Could beans be the magic bullet when it comes to cancer prevention?
It’s pretty fascinating to look at the components of various foods and their healing properties.
We eat a lot of beans at our house. It started because we were trying to focus on eating a more plant strong whole foods diet. We turned to beans because they are:
- A great source of protein
- A major source of fiber (Fiber helps clean all the toxins, hormones and all the other things the body wants to get OUT of our body. Without a good amount of fiber all that waste just sits in your body and can get reabsorbed, which is not good.)
Turns out, beans also have Phytates and Phytates may play a role in preventing cancer (and maybe even for rehabilitating cancer cells!).
That’s what’s so great about adding more plant-based foods to your diet. You just can’t go wrong! Not only do these foods help you lose weight, but they have all of these other bonus benefits in preventing today’s most common diseases.
Here are 3 quick videos from Dr. Greger about the benefits of Phyates found in beans, nuts, seeds and other whole plants. And, why you just might want to think about getting more of these foods into your diet.
Phytates for the Prevention of Cancer
In this 3 min video Dr. Greger talks about what phytic acid (phytates) is and how it may explain the lower rates of cancer in plant-based populations.
Phytates for Rehabilitating Cancer Cells
In this 4 min video Dr. Greger talks about phytates may changes cancer cells. Here is my favorite part of this video:
What’s really remarkable about phytate, is that unlike most other anti-cancer agents, it not only causes a reduction in cancer cell growth, but also enhances differentiation. Reversion of the appearance of cancer cells back to that of normal, meaning it causes cancer cells to stop acting like cancer cells and go back to acting like normal cells. You can see this with colon cancer cells. In the presence of phytates, human colon cancer cells mature to structurally and behaviorally resemble normal cells. And this has been demonstrated in leukemia cells, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and muscle cancer cells as well.
Phytates for the Treatment of Cancer
In this 4 min video Dr. Greger talks about phytates in the treatment of cancer.
The best part is that the side effects of eating phytate foods are:
- Less heart disease
- Less diabetes
- Fewer kidney stones
Those are my kind of side effects!
So eat your beans! Remember: “beans, beans the magical fruit!”
There are so many different kinds of beans and ways to enjoy them – salads, soups, spreads and all kinds of meals.
Want an easy way to incorporate more beans into your diet? Check out our recipes.