| Fruits & Vegetables Antioxidants Prevent Stroke The developer of the cancer marker known as the Ames test, Bruce N. Ames, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and director of theNational Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center at the University of California, Berkeley, says outright: "If you don't get enough antioxidants, it is the equivalent of irradiating yourself.... If you don't get enough ascorbate, it's the same as stepping unprotected in front of an x-ray machine." Oxidants -- the byproducts of human metabolism -- bombard each of our body cells' DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) 10,000 times a day. Serious free radical pathology potentially could generate from so many damaging blows. But severe cellular injury seldom develops because of the quenching or neutralizing effects of antioxidants. The public has been propagandized through media announcements about only certain antioxidant vitamins such as C, E, and beta carotene. Still, educated members of the health foods industry know very well that hundreds more antioxidants are awaiting their introduction to the uninformed masses of United States consumers. When the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, and additional well-organized health institutions are ready to capitalize on the information, then the public will be told about those antioxidants standing in readiness such as L-carnitine, superoxide dismutase (SOD), pycnogenol, CoEnzyme Q10, and the others. Meanwhile, nutrient consumers are grateful for any small favors allowed them by the conventionally-practicing American physicians and their registered dietitian handmaidens. Little by little information is trickling down about the benefits of phytochemicals, minerals, and vitamins present in fruits and vegetables. Stroke Prevention from Dietary Antioxidants Published in the February 1993 issue of the medical journal Circulation was news that antioxidant vitamins prevent coronary and carotid atherosclerosis and stroke by inhibiting the oxidation of lipoproteins. Among 87,245 U.S. female registered nurses aged 34 to 59 years, it was found that "higher antioxidant vitamin consumption is associated with a reduced risk of ischemic stroke in women." Published one year later in the same medical journal, it was stated that these 87,245 "women with high consumption of vegetables have a reduced risk of stroke. . . . The strongest associations were for carrots and spinach." Antioxidant vitamins were pinpointed by the Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital researchers as the primary source for a reduced incidence of stroke. Published in the April 12, 1995 Journal of the American Medical Association was a 25-year follow-up study of middle-aged men who had participated in the Framingham Cardiovascular Study. During 1994, investigators from Harvard Medical School and the Boston University School of Public Health, re-examined 832 men, aged 45 through 65 years, who had been free of cardiovascular disease when they began the Framingham Study in 1969. The medical researchers wrote: "We observed an inverse association between fruit and vegetable intake and the development of stroke. For each increment of three [vegetable] servings per day, there was a 22 percent decrease in the risk of all stroke." The seven prominent medical researchers hypothesized that "antioxidant vitamins are the potential mediators of the beneficial effects of fruits and vegetables." They also focused on dietary potassium as a deterrent of stroke. The doctors said, "Although increased potassium intake may lower blood pressure, animal studies indicate that dietary potassium may decrease the risk of stroke independent of its effects on blood pressure level." Consuming Fruits and Vegetables Prevents Cancer The beneficial effects of fruit and vegetable consumption are exceedingly great when it comes to health. While published information in peer-reviewed medical journals about fruits and vegetables preventing stroke is relatively new, consuming the phytochemicals in them as a means of countering cancer is now well-established. Gladys Block, Ph.D., formerly with the National Cancer Institute and now a cancer researcher at the Berkeley branch of the University of California, recently reviewed 172 epidemiologic studies from around the world that had been done on diet and cancer. She confirms a huge protective effect that fruit and vegetable consumption confers for practically every type of cancer. One's risk of coming down with any kind of cancer doubles if you eat few fruits and vegetables compared with eating lots of them. An exception to this finding is breast cancer. |
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