(16-01-12) Does asparagus help with cancer prevention?

by Tara Green

(NaturalNews) Contrary to popular internet rumor, asparagus is not a miracle
cancer cure. Like most fruits and vegetables, asparagus does offer a plethora
of health benefits, including delivering some vitamins and minerals effective
in cancer prevention. Ingesting massive doses of asparagus to fight cancer will
most likely give you foul smelling urine and it also has some potential for
feeding certain cancers.

The Good News
A study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2010
found that vitamin B6 when combined with folate and methionine can reduce the
chances of lung cancer by as much as two-thirds. Asparagus contains both
vitamin B and folate. (Methionine, an amino acid, can be obtained from meat,
poultry, fish, cottage cheese, peanuts beans, eggs, garlic, lentils, onions,
yogurt and sesame seeds).

In 2009, researchers in Nanjing, China identified a compound called Asparanin
A in asparagus. The researchers found that Asparanin A arrests the growth liver
cancer cells and can even cause death in those cells.
Asparagus is the best food source of the anti-oxidant glutathione, a substance
researchers at the Institute for Cancer Prevention have identified as effective
in warding off cancer. Glutathione is also believed to have anti-viral
properties.

Research has shown that chronic, excessive inflammation and chronic oxidative
stress heighten the risk for many types of cancers. Since asparagus contains
many nutrients, including saponins, which have an antioxidant and anti-
inflammatory property, it deserves a place in a healthy diet, along with other
vegetables and fruits. The anti-inflammatory nutrients in asparagus make it an
excellent dietary choice for people trying to combat diseases such as arthritis
and rheumatism. It can also help prevent varicose veins.

Asparagus benefits the body in many other ways. Ayurvedic healing refers to
asparagus as "shatavari" which means "women with a thousand husbands."
Ayurvedic experts have used shatavari for centuries to treat the symptoms of
menopause as well as infertility and loss of libido.

The Bad News
Asparagus contains an amino acid called asparagine. Normal cells generally
manufacture this substance, but leukemia cells often cannot and must obtain
their supply from adjacent normal cells. If starved of asparagine, leukemia
cells die. Elgar, a pharmaceutical prescribed for patients with acute
lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), contains an enzyme, L-asparaginase, which
destroys circulating asparagine in order to starve leukemia cells. The American
Association of Naturopathic Physicians states "Eating asparagus would seem ill
advised for people who have cancers that respond to l-asparaginase."

Conclusions
The popular health myth of asparagus as a magical remedy for cancer is
unfounded; the prescriptions which accompany that myth for ingesting massive
quantities of this vegetable will likely not have the desired effect.
Recommendations which rely solely on one food as a supposed miracle cure are
based on a mistaken allopathic "magic bullet" concept to the alternative health
model.

Alternative health is about balance, not about one single herb, vegetable or
fruit with extraordinary properties. Take with a grain of full spectrum salt
any health advice which sounds suspiciously like it came from the Lord of the
Rings.

Nature offers an abundance of healthy choices for creating health and these
foods work in combination with each other, and with a healthy lifestyle. Eating
reasonable amounts of asparagus, as part a diet which includes many different
fruits and vegetables, will help protect you against cancer, as well as help
strengthen the body in other ways.

Certain foods are not advisable for some people, who have allergies and food
sensitivities. In the case of those few cancers, such as ALL, which respond to
l-asparaginase, asparagus may be a food to limit in your diet.

Sources:

http://www.naturalnews.com/032074_a...

http://www.naturalnews.com/023368_a...

http://www.naturalnews.com/029203_l...

http://www.goodhealthwellnessblog.c...

http://www.cancerdecisions.com/cont...

http://physicianswholisten.blogspot...

http://www.rvita.com/index.php?opti...

News

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