Category: cabbage

How to Treat Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) with Diet

Posted on by Nile

Given the role that oxidant free radicals are thought to play in aging and disease, one reason fruits and vegetables may be so good for us is that they contain antioxidant compounds. As you can see at 0:20 in my video Benefits of Marjoram for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), different vegetables and herbs have different antioxidant content. When making a salad, for example, spinach, arugula, or red leaf lettuce may provide twice the antioxidants as butterhead lettuce, and choosing purple cabbage over green, or red onions over white can also boost the salad’s antioxidant power.

Fresh herbs are so powerful that even a small amount may double or even quadruple the antioxidant power of the entire meal. For instance, as you can see at 0:50 in my video, the total antioxidants in a simple salad of lettuce and tomato jump up by adding just a tablespoon of lemon balm leaves or half a tablespoon of oregano or mint. Adding marjoram, thyme, or sage not only adds great flavor to the salad, but effectively quadruples the antioxidant content at the same time, and adding a little fresh garlic or ginger to the dressing ups the antioxidant power even more.

Herbs are so antioxidant-rich that researchers decided to see if they might be able to reduce the DNA-damaging effects of radiation. Radioactive iodine is sometimes given to people with overactive thyroid glands or thyroid cancer to destroy part of the gland or take care of any remaining tumor cells after surgery. For days after the isotope injection, patients become so radioactive they are advised not to kiss or sleep close to anyone, including their pets, and if they breathe on a phone, they’re advised to wipe it “carefully” or cover it “with an easily removed plastic bag.” Other recommendations include “avoid[ing] splatter of radioactive urine,” not going near your kids, and basically just staying away from others as much as possible.

The treatment can be very effective, but all that radiation exposure appears to increase the risk of developing new cancers later on. In order to prevent the DNA damage associated with this treatment, researchers tested the ability of oregano to protect chromosomes of human blood cells in vitro from exposure to radioactive iodine. As you can see at 2:25 in my video, at baseline, about 1 in 100 of our blood cells show evidence of chromosomal damage. If radioactive iodine is added, though, it’s more like 1 in 8. What happens if, in addition to the radiation, increasing amounts of oregano extract are added? Chromosome damage is reduced by as much 70 percent. Researchers concluded that oregano extract “significantly protects” against DNA damage induced by the radioactive iodine in white blood cells. This was all done outside the body, though, which the researchers justified by saying it wouldn’t be particularly ethical to irradiate people for experimental research. True, but millions of people have been irradiated for treatment, and researchers could have studied them or, at the very least, they could have just had people eat the oregano and then irradiate their blood in vitro to model the amount of oregano compounds that actually make it into the bloodstream.

Other in vitro studies on oregano are similarly unsatisfying. In a comparison of the effects of various spice extracts, including bay leaves, fennel, lavender, oregano, paprika, parsley, rosemary, and thyme, oregano beat out all but bay leaves in its ability to suppress cervical cancer cell growth in vitro while leaving normal cells alone. But people tend to use oregano orally—that is, they typically eat it—so the relevance of these results are not clear.

Similarly, marjoram, an herb closely related to oregano, can suppress the growth of individual breast cancer cells in a petri dish, as you can see at 3:53 in my video, and even effectively whole human breast tumors grown in chicken eggs, which is something I’ve never seen before. Are there any clinical trials on oregano-family herbs on actual people? The only such clinical, randomized, control study I could find was a study on how marjoram tea affects the hormonal profile of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). The most common cause of female fertility problems, PCOS affects up to one in eight young women and is characterized by excessive male hormones, resulting in excess body or facial hair, menstrual irregularities, and cysts in one’s ovaries that show up on ultrasounds.

Evidently, traditional medicine practitioners reported marjoram tea was beneficial for PCOS, but it had never been put to the test…until now. Drinking two daily cups of marjoram tea versus a placebo tea for one month did seem to beneficially affect the subjects’ hormonal profiles, which seems to offer credence to the claims of the traditional medicine practitioners. However, the study didn’t last long enough to confirm that actual symptoms improved as well, which is really what we care about.

