Flavonoids Oh my

The ABC’s of Health

By Dr. Jo Gjelsten

Eat your flavonoids Flavia!   Why? Because I said so, and so does a recent study. For women, they, those floids, may help reduce the risk of stomach cancer - the fourth most common cancer (wow, who knew!) and the second most deadly, according to American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Where do I get flavonoids, rhymes with hemorrhoids, Flivia?  Ok, I made that up, sort of. You’ll find many of them in green tea. Copious amounts of flavonoids.  More than 12,511 milligrams per 100 grams of leaves, whatever that means. A lot. Women, according to this European study, who got more than 580 mg of flavonoids each day had a 51% lower risk of developing stomach cancer than women who consumed no more than 200 mg a day. The men? No association. Of course how many men drink green tea compared to women. “hey Joe, how about we stop for a cuppa green tea afta woik?!” Of course the intelligent ones already know about the ECGC benefits for men too. For a healthy cuppa, about 267ish mgs, then have anutha cuppa to getcha nice dosa tea. But more is better. Ask us, we have at least 2 plus every morning; my favorite is Yerba Mate. ”Women with the highest intake of flavonoids were half as likely to develop the disease (stomach cancer) as were women who had the smallest intake ” for those of you who were dozing off and need a little tea. What else, besides green tea?  Here you are: “A flavonoid-rich diet is based on plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereals, nuts, legumes, and their derived products (tea, chocolate, wine). But to really reduce cancer risk, “less consumption of red and processed meat” is essential. For those of you who would like to flatulate your flavonoids, try pinto beans at about 769 mg per 100 g of beans, which means nothing to the average American. Why are these measurements never in our language of cups and ounces, handfuls, the size of a walnut, teaspoons, tablespoons, I ask? So someone can sound like scientific, the smart-alecs, ahem! But I digress. Other factors affecting cancer risk included whether the participants smoked, whether they were obese, and if they drank alcohol. So drink tea, not only because of this study, but because I said so. Thank you Mommy Gladis; I sound just like you. And while we’re at it, get some sleep. Why? Because I said so, and the Norwegians know, especially the ones at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, in Trondheim, where I probably have DNA floating around. These Noourveeegens came out with, yuuu guessed it, a study, of all the silly things. They found that, “insomnia symptoms remained strongly correlated with new-onset heart failure, with more symptoms linked with higher risk. Uff da! For example, subjects who reported having "difficulty initiating sleep" on "almost every night" had a 27% to 66% risk of developing heart failure (depending on the model used), compared with subjects with no insomnia symptoms. By contrast, patients who reported "difficulty initiating sleep" on a frequent basis, in addition to "difficulty maintaining sleep" and feeling that their sleep was "nonrestorative," had a risk of heart failure that ranged from two to five times higher than in subjects with no insomnia symptoms.  Holy herring Eric! Menopause is a wonderful way to experience insomnia, practically guaranteed for many women, but there are a myriad of ways to get past it all if hormone replacement therapy isn’t on your bucket list. Don’t put up with insomnia!  And now, for no good reason I can think of, except to pass it on, a word about soy lecithin, “a source of choline and inositol” , and something you’ll find on almost every food label you read; long thought of as a health food. We need choline (cell membrane function, nerve, brain health, wheat germ, eggs; brussel sprouts are good sources instead) and inositol (brain, heart, eye health, metabolism of cholesterol and fats; use beans, bran cereals, seeds, legumes,bananas, brewers yeast instead); a nice thing if lecithin isn’t made from soy. Why? Soy lecithin is a byproduct of processed soy, which reminds me of fluoride also a byproduct in my opinion, so don’t get me started, Peggy. Here you go:  soy “lecithin comes from sludge left after crude soy oil goes through a "degumming" process.(Yum) It is a waste product containing solvents and pesticides and has a consistency ranging from a gummy fluid to a plastic solid. (Putting down the sandwich now) Before being bleached to a more appealing light yellow, the color of lecithin ranges from a dirty tan to reddish brown.” AND, ” It is most commonly used as an emulsifier to keep water and fats from separating in foods such as margarine, peanut butter, chocolate candies, ice cream, coffee creamers and infant formulas. (Great,in everything.) (Soy) Lecithin also helps prevent product spoilage, extending shelf life in the marketplace.” The ubiquitous lecithin. Check your labels. Don’t give soy to kids, or pregnant women.  “When soy lecithin supplements were given throughout perinatal development, they reduced activity in the cerebral cortex and "altered synaptic characteristics in a manner consistent with disturbances in neural function." But do get lecithin in your diet, just not in the soy form, most of which is genetically modified and unfermented so are enzyme inhibitors. So do eat your egg yolks, 100 % WHOLE GRAIN whole wheat, soybeans (only if fermented in the form of tempe or miso), and wheat germ. Why? Because Dr. Aunt Jo said so! Copy it right and more foods listed at www.GoDrJo.com