Polyphenols as possible precursors to breast cancer treatment and prevention
Lignan polyphenols for hormone-associated cancers, the phytonutrients in cucumber, and why "eating the rainbow" gives you more health benefits
👉This week, we’re talking about: how lignan polyphenols may help prevent hormone-associated cancers (and the exciting pre-clinical research showing their potential as adjunct agents in cancer treatment, too!); cucumber as a good source of lignan polyphenols along with some other special phytonutrients; tips for selecting the best cucumbers and storing them so they’ll last longer; why focusing on “eating the rainbow” can help you reach your fruit and veggie serving goals (and boost the health benefit, even if you don’t); and I’m sharing my favorite and versatile Simple Cucumber Salad recipe.
Key Takeaways
✅Lignan polyphenols show amazing potential for hormone-associated cancers (breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, and uterine cancer) treatment and prevention.
✅Even though they’re 95% water, cucumbers deliver a good amount of vitamin K and a wide range of beneficial phytonutrients, including cucurbitacin terpenoids and lignan polyphenols!
✅If upping your fruits and vegetables is intimidating, try focusing on “eating the rainbow” instead. You’ll get more benefit for the same amount of fruits and veggies, plus you might find it easier to hit your serving goals!
✅For paid subscribers, your companion downloads this week are: Phytonutrients in White & Brown Foods and Simple Cucumber Salad. Check your inbox; they’ll be arriving in a separate email (or if you use the Substack app, they’ll be in their own post).
Lignan Polyphenols for Hormone-Related Cancers
🧬Lignans are a fiber-associated polyphenolic compounds that plants produce to help defend against getting eaten by herbivores. In humans, after the consumption of lignan precursors, intestinal bacteria convert them into enterolignans called enterodiol and enterolactone which can mimic some behaviors of estrogens in ways that are beneficial for our health.
Enterolignans been shown to help normalize blood lipid levels, reduce high blood pressure, exert antioxidant activity, and act as antioxidants. Although more research is needed to know for sure, enterolignans have the potential to protect against hormone-associated cancers (breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, and uterine cancer) by blocking the action of true estrogens.
In vitro experiments show that enterodiol and enterolactone are able to inhibit the growth of human colon cancer cells, while enterolactone (but not enterodiol) inhibits the proliferation of breast cancer cells; these protective effects may be due to competition with estrogen for the type II estrogen receptor, the induction of sex hormone binding globulin, the inhibition of placental aromatase, or antioxidant activity. In ovarian cancer, enterolactone exhibits stronger anti-cancer effects than enterodiol, including suppressing tumor growth. In addition, lower levels of enterolactone have been found in patients with breast cancer, suggesting a potentially anti-carcinogenic role, although more research is needed in humans to assess cause and effect. Additionally, enterolactone was used in rats to reduce the size of mammary tumors, which could potentially target the initial phase of breast cancer, and prevent further disease progression at the earliest stages.
Further human studies are necessary to develop these promising results, but it is safe to say that we have only scratched the surface on the potential health benefits of lignan polyphenols! Lignan polyphenols are found in seeds (especially flaxseed and sesame seeds), zucchini, cucumber, pumpkin, broccoli, soybeans, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, strawberries, blackberries, cranberries, black currants, apricots, carrots, bran (oat, wheat, and barley), and cinnamon.
Want to know the top 25 best food sources of polyphenols? Learn them here.
Get 25 mg Polyphenols with Cucumber
🥒Nutritionally, cucumber has an incredibly high-water content (95% water!) and at least small or trace amounts of most vitamins and minerals. One cup of sliced cucumber (with the peel), contains only 16 calories while providing 0.5 grams of fiber, 14% DV for vitamin K, and 5% DV for vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) and copper.
The most important nutritional value of cucumber comes from its phytonutrient content. Most notably, cucumbers contain cucurbitacin terpenoids, which are different from other terpenoids owing to their high degree of unsaturation and chemical composition. In addition, cucumbers are also rich in tannins and phytosterols. Cucumbers contain lignan polyphenols, predominantly lariciresinol, and to a lesser extent pinoresinol and secoisolariciresinol; plus, small amounts of flavonoids including cucumerin, kaempferol, and quercetin.
In fact, cucumbers are the perfect example of a vegetable that looks boring on paper (with all those low daily value percentages of vitamins and minerals), but that still offer some potentially exciting health benefits thanks to their phytonutrients, of which scientific research has only just barely scratched the surface!
