Medical news Wednesday

     More cold and snow in Denver...today's exercise will be scooping the driveway and sidewalks.  Oh, joy.  Meanwhile, it will be 83 degrees in Austin for our lucky family members who live there.
     Dean rode his bike to work yesterday for the last time this year.  Due to the time change this weekend, and the season, he can no longer count on having any daylight to ride by before and after work.

     Here is some of the medical information and research I found interesting this week:

     Dr Joel Fuhrman ("Eat to Live") in his Disease Proof blog talked about October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  He would prefer if they changed it to Breast Cancer Prevention Month. He offered a few simple suggestions for helping to prevent breast cancer, and probably most cancers:
     *Exercise
     *Stay slim
     *Eat lots of green vegetables, onions, and mushrooms daily
     *Do not eat mass factory farmed dairy, especially those given rBGH
     *Stay away from fast foods and insulin promoting refined foods such as
          white flour and sweets
     *Do not eat mass factory farmed meats given antibiotics and growth
          promoting hormones

     I also read an interview with mycologist Paul Stamets.  A mycologist is a biologist who studies fungi.  He said that "mushrooms are constellations of hundreds of thousands of constituents." Some of the benefits provided by mushrooms:
     *supporting and strengthening your immune system
     *providing anti-inflammatory properties
     *providing anti-oxidant properties
     *restricting blood vessel growth feeding tumors (anti-angiogenesis)
     *causing programmed cell death of cancer cells (apoptosis)
     *providing antiviral effects
     *restricting the growth of pathogenic bacteria
     *assisting conventional anti-cancer drugs to work more effectively at
          lower doses
This provides many reasons to eat mushrooms on a more frequent basis.  We don't actually eat them daily as Dr. Furman suggests, but we do eat them several times a week.  The interview with the mycologist can be found at:
     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-patricia-fitzgerald/mushrooms-beat-cancer_b_1070744.html

     A  small new study on resveratrol supplementation in humans was reported in the journal "Cell Metabolism". It showed that resveratrol supplementation can mimic calorie restriction.  It influences mitochondrial function and energy metabolism.  It increased the energy metabolism in muscles, improved insulin sensitivity, decreased blood pressure, and enhanced fitness. Resveratrol has been shown to increase lifespan in lab animals.  It is an anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory.
     Now, this was a small early study, and isolated supplements don't have a great history of overall success, but it sure couldn't hurt to eat foods containing resveratrol on a daily basis.  Food sources include red and purple grapes (grape juice, raisins), peanuts (peanut butter), and to a lesser extent berries (cranberries, blueberries, and pomegranates). 

     The take away from all the above information is to eat a lot of varied plants on a daily basis remembering to add grapes, raisins, berries, peanuts, and mushrooms.