Is there anything that’s been shown to help? Well, reducing one’s intake of dietary glycotoxins may help prevent and treat the disease. “Over the past 2 decades there has been increasing evidence supporting an important contribution from food-derived advanced glycation end products (AGEs)…[to] increased oxidative stress and inflammation, processes that play a major role in the causation of chronic diseases,” potentially including polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Women with PCOS tend to have nearly twice the circulating AGE levels in their bloodstream, as you can see at 0:33 in my video Best Foods for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). 

PCOS may be the most common hormonal abnormality among young women in the United States and is a common cause of infertility, menstrual dysfunction, and excess facial and body hair. The prevalence of obesity is also higher in women with PCOS. Since the highest AGE levels are found in broiled, grilled, fried, and roasted foods of “mostly animal origin,” is it possible that this causal chain starts with a bad diet? For instance, maybe eating lots of fried chicken leads to obesity, which in turn leads to PCOS. In that case, perhaps what we eat is only indirectly related to PCOS through weight gain. No, because the same link between high AGE levels and PCOS was found in lean women as well.

“As chronic inflammation and increased oxidative stress have been incriminated in the pathophysiology [or disease process] of PCOS, the role of AGEs as inflammatory and oxidant mediators, may be linked with the metabolic and reproductive abnormalities of the syndrome.” Further, the buildup of AGE inside polycystic ovaries themselves suggests a potential role of AGEs contributing to the actual disease process, beyond just some of its consequences.

RAGE is highly expressed in ovarian tissues. The receptor in the body for these advanced glycation end products, the “R” in RAGE, is concentrated in the ovaries, which may be particularly sensitive to its effect. So, AGEs might indeed be contributing to the cause of PCOS and infertility.

Does this mean we should just cut down on AGE-rich foods, such as meat, cheese, and eggs? Or hey, why not come up with drugs that block AGE absorption? We know AGEs have been implicated in the development of many chronic diseases. Specifically, food-derived AGEs play an important role because diet is a major source of these pro-inflammatory AGEs. Indeed, cutting down on these dietary glycotoxins reduces the inflammatory response, but the “argument is often made that stewed chicken would be less tasty than fried chicken…” Why not have your KFC and eat it, too? Just take an AGE-absorption blocking drug every time you eat it to reduce the absorption of the toxins. What’s more, it actually lowers AGE blood levels. This oral absorbent drug, AST-120, is just a preparation of activated charcoal, like what’s used for drug overdoses and when people are poisoned. I’m sure if you took some ipecac with your KFC, your levels would go down, too.

There’s another way to reduce absorption of AGEs, and that’s by reducing your intake in the first place. It’s simple, safe, and feasible. The first step is to stop smoking. The glycotoxins in cigarette smoke may contribute to increased heart disease and cancer in smokers. Then, decrease your intake of high-AGE foods, increase your intake of foods that may help pull AGEs out of your system, like mushrooms, and eat foods high in antioxidants, like berries, herbs, and spices. “Dietary AGE intake can be easily decreased by simply changing the method of cooking from a high dry heat application to a low heat and high humidity…” In other words, move away from broiling, searing, and frying to more stewing, steaming, and boiling.

What we eat, however, may be more important than how we cook it. At 4:00 in my video, I include a table showing the amounts of AGEs in various foods. For instance, boiled chicken contains less than half the glycotoxins of roasted chicken, but even deep-fried potatoes have less than boiled meat. We can also eat foods raw, which doesn’t work as well as for blood pudding, but raw nuts and nut butters may contain about 30 times less glycotoxins than roasted, and we can avoid high-AGE processed foods, like puffed, shredded, and flaked breakfast cereals.

Why does it matter? Because study after study has shown that switching to a low-AGE diet can lower the inflammation within our bodies. Even just a single meal high in AGEs can profoundly impair our arterial function within just two hours of consumption. At 4:54 in my video, you can see the difference between a meal of fried or broiled chicken breast and veggies compared with steamed or boiled chicken breast and veggies. Same ingredients, just different cooking methods. Even a steamed or boiled chicken meal can still impair arterial function, but significantly less than fried or broiled.

“Interestingly, the amount of AGEs administered [to subjects] during the HAGE [high-AGE] intervention was similar to the average estimated daily intake by the general population,” who typically follow the standard American diet. This is why we can decrease inflammation in people by putting them on a low-AGE diet, yet an increase in inflammation is less apparent when subjects switch from their regular diet to one high in AGEs. Indeed, they were already eating a high-AGE diet with so many of these glycotoxins.

