Allium and Cruciferous Vegetables for Cancer Prevention
Most people are not aware that there are thousands of peer-reviewed studies proving that the phyto-nutrients found in plants have the power to reverse and or prevent cancer.
Unless you are searching out this information yourself these studies for the most part lay silent and deaf to your ears because the pharmaceutical industry has not figured out a way to extract these compounds and turn them into profit so they are simply ignored.
A study that was conducted and published in Food Chemistry back in 2009 was a comparative study on the anti-proliferate and antioxidant activities of some of the more common vegetables that are found on the dinner table.
Researchers focused in on the inhibitory effects of 34 vegetable extracts and how they effected 8 different tumor cell lines by dripping extracted vegetable juice (the veggies were put into a juicer) on different cancer cell lines.
The results of this study are pretty amazing.
Garlic: this was the most powerful juice of all. When dripped on cancer cells, it stopped cancer growth completely. Brain, breast, lung pancreatic, prostate, stomach cancer and childhood brain cancer were all tested.
Leeks: Leeks came out on top when it came to stopping the growth of kidney cancer (garlic came in second). In fact, nearly all vegetables juiced from the cruciferous and allium families had power enough to stop growth in a variety of cancers.
Furthermore, it was observed that not only allium veggies like garlic and leeks are effective but “cruciferous vegetables had potent inhibitory activities against most cancer cell lines.”
Allium family: Garlic, Leeks, young green and yellow onions
Cruciferous family: Brussels sprouts, Broccoli, Kale, Cauliflower and various cabbages
Beet Root and Spinach were also high scorers against many cancers while Asparagus, Green beans, Rutabaga, Radishes and Fiddlehead all finished with honorable mentions.
Unfortunately where there are high scorers there are also low scorers in the cancer prevention department. The veggies that did not score high when their juice was dripped on different cancers were:
Bok Choy, Boston Lettuce, Carrots, Acorn Squash, English Cucumber, Endive, Fennel Bulb, Orange Sweet Pepper, Jalapenos, Potato, Radicchio. Tomatoes, And Romaine lettuce.
Without a doubt, the results indicate that the inclusion of Allium and Cruciferous vegetables are mandatory in our diets for their chemo preventive properties. Furthermore, it was discovered that “the anti proliferate effect of vegetables was specific to cells of cancerous origin and found to be largely independent of their antioxidant properties.” What this essentially means is that the antioxidant properties that certain veggies have is not a key anti-cancer factor.
It’s important to note that most Western diets include few dark greens, Cruciferous vegetables or enough garlic yet include on a regular basis vegetables that have little to no effect on tumor cell proliferation such as potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and lettuce.
Although certain veggies showed no promise when their juice was applied to cancer cells directly, it does not lessen the impact that the vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients these veggies offer have that support and maximize the body’s ability to detox (cancer is a product of a toxic body so it is critical that you detox) in order to heal.
If cancer is presently a concern of yours, your diet should be heavy with Cruciferous and Allium veggies. If cancer is not a present concern of yours, your diet should be heavy with Cruciferous and Allium veggies.
After all, as Benjamin Franklin so aptly stated: “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
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