Adding walnuts to the diet helps keep breast cancer away, according to a recent report. A group at Marshall University, headed by Dr. Elaine Hardman, have extensively studied the benefits of walnuts and their most recent paper is quite exciting. You can find the actual article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01635581.2011.589959.
They are some of an ever enlarging group of scientists that think that diet can alter the formation of cancers. Previous research has shown that walnuts slow the growth of implanted breast tumors. In this study they added whole walnuts to the diet of mice genetically programmed to all have breast cancer. When the control group all had breast cancers, only 40% of the mice receiving a lifelong diet containing whole walnuts had breast cancers! The tumors were also smaller and fewer in numbers than in those not eating walnuts.
What makes this study particularly interesting is its applicability to the human diet. These mice were given the human equivalent of 2oz or about 14 whole walnuts a day. Previous studies have tried to identify individual components of certain foods that might reduce cancers with mixed results. The beauty of this study is that whole walnuts were used, so they can figure out which ingredient or combination of ingredients is effective later, while we can benefit now!
Further comparability to humans was suggested by looking at the DNA changes in the mice. The signaling pathways leading to cancers in mice have been shown to be important in humans and these are the ones blocked by the whole walnuts. So, the data may not define the active ingredient, but the data strongly support the idea that 14 walnuts a day could reduce the number of breast cancers.
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