Blueberries Prevent Cancer

The American Cancer Society recommendations suggest that people try to consume a mostly plant-based diet with minimum of 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

What the ACS doesn’t say is how large a serving is, nor what types of fruits and vegetables are the best to focus on.

First off, it’s important to point out that a serving is typically only a half cup, so five servings really only add up to about two and a half cups.

Also, it is important to know which foods offer the highest degree of disease protection, so that these foods can be incorporated into the diet. Some of the best plant foods for preventing cancer include dark skinned berries such as raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, tomatoes, pomegranates, turmeric, and green tea.

The dark skinned berries have high levels of the substance known as ellagic acid. Ellagic acid is found is in many types of fruits including strawberries, cranberries, walnuts, pecans, and pomegranates, and especially in red raspberries. Ellagic acid has been found to have substantial anti-cancer properties, as well as strong anti-oxidant capabilities.

This natural substance promotes it’s anti-cancer effects through a couple of different mechanisms. Ellagic acid has been found to stop the growth of many types of cancer cells, including cervical, prostate, breast, colon, pancreatic, esophageal, and skin cancer lines. Ellagic acid stops cancer growth by interfering with a particular part of the cancer cell’s reproductive cycle. When these cells can no longer reproduce, they eventually die without making any new cells.

In some studies this effect was seen within 48 hours of taking ellagic acid. Other studies have shown that ellagic acid has the ability to prevent the effects of toxins known to cause cancer. The ellagic acid prevents toxins from binding to DNA, so that cancerous growth cannot be genetically promoted. Lastly, eating foods which contain ellagic acid may be more beneficial than taking supplements containing ellagic acid.