Boost Your Antioxidant Levels and Fight Cancer by Eating Bok Choy

What Is Bok Choy Good For?

By Dr. Mercola

Bok choy is the most popular vegetable in China, where it's been cultivated for more than 5,000 years. This member of the cruciferous vegetable family is a type of cabbage that has a mild flavor, making it useful for stir fries, soups, side dishes, or even eating raw.

But it's because of bok choy's impressive nutritional profile that it's long been a member of my most highly recommended vegetables list. Bok choy, which is also referred to as Chinese white cabbage, contains vitamins C and K, plus a higher concentration of beta-carotene and vitamin A than any other variety of cabbage.

It also contains important nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and manganese, all wrapped up in an extremely low-calorie package (some classify bok choy as a zero-calorie or negative-calorie food).

One cup of bok choy contains only about 20 calories, but its high levels of dietary fiber will fill you up, making it an excellent food for weight loss. Even more exciting, bok choy contains a wealth of phytonutrients that offer powerful and unique benefits to your health.

Boost Your Antioxidant Levels (and Fight Cancer) by Eating Bok Choy

Cabbage including bok choy contains powerful antioxidants like vitamins A and C and phytonutrients such as thiocyanates, lutein, zeaxanthin, isothiocyanates, and sulforaphane, which stimulate detoxifying enzymes and may protect against breast, colon, and prostate cancers.

Indole-3-carbinol, another antioxidant phytocompound in bok choy, halts the cell cycle in breast cancer cells without actually killing the cells, which might help explain why Chinese breast cancer survivors who ate the most cruciferous vegetables had a 62 percent lower risk of mortality, 62 percent lower risk of breast cancer mortality, and 35 percent lower risk of breast cancer recurrence than those who ate the least.

Remember, in China, bok choy is the number one vegetable (whereas in the US, the most commonly consumed cruciferous vegetables are broccoli and Brussels sprouts).

Sulforaphane also targets cancer stem cells, and by doing so it effectively prevents the cancer from spreading and/or recurring. Antioxidants also help protect your body from oxidative stress and chronic diseases like age-related macular degeneration. What else is bok choy good for?

Bok Choy Is Anti-Inflammatory

Bok choy contains a wealth of anti-inflammatory nutrients to help keep inflammation in check. You need some level of inflammation in your body to stay healthy. However, it's also possible, and increasingly common, for the inflammatory response to get out of hand.

If your immune system mistakenly triggers an inflammatory response when no threat is present, it can lead to significant inflammation-related damage to the body, a condition linked to cancer and other diseases, depending on which organs the inflammation is impacting.

Among the anti-inflammatory compounds in bok choy are anthocyanins, a type of polyphenol, and thiocyanate, an antioxidant that's been found to protect cells from inflammatory substances produced in response to injury or infection in your body.

In fact, researchers believe thiocyanate may hold clues to treating serious inflammatory disorders including cystic fibrosis, heart disease, and diabetes. And remember the indole-3-carbinol (I3C) that I mentioned in regard to breast cancer? I3C is also anti-inflammatory and it operates on a genetic level, helping to prevent inflammatory responses at the very early, initial stages of disease development.

Better Bone Health Via Vitamin K

One cup of bok choy contains about 26 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin K1, a fat-soluble vitamin most well-known for the important role it plays in blood clotting and bone metabolism. Vitamin K1 is also a known Alzheimer's disease preventive by helping to limit neuron damage in your brain.

Bok choy is also an excellent source of calcium... so good that nutrition experts from The Harvard School of Public Health called out bok choy as being a better source of dietary calcium than dairy products. It also contains other important nutrients for bone health, including magnesium and phosphorus.

B Vitamins Galore

Cabbage like bok choy contains healthy amounts of B vitamins, including folate (which is better than the synthetic form known as folic acid found in many supplements), vitamin B6, vitamin B1, and vitamin B5. B vitamins are not only important for energy, but they may also slow brain shrinkage by as much as seven-fold in brain regions specifically known to be most impacted by Alzheimer's disease.

Regulate Your Immune Function

In addition to being a cruciferous veggie, bok choy is also classified as a green leafy vegetable, which are among the best for your health. Researchers at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute's Molecular Immunology division have discovered that a gene, called T-bet, which is essential for producing critical immune cells in your gut, responds to the food you eat—specifically leafy green vegetables. According to the press release:

"The immune cells, named innate lymphoid cells (ILCs), are found in the lining of the digestive system and protect the body from 'bad' bacteria in the intestine. They are also believed to play an important role in controlling food allergies, inflammatory diseases and obesity, and may even prevent the development of bowel cancers.

...[T]he research team revealed T-bet was essential for generating a subset of ILCs which is a newly discovered cell type that protects the body against infections entering through the digestive system.
'In this study, we discovered that T-bet is the key gene that instructs precursor cells to develop into ILCs, which it does in response to signals in the food we eat and to bacteria in the gut,' Dr Belz said. 'ILCs are essential for immune surveillance of the digestive systemand this is the first time that we have identified a gene responsible for the production of ILCs.'"

ILCs are thought to be essential for:

• Maintaining balance between tolerance, immunity, and inflammation in your body
• Producing interleukin-22 (IL-22), a hormone that can protect your body from pathogenic bacteria
• Maintaining healthy intestinal balance by promoting growth of beneficial bacteria and healing small wounds and abrasions in the gut
• Helping resolve cancerous lesions

Support Your Heart Health

Sulforaphane in bok choy and other cruciferous vegetables has been found to significantly improve blood pressure and kidney function. Scientists believe sulforaphane's benefits are related to improved DNA methylation, which is crucial for normal cellular function and proper gene expression, especially in the easily damaged inner lining of the arteries known as the endothelium.

