Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Scientists have been able to show for the first time that super foods like pomegranate, green tea and broccoli help fight prostate cancer.
The team performed a six-month trial at Bedford Hospital with 203 men who had prostate cancer. The researchers split the men into two groups, including those who took a specially developed superfood capsule and those who took a placebo. The doctors, patients and statisticians were not informed who was taking the capsule and who was taking the placebo.
They found that those who took a capsule containing essence of pomegranate, green tea, turmeric and broccoli had 63 percent less prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels than those who took the placebo. The PSA is a level of the protein produced by the prostate gland which is an indicator of prostate cancer.
Researchers reported that men who experienced a lower PSA increase took a purified polyphenol rich food pill called Pomi-T, which was designed by Professor Robert Thomas, a researcher on the project from both Bedford Hospital and Addenbrooke´s Hospital.
This test is the first time scientists have firmly established an influence on markers of cancer progression using a scientifically robust evaluation.
“Healthy eating and lifestyle is the main way of helping to combat the development of cancer but men can now also turn to a whole food supplement which has been shown to work,” Thomas said. “We hope this will help millions of men to help combat the onset of prostate cancer.”
If anything, this study is able to prove that super foods definitely do not elevate the risk of prostate cancer, but fried food does. Researchers reported in the journal The Prostate in January this year about how they were able to link fried food consumption and prostate cancer. They said the increase in cancer risk could be due to the carcinogenic compounds found in fried food when oil is heated to temperatures needed for deep frying. The scientists said people who consumed fried foods once or more each week had a 30 to 37 percent increased risk of developing prostate cancer.
“The link between prostate cancer and select deep-fried foods appeared to be limited to the highest level of consumption — defined in our study as more than once a week — which suggests that regular consumption of deep-fried foods confers particular risk for developing prostate cancer,” explained the study´s author Janet L. Stanford, co-director of the Hutchinson Center´s Program in Prostate Cancer Research.
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