Having beans for dinner? You should. Not only do they provide a lot of protein and fiber to your diet, they also are highly nutritious. George L. Hosfield, a research geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and director of bean research at Michigan State University at East Lansing, extols the benefits of beans in the June issue of Bottom Line Health.
Just half a cup of cooked beans contains 8 grams of protein and 7 grams of fiber. It also provides a third of the daily requirement of folic acid, which may decrease the risk for heart attack.
Beans also contain potassium, iron and calcium. The bean’s outer covering is ripe with flavonoids–cancer-protecting antioxidants. The darker the bean, the more flavonoids.
Hosfield says a cup of black beans has the same antioxidant levels as 6 ounces of red wine. (Of course, you may want to have both, to double your benefits–and pleasure.) Because beans have a high-soluble fiber content, they can help lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad,” cholesterol and raise the high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or “good,” cholesterol.
If you avoid beans because of intestinal gas, take a product called Beano before eating them to add the missing enzyme needed to digest the complex sugars the beans contain. Draining and rinsing canned beans also can help eliminate the gas-producing sugars.
Breast treatment
Even though many breast cancers are caught early, physicians worry that the tumors may be the fast-moving type. Thus, they proceed with surgery followed by chemotherapy or other drug regimens that can have highly undesirable side effects. This may change soon as researchers pinpoint better ways to distinguish between slow-growing tumors and more aggressive ones.
A detailed story in the May issue of More magazine discusses treatment options on the horizon that may limit harsh interventions for all but the most dangerous tumors. The article discusses the reliability of minimally invasive biopsies (fine needle, core biopsy needle or a thin vacuum probe) as well as a method for genetically fingerprinting breast tumor genes to better predict which breast cancers will spread.
Non-surgical lumpectomies also are being studied as a way to destroy tumors from the inside with the help of lasers, radio-frequency energy and freezing methods. For those tumors that require radiation, researchers are looking at a way to shorten the treatment from the current five-days-a-week, 6 1/2-week regimen to a compressed radiation of less than a week.
Glaucoma risk
Glaucoma is a condition in which pressure of the fluid within the eye can increase to the point that it threatens the health of the optic nerve, leading to blindness. Yet if diagnosed early, it is possible to delay or prevent the disorder, according to information in the June issue of The Johns Hopkins Medical Letter Health After 50.
Medicare now will cover the cost of glaucoma screening for people with increased risk, such as African-Americans and those with diabetes. Heredity also is a factor.
Long-term, uncontrolled high blood pressure also can cause blood vessel damage, contributing to glaucoma. People age 40 and older with high risk factors as well as those who are 50 or more should be screened for glaucoma every two years.
The pain-free screening should include tonometry, a test that measures intraocular pressure; visual inspection of the optic nerve; and assessment of the visual field, which primarily focuses on peripheral vision.
Pills, eyedrops and ointments can be quite effective in treating glaucoma, according to Dr. Harry A. Quigley, an ophthalmologist at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute.
