Fermented Beets and Ambrosia Plant Fight Cancer
We all know beets are popular, but did you know that fermented beets can do just as much, if not more for your health?
It is true, fermented beets, although not used as much, find their place in both alternative medicine and the culinary world.
Due to the number of benefits, fermented beets are able to fight countless health diseases, including cancer. One of the reasons fermented beets top regular or raw beets is the sugar levels in the two. While raw beets often contain more (natural) sugar, fermented beets are stripped off it, and offer a handful of favorable nutrients instead.
As a comparison, let’s get into the benefits of raw vs. fermented beet below.
What Are the Health Benefits of Raw Beetroot?
Beets Stimulate the Immunity
Regular or raw beets are great for maintaining the perfect immune system health. Raw beets are packed with vitamin C and B, magnesium, manganese, fiber and potassium content, which all of which directly affects the immunity in a beneficial manner.
Beets Balance the Blood Pressure
Beets, juiced or not, are not only yummy but also affect the blood pressure levels. Nutrients found in beets are turned into nitric oxide. As such, nitric oxide allows the blood vessels to do their job more coherently, and improve the circulation and prevent hypertension.
Beets Protect Against Cancer
This is stated due to the various studies done on animals, where beetroot juice has shown positive results and reduced the formation of the tumor. This is thanks to the potent phytonutrients, which are responsible for the color of the beets as well as the anti-cancerous properties.
Beets Detoxify the Body
To fully cleanse your organism of toxins and free radicals, make raw beets part of your everyday menu. As a natural cleanser, beets mostly impacts the liver and blood flow, encouraging them both to perform better.
Beets Have Anti-Inflammatory Qualities
Along with their cleansing properties, beets offer loads of anti-inflammatory benefits as well. As they are packed with betaine, beets preserve the protein levels in the body, along with the cells and enzymes necessary for a proper body performance.
Beets Increase Your Strength
As a result of nutrients being transformed into nitric oxidate, beets offer more stamina and physical endurance. At the same time, beets increase the mental strength as well. Because of these properties, beetroot juice is highly recommended for athletes and physically engaged individuals.
What Are The Benefits Of Fermented Beets?
Fermented beets, or otherwise known as kvass, were first discovered in Russia, Ukraine, and the area. One of the reasons why fermented beets are beneficial is because they maintain the nutritional value of raw beets, minus the sugar.
The most important benefits of beet kvass are:
Immune system boost;
Body and blood cleanse;
Elimination of toxins and free radicals;
Encouraging the work of the digestive tract;
Act as a genuine probiotic;
Dissolve kidney stones;
Treat allergies;
Prevent premature aging;
Boost the metabolism;
Protect the body against cancer.
Make Your Own Beet Kvass and Enjoy Its Benefits
If you have never worked with fermented beets, here is a recipe to help you harvest the benefits of this incredible vegetable.
Ingredients:
- 2 raw, organic beetroots;
- sparkling or pure spring water;
- 3 tbsp. pickle or sauerkraut juice;
- 1/2 tsp. Himalayan salt (optional).
Directions:
The best way to treat organic beets is leave them with their skin on. In such a way, you avoid bacteria from affecting the beets during its fermentation. In addition, the water you use should first boil, then cool off and then be added to the beets.
Place the beets in a jar and fill 1/3 of it with water. Add the sauerkraut and pickle juice, and the seasoning. Don’t fill the jar to the top, so you can shake the mix well before it is left to ferment.
The jar should be placed at a room temperature for about seven days.
You will know your beet kvass is ready once you notice bubbles inside the jar.
A substance in the Ambrosia plant found to inhibit cancer stem cells
Scientists are always hard at work to find new weapons in the fight against cancer, and based on recent research, they may have found a new one in the form of the plant Ambrosia arborescens.
According to a report that was recently published by Lund University, the plant A. arborescens was found to contain a chemical compound that effectively inhibits the growth and spread of cancer stem cells. A similar chemical compound called ambrosin was also found to have a similar effect despite being synthetically produced.
The study was performed by researchers from both Lund University and Higher University of San Andres in La Paz, Bolivia.
Fighting cancer with plants?
The chemical compound that inhibits the growth and spread of cancer cells is called damsin. According to the report, researchers isolated the sesquiterpene lactone damsin and studied its effect on three different breast cancer lines. Likewise, the researchers tested ambrosin for what it does. And it turns out that both chemical compounds have practically the same effect: they inhibit growth and spread of cancer cells.
“Both the natural and the synthetic substances inhibit the growth and spread of cancer stem cells in breast cancer cell lines,” said Stina Oredsson, professor at Lund University. “This is the first time that it has been successfully proven by research.”
The specific effect of both compounds appears to be inhibiting the division and mobility of cancer cells, which means that tumors become smaller over time, as cell proliferation decreases. The researchers were able to show that the actual number of cancer stem cells go down. This is said to be a major breakthrough in cancer research, and could be the beginning of an effective new treatment of cancer stem cells, which are believed to be the cause of metastases.
The problem with current treatments
There are, of course, a number of different cancer treatments available for anyone suffering from most variations of the disease. The problem is that the treatments don’t work for everyone and in some cases, it may even make the problem worse.
There have been many documented cases of cancer getting worse after receiving certain kinds of treatment. In fact, chemotherapy is one of the treatment methods that have been known to have some possible negative outcomes. In the worst case scenario, it may even lead to death, as some evidence suggests.
For the above reasons, it is useful to find some alternative methods for treating cancer. And if a natural solution is found to be truly working, then the whole world will be all the better for it.
Oredsson admits that the results of their research covers only the basics; they will continue to study both damsin and ambrosin in order to find out better solutions that can be applied for different types of cancer cells.
“Different cancer cells have different abilities to survive chemotherapy. Cancer stem cells can be considered the most dangerous type of cancer cells, as they appear to have an inherent resistance to the chemotherapeutic drugs used today,” explained Oredsson. “Our results can contribute to the development of new drugs against cancer stem cells but, unfortunately, it takes a long time to get from basic research to usable drugs.”
For now, the researchers are going to continue experimenting with other chemical compounds. They have also begun using other analogues that show “very good inhibitory effects” on cancer stem cells. However, the results of those experiments have yet to be published.
The light in me knows and loves the light in you!
Georgiana
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