving of salmon---containing beneficial omega-3 fatty acids---can dramatically cut your risk of coronary heart disease, something scientists have suspected for decades. That theory was corrobated in 1995 when University of Washington researchers studied 827 Seattle-area residents, looking at their diets, and in some cases, their blood samples. The researchers found an inverse link between the risk of primary cardiac arrest and the levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet and in the blood. Compared with those who ate no fish, the study participants who ate a serving a week had a 50-percent lower risk. Other university suggest that omega-3 fatty acids reduce the risk for cardiac arrest by strengthening our arteries, lowering blood-fat levels and preventing blood clots.


That's not all. Researchers in the Netherland who tracked the diets of 552 men over a 25-year period, reported that a weekly serving of any fish dramatically reduced the incidence of strokes. Still other studies have linked salmon consumption to lower rates of diabetes.


5. Nuts.


Gobbling them down may not be a good idea if you're watching your weight---one serving (about an ounce) can pack about 175 calories. As an alternative to other snacks, however, nuts can be surprisingly good way to keep cholesterol at bay and lower your risk of heart attack.


Researchers at Loma Linda University's Center for Health Research near Los Angeles surveyed the eating habits of almost 26.500 Seventh-day Adventists, a religious group with little history of heart disease. The group has strict dietary rules but does not restrict comsumption of nuts. The study revealed a significant link between nibling five handfuls of nuts per week and a lower risk of coronary heart disease.


Nuts are also a great source of fiber, protein dan vitamin E. Almonds, in particular, are one of the best non-dairy sources of calcium for preventing osteoporosis, or a weakening of the bones.


6. Bean Chilli.


Replace the fatty ground beef in your chili with more beans and you'll have a dish---including tomatoes, peppers and onions---to boost your health.


Dried kidney beans, soybeans and chickpeas contain molecules called saponins. For years many scientists thought saponins were useless. But according to A. Venket Rao, a professor and researcher at University of Toronto's Department of Nutritional Sciences, saponins---which generally pass through our digestive system without being absorbed---bind onto the cholesterol that we eat. Then the two make their exit together, lowering cholesterol levels. Rao and his colleagues believe the saponins in these beans may even help prevent colon cancer. Normally, bile acid pours into the stomach to help absorb fats from foods. Some bacteria in the large instetine turn the bile into a substance that is highly carcinogenic. That's why a high-fat diet increases the risk of colon cancer. Research suggests that when saponins travel through, they stop the toxic material from forming.


Preliminary research is now being done to determine if saponins from other plants can help to bolster our natural immune system and ward off viruses that cause infections.


The evidence of saponins' benefits is so compelling that several pharmaceutical companies are already designing saponin-based drugs to lower cholesterol and to enhance the effectiveness of vaccines.

Posted in: Avocado,Food,Health,Lifestyle,Salmon,Tomato Sauce