Walnuts May Help Lower Breast Cancer Risk

Walnuts May Help Lower Breast Cancer Risk


By eating walnuts, women could reduce their risks of breast cancer, a new study suggests.

Researchers at Marshall University School of Medicine in Huntington, West Virginia, found that lab mice had a significantly lower risk of breast cancer if fed the human equivalent of a handful of walnuts a day.

The researchers used specially bred mice that normally develops breast cancer. Half got the human equivalent of two ounces of walnuts per day and half got a normal diet. The mice eating the walnuts had fewer and smaller breast tumours and those that did get them got them later than the other mice. The laboratory mice typically have 100 per cent tumour incidence at five months; walnuts consumption delayed those tumours by at least three weeks.

The researchers said while the study was done with laboratory animals, it is likely that the same mechanism would be at work in humans. Walnuts contain multiple ingredients such as omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants and phytosterols that, individually, have been shown to slow cancer growth.

>>Chewing gum to snack less

You might be able to cut down on snacking by chewing more sugarless gum. During an experiment, people were offered a variety of snacks three hours after a standard lunch and were told they could eat as much of the snacks as they desired. On one afternoon, the participants also chewed sugarless gum for 15 minutes each hour in the period between lunch and snack time. On another afternoon, gum-chewing was not allowed.

The researchers found that people ate fewer snacks and shaved 40 calories off their in-between meal consumption when they chewed gum, compared with their snack consumption when they didn't chew gum.

The participants -115 men and women, aged 18 to54, all regular gum chewers – said that they generally didn't feel as hungry or as desirous of a sweet treat after chewing the gum. They also reported having good energy throughout the afternoon and feeling less drowsy at mid-afternoon snack time than they did on an afternoon when they chewed no gum.

The results were revealed at the Experimental Biology 2009 conference in New Orleans recently.

>> A merry heart saves 'diabetic' hearts

Setting aside time each day for some good, hearty laughter could help diabetics improve their cholesterol levels and lower their risks of heart attacks.

Researchers at Loma Linda University in California revealed that laughter decreased the bad chemicals in the body and increased the good ones, which help diabetics stay well and prevent disease.

The findings was presented at the American Physiological Society annual meeting in New Orleans. The researchers assigned 20 adults with Type II diabetes, average age 50, to a control group or (the laughter group). All had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Both groups were taking standard diabetes medications, high blood pressure medicines and cholesterol-lowering drugs.

The laughter group was instructed to view "self-selected" humour, for at least 30 minutes every day. After 12 months, the researchers evaluated both groups and found that the laughter group had an increase in "good" HDL cholesterol of 26 per cent, compared with just a three per cent increase in the good cholesterol of the control group. Harmful C-reactive protein declined by 66 per cent in the laughter group but just 26 per cent for the control group.