Cucumber is the 251st most nutrient-dense food! Learn the Top 500 Nutrivore Foods here.
Simple Cucumber Salad Recipe
🥗 This refreshing salad is not only nutritious, but it’s also very versatile! It’s delicious beside any protein—from poached fish or chicken kebabs, to grilled lamb chops. It keeps very well so it can be made ahead or you can double the batch to have some tasty leftovers the next day. And, it has a perfect flavor to bring to a barbecue! Feel free to get creating with the fresh herbs and make this one your own!
Add this recipe to your meal plan this week with Real Plans, the official Nutrivore meal planning app!
Nutrivore Mindset Corner
🧠If you struggle to eat enough fruits and vegetables, try shifting your focus from quantity to variety. Instead of asking, “Did I eat enough produce today?” ask, “How many different colors did I eat?” There are five color families when it comes to “eating the rainbow”: red, orange and yellow, green, blue and purple, and white and brown. And shifting our mindset to thinking in terms of “eating the rainbow” can make building a nutrient-dense diet feel more approachable and even a little fun. Plus, studies show that people who eat a wider diversity of fruits and vegetables also tend to eat more of them, so this mindset shift may be the key to actually achieving your serving goals!
Studies show that 42% of health outcomes are positively influenced by color-associated pigments (i.e., classes of phytonutrients) in fruits and vegetables. These benefits included improvements in weight management, cholesterol levels, inflammation, heart disease, diabetes risk, cancer risk, and overall mortality. Because different phytonutrients benefit our health in different ways, we have the most health benefits when we eat the full range of them, practically achieved by “eating the rainbow”. And importantly, these are benefits above and beyond total fruit and vegetable intake—meaning, you get more benefit from the same amount of fruits and vegetables if those fruits and veggies are different colors!
You can count every part of the plant that you eat, so some fruits and vegetables count in multiple color families. For example, cucumber (if you eat the peel) counts in both the green color family and the white and brown color family! So, eating the rainbow is easier than you think! And remember, all plant foods count. While most of your color diversity will come from fruits and vegetables, other plant foods like legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices also contribute valuable nutrients and phytonutrients—even if most of them fall in the white and brown color family. (Just because it’s less vibrant than the other color families, that doesn’t mean the white and brown color family is any less important!)
Thinking in terms of the rainbow encourages a more abundant, inclusive approach to food, helping you build a more nutrient-dense, satisfying diet without rigid rules or restriction.
Learn everything you need to know about the Nutrivore philosophy in my book, Nutrivore: Eat Any Food, Get Every Nutrient, and Transform Your Health!
Helpful Tip of the Week
💡Cucumber is a warm season plant and has a long growing time, so you can find them at your local farmers’ market in late summer. Otherwise, they are so widely-cultivated that you can pick them up year-round at any grocery store.
When choosing cucumbers, look for uniformly dark green, firm cucumbers (no wrinkles!), without soft spots or blemishes. Look for cucumbers with rounded ends. If the cucumber has a bulge in the middle, it may indicate there is a large pocket of seeds in the fruit so it’s best to avoid. In general, larger cucumbers have more seeds – so look for smaller, thinner cucumbers.
After bringing cucumbers home, store wrapped in a moist towel in the fridge. They taste best when eaten soon after picked but if you don’t have access to fresh-from-the-vine cukes, they should last for about a week in the fridge, without being cut. However, the sooner you eat them, the better they will taste! After the cucumber has been cut, make sure to wrap the remainder tightly in plastic wrap and in general, make sure to keep them away from other fruits like tomatoes, bananas, and melons as they tend to be sensitive to the ethylene gas they give off.
This Week’s Companion Downloads
📥For paid subscribers, your Companion Downloads this week are:
Phytonutrients in White & Brown Foods - This 1-pager PDF guide summarizes the phytonutrients that give white and brown fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains their distinctive colors and health benefits.
Simple Cucumber Salad Recipe - A beautifully-designed PDF version of this week’s recipe that you can save or print out, to build your own personalized Nutrivore Cookbook week by week.
Check your inbox for the Companion Downloads arriving in a separate email (or if you use the Substack app, they’ll be in their own post). You can also find them in the archive here. Thank you so much for supporting my work and Nutrivore!
Sincerely,
Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, PhD
Founder of Nutrivore