How to Select and Prepare Bok Choy

When choosing bok choy, look for firm stalks and dark-green, crisp leaves. Avoid those that are wilted or soft. Bok choy can be stored, dry, in your refrigerator for several days. To prepare, trim off the base and any discolored leaves. Separate the stalks and wash them under cold running water.

While both the stalks and the leaves can be consumed, it's best to cook them separately, as the stalks will take longer to cook. Avoid overcooking, as cabbage of all kinds is best prepared as close to raw as possible, sometimes called tender-crisp, to preserve its many nutrients. Short-cooked and raw cabbage, for instance, were the only kind that had measurable cancer-preventive benefits in one study (long-cooked cabbage did not have measurable benefits!).

Microwaving is another no-no for bok choy, as just two minutes in the microwave destroys many of the enzymes needed to convert the glucosinolates into cancer-preventive compounds. Bok choy can be used in place of red or green cabbage in recipes, as well as eaten raw (such as in salads, coleslaw, or juicing). You can also use bok choy as a base when making fermented vegetables (although, in the US, it tends to be more expensive than green cabbage).

by Dr. Mercola

Beets are an ancient, prehistoric food that grew naturally along coastlines in North Africa, Asia, and Europe. Originally, it was the beet greens that were consumed; the sweet red beet root that most people think of as a "beet" today wasn't cultivated until the era of ancient Rome.

By the 19th century, however, the natural sweetness of beets came to be appreciated and beets began to be used as a source of sugar (reportedly, Napoleon was responsible for declaring that beets be used as a primary source of sugar after the British restricted access to sugar cane).

Today, sugar beets (unfortunately often genetically modified) are a common raw material used for the production of sugar, but many people are missing out on including them in whole form in their regular diet.

There's good reason to do so, in fact, as beets contain a variety of unique health-boosting nutrients that you may not be getting elsewhere. Plus, they're delicious!

Why Eat Beets? 6 Top Reasons

Beet roots have always been included in my most recommended vegetables list, although they are in the "use sparingly" category because of their high carbohydrate levels.

Although beets have the highest sugar content of all vegetables, most people can safely eat beet roots a few times a week (and their greens in unlimited quantities), enjoying not only their sweet, earthy flavor but also their powerhouse nutrients that may improve your health in the following ways.

1. Lower Your Blood Pressure

Drinking beet juice may help to lower blood pressure in a matter of hours. One study found that drinking one glass of beet juice lowered systolic blood pressure by an average of 4-5 points.3
The benefit likely comes from the naturally occurring nitrates in beets, which are converted into nitric oxide in your body. Nitric oxide, in turn, helps to relax and dilate your blood vessels, improving blood flow and lowering blood pressure.

2. Boost Your Stamina

If you need a boost to make it through your next workout, beet juice may again prove valuable. Those who drank beet juice prior to exercise were able to exercise for up to 16 percent longer.4 The benefit is thought to also be related to nitrates turning into nitric oxide, which may reduce the oxygen cost of low-intensity exercise as well as enhance tolerance to high-intensity exercise.

3. Fight Inflammation

Beets are a unique source of betaine, a nutrient that helps protects cells, proteins, and enzymes from environmental stress. It's also known to help fight inflammation, protect internal organs, improve vascular risk factors, enhance performance, and likely help prevent numerous chronic diseases. As reported by the World's Healthiest Foods: "[Betaine's]...presence in our diet has been associated with lower levels of several inflammatory markers, including C reactive protein, interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor alpha. As a group, the anti-inflammatory molecules found in beets may eventually be shown to provide cardiovascular benefits in large-scale human studies, as well as anti-inflammatory benefits for other body systems."

4. Anti-Cancer Properties

The powerful phytonutrients that give beets their deep crimson color may help to ward off cancer. Research has shown that beetroot extract reduced multi-organ tumor formations in various animal models when administered in drinking water, for instance, while beetroot extract is also being studied for use in treating human pancreatic, breast, and prostate cancers.

5. Rich in Valuable Nutrients and Fiber

Beets are high in immune-boosting vitamin C, fiber, and essential minerals like potassium (essential for healthy nerve and muscle function) and manganese (which is good for your bones, liver, kidneys, and pancreas). Beets also contain the B vitamin folate, which helps reduce the risk of birth defects.

6. Detoxification Support

The betalin pigments in beets support your body's Phase 2 detoxification process, which is when broken down toxins are bound to other molecules so they can be excreted from your body. Traditionally, beets are valued for their support in detoxification and helping to purify your blood and your liver.

Eat Your Beet Greens Too

If you simply throw away the green leafy tops to your beets, you're doing yourself a disservice, as these are among the healthiest part of the plant.
Besides containing important nutrients like protein, phosphorus, zinc, fiber, vitamin B6, magnesium, potassium, copper, and manganese, beet greens also supply significant amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron.

Beet greens actually have even more iron than spinach (another leafy green in the same botanical family) as well as a higher nutritional value overall than the beetroot itself. For more details, read "What Are Beet Greens Good For?" You may be surprised to learn, for instance, that research shows beet greens may:

• Help ward off osteoporosis by boosting bone strength
• Fight Alzheimer's disease
• Strengthen your immune system by stimulating the production of antibodies and white blood cells

If you've never tried beet greens before, don't let them intimidate you. They can be added raw to vegetable juice or sautéed lightly right along with other greens like spinach and Swiss chard.

Karen Foster @ PreventDisease.com

Guavas have the highest concentration of antioxidants that protect against cell damage which ages skin and can cause cancer. This inexpensive and humble food should be regarded as one of the top 'superfoods' nature has blessed us with.