lycopene
Why Might Vegetarians Have Less HPV?
"Why Might Vegetarians
Have Less HPV?" Cervical cancer is now considered a
sexually transmitted disease, originally suspected as such
as it was supposedly found less in nuns and
more in prostitutes, but now we have DNA fingerprinting
proof that virtually all cervical cancer is caused by a sexually transmitted virus,
human papilloma virus, which also causes cancers of the penis,
vagina, vulva, and throat.
HPV is considered a necessary,
but not sufficient cause of cancer. Most young women contract HPV,
but most don't get cervical cancer, because their immune systems
are able to clear out the virus. 70% of women clear the infection within
1 year and more than 90% within 2 years before the virus can
cause cancer, unless you're immuno-
compromised or something. Well, if that's the case, may
maybe those with particularly strong immune systems
might clear the virus even faster. That's what may be behind this new
study that found that vegetarian women appear to have significantly
lower infection rates with HPV.
It's one of many studies reporting
that vegetarians have lower risk of HPV infection thought to be because of the presence of more fruits
and vegetables in their diet, which are rich sources of
all sorts of good phytonutrients. So for example, if you take a bunch
of women with cancer-causing strains of HPV infecting
their cervix and follow them out,
and retest at 3 months, and then 9 months, while analyzing
their diets, what do you find? Higher levels of vegetable
consumption may cut the risk of HPV
persistence in half, double one's likelihood of clearing this
potentially cancer-causing infection. And "higher" levels just meant
like 2 or more servings a day! What do antioxidants in plants
have to do with viral diseases? Different antioxidants affect
different viruses in different ways, but against HPV…don't you know that electrophoretic
mobility super shift assays showed "irrespective of enhanced c-fos
expression, c-jun was phosphorylated and became primarily
heterodimerized with fra-1", "which was also induced
after PDTC incubation"…I mean duh! I had to read this
paper like 5 times! Long story short: antioxidants
appear to suppress the activation of critical segments
of the virus' DNA.
Maybe that's why smearing green tea
on genital warts – also caused by HPV – has been found so effective
in clearing them. In terms of preventing cervical cancer:
through their role as antioxidants, pytonutrients like lutein, found
in dark green leafy vegetables; and lycopene, the red pigment in
tomatoes, may decrease viral load, thereby decreasing persistence
and progression to disease. Whereas the protective associations
may be due to their antioxidant properties. They have all sorts of other wonderful
effects, so who knows… who cares! Bottom line: "higher
consumption of vegetables may decrease risk
of HPV persistence," which may help explain
why this 2013 study found vegan women
have significantly lower rates of all female cancers combined,
including cancer of the cervix.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Raw Food Diet Myths
"Raw Food Diet Myths" Is it better to eat our vegetables
raw or cooked? If you’re thinking raw,
you’re right! But if you guessed cooked,
you’re also right! A number of nutrients, like vitamin C,
are partially destroyed by cooking. On the other hand, some nutrients
become more absorbable upon cooking. For example, we get three times more
antioxidants in cooked carrots than raw. More cancer-fighting
indoles in cooked broccoli, and more lycopene
in cooked tomatoes. Leavening increases the mineral
absorption in grain products, and dry roasting can increase
the mineral absorption from nuts. There’s no good evidence
that raw diets are superior to other whole foods,
plant-based diets. In fact, the published evidence
that does exist is fairly disappointing. The only dietary survey I’m aware of
found raw food diets deficient in energy, protein, vitamins B12 and D,
calcium, selenium, and zinc. There are a number of
seriously flawed myths that circulate within the
raw foods community— like the belief that we have only a
limited amount of enzymes in our body that somehow get used up,
and so we need to consume live plant enzymes,
which are deactivated by cooking.
Well, they’re deactivated
by our stomach acid too, but even if they weren’t,
specific enzymes catalyze specific reactions
within our body. And since we’re not plants,
we have no need for plant enzymes. Our body makes all the enzymes we
need to function from the protein we eat, and cooking actually renders
proteins more digestible. So, I advocate eating a combination
of cooked and raw foods. Having said that, we should all be
eating huge salads every day.
We could easily polish off five cups
of spinach in one sitting, and that’s how we
have to think of greens— not as some little
overcooked side servings. If, for whatever reason,
you want to eat 100% raw, first, of course you
have to take a B12 supplement. Second, a diet based
on modern cultivated fruits is not nutritionally adequate. They’re a pale shadow of the
wild fruits eaten by our ape ancestors. To improve the nutritional content,
one would have to add at least a half-kilo a day of dark green leafies—
5 to 10 cups— and at least 50 grams a day
of nuts and seeds—about half a cup. And third, I explicitly recommend against
raw food diets for young children, as they just don’t have
the stomach capacity. Although an all-raw food diet
can be healthy, there is no reliable evidence
to suggest that it’s more healthy than a diet of whole plant foods—
cooked or not.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
