A Bowl of Watercress A Day Keeps Cancer Away

Researchers at the University of Ulster conducted a study involving 30 men and 30 women who ate a bowl of watercress daily for eight weeks and this group also included 30 smokers. As expected, the smokers showed the most benefits since they had lower antioxidant baselines. The results show that watercress doubled participants' blood levels of lutein, lowered blood triglyceride levels by 10%, and raised beta-carotene in the blood by 33%. Primarily, watercress showed a reduced risk of numerous cancers and DNA damage in lymphocytes, showing about a 10% decrease in the damage to lymphocytes when faced with hydrogen peroxide.

This study and its findings are unique in that it can be practiced by any person and the reduced risk of cancer applies to various sites in the body. Using human subjects makes the results applicable to all individuals, however, I found that the article states that the subjects were 60 "healthy" men and women. Because the DNA damage decrease is evident on lymphocytes, the reduced risk of cancer seems to be on sites, prone to cancer, throughout the body. The DNA damage decrease along with increased antioxidants provides a benefit to the whole body. This article seems to focus on the UK where 1 in 3 people are predicted to develop cancer at some stage of life and watercress, along with other green vegetables with high carotenoid levels, is said to reduce the risk of stomach cancer by half. The best part of this study is that it simply involves eating one bowl of vegetables a day. I encourage you all to read this article and its source, which can be found at http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?n=74273-carotenoids-watercress-cancer.