Are You Eating Enough of This Inexpensive Miracle Food?

Are You Eating Enough of This Inexpensive Miracle Food?

  by Barbara Minton

See all TBYIL articles by Barbara Minton

(The Best Years in Life) Imagine a delicious, versatile, high protein food that could almost magically prevent heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and excessive weight gain.  You'd be willing to pay a lot for this food, wouldn't you?  Actually, there is probably already some hiding in your kitchen cabinets.  If not, it's on the shelf at the nearest grocery store.  This food is the mighty bean, an overlooked vegetable that is a research superstar.

A bean is technically a legume, a class of foods that includes lentils.  One-quarter cup of dried legumes is equivalent in high quality protein to an ounce of meat and packs a 15 gram protein punch.  Beans pick up the flavor of other ingredients or seasonings and blend into soups, salads, stews and most other cooked and raw dishes.

Beans are good for what ails us

Studies have documented that eating beans on a regular basis offers protection from many of the dreaded diseases of modern times.  Eating beans helps keep the pounds off too.  Regular bean eaters weigh about 6.6 pounds less than non-bean eaters, according to Real Age.

Men and women who consumed legumes 4 times a week had a 22 percent lower risk for heart disease compared to people consuming legumes only once per week, according to a recent study published in Archives of Internal Medicine.  Men who adhered to a healthy diet that included greater consumption of legumes had a 30 percent lower risk of heart disease than men who followed the typical Western diet.

Scientists at Colorado State University have found that eating beans and potatoes regularly could help prevent breast cancer.  Researchers introduced a carcinogen into the mammary glands of rats that were then fed a daily diet of different varieties of beans or potatoes.  The rat control group did not receive any beans or potatoes.  The researchers collected data on the occurrence of cancerous mammary tumors, tumor mass and multiplicity of tumors.  They found that the more beans or potatoes eaten, the less the frequency for malignant tumors.  Although some bean and potato varieties were more effective at prevention, all beans were able to provide significantly more protection than a no-bean diet.

Another study reviewed data from 90,630 women who participated in the Nurses Health Study II. The researchers found that women who consumed beans or lentils at least twice a week were 24 percent less likely to develop breast cancer than women who consumed them less than once a month. This study was also published in the Archives of Internal Medicine

Beans contain powerful compounds.  Inositol hexaphosphate (IP6) found in good supply in beans has been shown to have a potent affect against cancer.  Inosital pentakisphosphate is another compound recently discovered in legumes.  It was found to inhibit the growth of tumors in mice all by itself.  Flavonols found in beans have also been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer. 

In a study of 35,000 women who ate four or more servings of legumes each week, the risk of developing colorectal cancer was reduced by one-third.  In a related study, people who had previously developed colon cancer were found able to reduce the risk of recurrence up to 45 percent by increasing bean consumption.

The National Cancer Institute found that people who eat more dried legumes such as pinto or navy beans, lentils, and bean soups have significantly less risk of developing colon cancer.  Data from the Poly Prevention Trialshowed that adding a significant amount of dry beans to one's existing diet has a strong protective effect against recurrence of precancerous polyps.  In their study, people who added the most dried beans to their diets had the greatest reduction in risk for recurrence of advanced polyps.

   Beans are high in fiber, containing about 4 grams per cup of cooked beans.  Fiber has been shown to reduce blood cholesterol in epidemiological, clinical and animal studies.  Data from human trials has shown that consumption of canned or dried beans reduces both total and LDL cholesterol.  Significant increases in Hfont-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;">