Do we have evidence that reducing AGE intake actually helps with PCOS? Yes. Within just two months, researchers found differences from subjects’ baseline diets switched to a high-AGE diet and then to a low-AGE diet, with parallel changes in insulin sensitivity, oxidative stress, and hormonal status, as seen at 5:54 in my video. The take-home learning? Those with PCOS may want to try a low-AGE diet, which, in the study, meant restricting meat to once a week and eating it only boiled, poached, stewed, or steamed, as well as cutting out fast-food-type fare and soda.

What if instead of eating steamed chicken, we ate no meat at all? Rather than measuring blood levels, which vary with each meal, we can measure the level of glycotoxins stuck in our body tissues over time with a high-tech device that measures the amount of light our skin gives off because AGEs are fluorescent. And, not surprisingly, this turns out to be a strong predictor of overall mortality. So, the lower our levels, the better. The “one factor that was consistently associated with reduced [skin fluorescence]: a vegetarian diet.” This “suggests that a vegetarian diet may reduce exposure to preformed dietary AGE…potentially reduc[ing] tissue AGE,” as well as chronic disease risk

What’s so great about antioxidants? See my videos:

Just how many antioxidants do we need? Check out:

For a few simple tips on how to quickly boost the antioxidant content of your food with herbs and spices, see my video Antioxidants in a Pinch.

I touched on the benefits of spearmint tea for PCOS in Enhancing Athletic Performance with Peppermint. Another sorely under-recognized gynecological issue is endometriosis, which I discuss in How to Treat Endometriosis with Seaweed.

Because of AGEs, I no longer toast nuts or buy roasted nut butters, which is disappointing because I really enjoy those flavors so much more than untoasted and unroasted nuts. But, as Dr. McDougall likes to say, nothing tastes as good as healthy feels. For more on why it’s important to minimize our exposure to these toxic compounds, see:

In health,
Michael Greger, M.D.

PS: If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my free videos here and watch my live presentations:

 

 

Combating Air Pollution Effects with Food

Posted on by Nile

There is a food that offers the best of both worlds—significantly improving our ability to detox carcinogens like diesel fumes and decreasing inflammation in our airways—all while improving our respiratory defenses against infections.

Outdoor air pollution may be the ninth leading cause of death and disability in the world, responsible for millions of deaths from lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, stroke, and respiratory infection. In the United States, living in a polluted city was associated with 16, 27, and 28 percent increases in total, cardiovascular, and lung cancer deaths, compared to living in a city with cleaner air. As well, living in a city with polluted air may lead to up to a 75 percent increase in the risk of a heart attack. “Additionally, the possibility of dying in a traffic jam is two and a half times greater in a polluted city.” No one wants to be living in a traffic jam, but it’s better than dying in one.

In addition to causing deaths, air pollution is also the cause of a number of health problems. It may not only exacerbate asthma but also increase the risk of developing asthma in the first place. These pollutants may trigger liver disease and even increase the risk of diabetes. Indeed, “even when atmospheric pollutants are within legally established limits, they can be harmful to health.” So, what can we do about it?

Paper after paper have described all the terrible things air pollution can do to us, but “most…failed to mention public policy. Therefore, while science is making great strides in demonstrating the harmful effects of atmospheric pollution on human health, public authorities are not using these data” to reduce emissions, as such measures might inconvenience the population “and, therefore, might not be politically acceptable.” We need better vehicle inspections, efficient public transport, bus lanes, bicycle lanes, and even urban tolls to help clean up the air, but, while we’re waiting for all of that, is there anything we can do to protect ourselves?

As I discuss in my video Best Food to Counter the Effects of Air Pollution, our body naturally has detoxifying enzymes, not only in our liver, but also lining our airways. Studies show that people born with less effective detox enzymes have an exaggerated allergic response to diesel exhaust, suggesting that these enzymes actively combat the inflammation caused by pollutants in the air. A significant part of the population has these substandard forms of the enzyme, but, either way, what can we do to boost the activity of whichever detoxification enzymes we do have?

One of my previous videos Prolonged Liver Function Enhancement from Broccoli investigated how broccoli can dramatically boost the activity of the detox enzymes in our liver, but what about our lungs? Researchers fed some smokers a large stalk of broccoli every day for ten days to see if it would affect the level of inflammation within their bodies. Why smokers? Smoking is so inflammatory that you can have elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels for up to 30 years after quitting, and that inflammation can start almost immediately after you start smoking, so it’s critical to never start in the first place. If you do, though, you can cut your level of that inflammation biomarker CRP nearly in half after just ten days eating a lot of broccoli. Broccoli appears to cut inflammation in nonsmokers as well, which may explain in part why eating more than two cups of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, or other cruciferous veggies a day is associated with a 20 percent reduced risk of dying, compared to eating a third of a cup a day or less, as you can see at 3:41 in my video.

What about air pollution? We know that the cruciferous compound “is the most potent known inducer” of our detox enzymes, so most of the research has been on its ability to fight cancer. But, for the first time, researchers tried to see if it could combat the pro-inflammatory impact of pollutants, such as diesel exhaust. They put some human lung lining cells in a petri dish, and, as you can see at 4:11 in my video, the number of detox enzymes produced after dripping on some broccoli goodness skyrocketed. Yes, but we don’t inhale broccoli or snort it. We eat it. Can it still get into our lungs and help? Yes. After two days of broccoli sprout consumption, researchers took some cells out of the subjects’ noses and found up to 100 times more detox enzyme expression compared to eating a non-cruciferous vegetable, alfalfa sprouts. If only we could squirt some diesel exhaust up people’s noses. That’s just what some UCLA researchers did, at an amount equal to daily rush hour exposure on a Los Angeles freeway. Within six hours, the number of inflammatory cells in their nose shot up and continued to rise. But, in the group who had been getting a broccoli sprout extract, the inflammation went down and stayed down, as you can see at 4:58 in my video. 

Since the dose in those studies is equivalent to the consumption of one or two cups of broccoli, their study “demonstrates the potential preventive and therapeutic potential of broccoli or broccoli sprouts,” but if broccoli is so powerful at suppressing this inflammatory immune response, might it interfere with normal immune function? After all, the battle with viruses like influenza can happen in the nose. So what happens when some flu viruses are dripped into the nostrils of broccoli-sprout eaters compared with people consuming non-cruciferous alfalfa sprouts? After eating broccoli sprouts, we get the best of both worlds—less inflammation and an improved immune response. As you can see at 5:55 in my video, after eating alfalfa sprouts, there is a viral spike in their nose. After eating a package of broccoli sprouts every day, however, our body is able to keep the virus in check, potentially offering “a safe, low-cost strategy for reducing influenza risk among smokers and other at risk populations.”

So, better immune function, yet less inflammation, potentially reducing the impact of pollution on allergic disease and asthma, at least for an “enthusiastic broccoli consumer.” But what about cancer and detoxifying air pollutants throughout the rest of our body? We didn’t know, until now. Off to China, where “levels of outdoor air pollution…are among the highest in the world.” By day one, those getting broccoli sprouts were able to get rid of 60 percent more benzene from their bodies. “The key finding…was the observed rapid and highly durable elevation of the detoxification of… a known human carcinogen.” Now, this was using broccoli sprouts, which are highly concentrated, equivalent to about five cups of broccoli a day, so we don’t know how well more modest doses would work. But if they do, eating broccoli could “provide a frugal means to attenuate…the long-term health risks” of air pollution. More on air pollution here.

I’ve been reading about the terrible effects of air pollution for a long time and I am thrilled there’s something we can do other than uprooting our families and moving out to the countryside.

For more on cruciferocity, see my videos Lung Cancer Metastases and Broccoli and Breast Cancer Survival Vegetable.

There’s a secret to maximizing broccoli’s benefits. See Flashback Friday:Second Strategy to Cooking Broccoli.

For more on Cooking Greens: How to Cook Greens and Best Way to Cook Vegetables.

What about broccoli sprout pills? See Broccoli: Sprouts vs. Supplements.

Speaking of respiratory inflammation, what about dietary approaches to asthma? Learn more:

There are sources of indoor pollution, too. See Throw Household Products Off the Scent.

There is one way what we eat can directly impact air pollution, beyond just personal protection. Check out Flashback Friday: Diet and Climate Change: Cooking Up a Storm.

In health,

Michael Greger, M.D.

PS: If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my free videos here and watch my live presentations: