How To Reduce Your Risk Of Coronary Heart Disease With Food

Butter is still the bad guy, according to the newest research. A 30-year study conducted by nutrition researchers at Harvard School of Public Health investigated thousands of consumers’ diets, which revealed changes a person can make when cooking. The findings, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, provide quick swaps a person can make in their diet to improve their heart’s health for the long term.
"Many physicians could benefit from more in-depth nutritional knowledge to help them counsel their patients on changing their dietary practices in a way that will impact their health," said the study’s senior author Frank Hu, a nutrition professor at Harvard School of Public Health, in a press release. "We found that when study participants consumed less saturated fats, they were replacing them with low-quality carbohydrates such as refined grains that are not beneficial to preventing heart disease."
For 24 to 30 years, Hu and his team of researchers examined the diet, lifestyle, and medical history of 84,628 women and 42,908 men. At the start of the experiment, participants had no history of diabetes, heart disease, or cancer, and were followed up every two to four years. By the end of the study, 7,667 incidents of coronary heart disease (CHD) were reported.
Researchers found that when participants ate fewer saturated fatty acids, they replaced with low-quality carbohydrates like white breads or potatoes. But when they did the opposite, and removed saturated fats from their diet and replaced it with healthier fats and good carbohydrates, they saw a drop in their risk for heart disease. For every five calories of saturated fats replaced with polyunsaturated fats, monosaturated fats, and whole grains, participants saw a 25 percent, 15 percent, and nine percent lower risk of heart disease respectively.
Saturated fats typically turn solid at room temperate and occur naturally in many foods like fatty beef, lamb, pork, lard, cream, butter, cheese, and two percent milk. The American Heart Association says as a general rule, when consumers cut back on red meat and dairy products, researchers recommend replacing them with foods that contain healthy fats like salmon, nuts, seeds plant oils, and avocados. Meanwhile, they should avoid foods that are high in refined carbohydrates like white bread and French fries.
Cooking with healthy fats like canola oil, olive oil, or other vegetable oils instead of butter, lard, or margarine could result in a reduced risk. Removing potato chips and cookies from the diet and replacing them with peanuts, almonds, and olives is another way to improve an individual’s risk of heart disease, according to the researchers.
"Our findings suggest that the low-fat, high-carb trends of the 1980s and 1990s are not effective in reducing risk of CHD," said the study’s co-author Yanping Li, a researcher in the Department of Nutrition, in a press release. "It means that individuals should not replace saturated fat with refined carbs or vice versa. Dietary recommendations to reduce saturated fats should specify their replacement with unsaturated fats or with healthy carbohydrates, such as whole grains."

Exploring The Link Between Alzheimer's And The Immune System: New Research Examines Key Protein

Recently, scientists have begun delving into the link between Alzheimer’s disease and the immune system — an area of research that has grown trendier in recent months. One recent study suggested that certain central nervous system lymphatic system vessels did not properly remove buildup of plaque before reaching the brain.
Now, a new study published in Nature Neuroscience further examines the link between dementia and the immune system, concentrating on Alzheimer’s genetic risk factors and how they impact a specific type of immune cell. The researchers hope their work will pave the way for future research and potential treatments.
“There’s an emerging theme in Alzheimer’s genetics that the immune system may be strongly involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Philip De Jager, director of the Program in Translation NeuroPsychiatric Genomics at the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), said in the press release. “Before genetic studies, many thought that inflammation was a symptom of or a reaction to the disease, but our study and others build a compelling case that the immune system may be involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.”
In the study, the researchers analyzed blood samples from 100 young, healthy participants and did the same for 61 older people. They measured the protein levels in monocytes, immune cells that travel throughout the entire body — at times ending up in the brain as well. Once in the brain, monocytes can transform into macrophages, which are designed to adjust to their new environment (such as the nervous system).
The researchers focused specifically on a certain protein known as TREM2, one that has previously been associated with Alzheimer’s. Past research has in fact found that mutations in the TREM2 gene could contribute to Alzheimer’s disease, and some current drugs target it. De Jager and his team reinforced that higher levels of TREM2 indeed lead to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s, and that a genetic variant of a separate protein called CD33 could affect TREM2 levels.
“Up until now, it’s been unclear whether it would be beneficial to increase or decrease TREM2 levels,” Elizabeth Bradshaw, a co-author of the study, said in the press release. “Further studies are needed to understand the connections we’re uncovering and the roles of these proteins, but we’re clearly seeing evidence that these genetic variants have an effect in this type of immune cell.”
Researchers aren’t entirely sure what causes Alzheimer’s disease, but it’s typically believed to be a combination of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. The disease is caused by the buildup of beta-amyloid in the brain, which damages and destroys brain cells, ultimately causing memory loss as well as other dementia-related issues. Making the connection between Alzheimer’s and the immune system is certainly ground-breaking, but more in-depth research will be needed to fully understand the link, and to learn how to properly target it in treatment

Evidence of liquid water found on Mars

Scientists analysing NASA data say they have found evidence of flowing water on the surface of Mars, but caution there is a "long way to go" before they can say if the Red Planet could support life.

Chemical analysis of dark streaks on the surface of the planet has identified the presence of hydrated salts that are the signature of liquid salty water.

"We can safely say that some sort of liquid water activity is involved in the formation mechanism of these," researcher Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta said.

Scientists from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission take part in a Reddit AMA to elaborate on evidence of liquid water flowing on the Red Planet.

"It's been three years of trial and error to get these readings."

Since the discovery of the dark streaks on Martian slopes over a decade ago, astronomers have debated what caused the structures, dubbed "recurring slope lineae".

Are they really a sign of flowing water or are they simply caused by dry grains of material rolling down the slopes of a freeze-dried planet surface?

To date, observations have lacked the fine resolution needed to determine the chemical composition of the streaks, which are typically less than five metres wide.

But today, in findings reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, Mr Ojha and colleagues have solved this problem by combining data from two different instruments aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

Analysis of chemical composition of streaks

PHOTO: Dark, narrow, streaks on the slopes of Horowitz crater. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

Mr Ojha and colleagues analysed the chemical composition of streaks at four different locations on the Martian surface, near the equator (see interactive map below).

"By using the HiRise visible light camera and the CHRISM spectrometer aboard the same spacecraft, we could look at the same surface and acquire both pictures and ... spectra data to tell us about the chemical information at the same time," Mr Ojha said.

The researchers found hydrated salts, which precipitate from water, on all the streaks they examined.

"We detected magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate," Mr Ojha said.

By contrast, the terrain surrounding the transient streaks lacked any spectral signatures for salts.

Mr Ojha and colleagues argue the range of surface temperatures over which the streaks appear supports the hypothesis that water is seeping down slopes on Mars during warm seasons and drying up when the seasons get colder.

On Mars, water freezes into ice at 0 degrees Celsius, and boils at just 10 degrees Celsius because of relatively low air pressure.

But, said Mr Ojha, water containing salts like sodium perchlorate can stay liquid down to minus 70 degrees Celsius, and will not start boiling until temperatures reach as high as 24 degrees Celsius.

Mr Ojha said the perchlorates were also "hydroscopic".

"They can absorb atmospheric moisture, a really amazing process called deliquescence, where they absorb the water vapour from the atmosphere and create a water flow," he said.

Life on Mars? NASA says it's possible

PHOTO: Dark narrow streaks coming out of the walls of Garni crater on Mars a few hundred metres in length.(NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

Earlier this year NASA's Mars Curiosity discovered calcium perchlorates in the soils of Gale Crater, unrelated to the dark streaks.

Those findings, also reported in Nature Geoscience, indicated that the right temperature and humidity conditions existed in Gale Crater at night and just after sunrise during the Martian winter for moisture in the atmosphere to be absorbed by the salts and potentially form salty liquid water.

Mr Ojha said this new discovery meant some places on Mars were more habitable than previously thought, but that did not mean there was life on Mars.

"We're just starting to scratch the surface about these features, and there's a long way to go before we can safely say it is a habitable place or it has biological potential," Mr Ojha said.

"However, if humanity ever goes to Mars, this is probably an excellent source of water for consumption or rocket fuel."

NASA's planetary science director Jim Green described the discovery as revolutionary.

"Mars is not the dry, arid planet we thought of in the past ... it once had extensive water resources," he said.

"Mars suffered a major climate change and lost its surface water. Today we're revolutionising our understanding of this planet."

NASA's associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld added: "It suggests that it would be possible for life to be on Mars today."

Dr Grunsfeld said NASA would not be rushing out to search the newly discovered saltwater residue for life just yet.

"If I were a microbe on Mars, I would probably not live near one of these [sites]," he said.

"I would want to live further north or south, quite far under the surface and where there's more of a freshwater glacier. We only suspect those places exist and we have some scientific evidence that they do."

Astrophysicist Professor Geraint Lewis of the University of Sydney said the new findings were "critical evidence" for the streaks on Mars having formed by flowing, "or at least dribbling" water.

"This new result bolsters the argument for water on the surface of our planetary companion," he said.

Dr Amanda Bauer from the Australian Astronomical Observatory added: "I can simply say that the potential presence of liquid water on the surface of Mars is incredibly exciting because water is essential for life as we know it to exist.

"More work is needed to understand how exactly these seasonal salty water streams are formed on Mars, but the new evidence for water flow is certainly an exciting step forward in understanding water activity on Mars."

University of Arizona planetary scientist Alfred McEwen said it was still unknown whether minerals were absorbing water vapor directly from Mars' thin atmosphere, or if there was a source of melting ice beneath the surface.

Whatever the water's source, the prospect of liquid water, even seasonally, raises the intriguing prospect that Mars, which is presumed to be a cold and dead planet, could support life today.

"It's not necessarily habitable just because it's water - at least to terrestrial organisms," he said.

Scientists have been trying to figure out how Mars transformed from a warm, wet and likely Earth-like planet into a cold, dry desert that exists today.

Billions of years ago, Mars, which lacks a protective, global magnetic field, lost much of its atmosphere.

Several initiatives are under way to determine how much of the planet's water was stripped away and how much remains locked in ice in underground reservoirs.

Five things we would need for people to go to Mars

In the new film The Martian, marooned astronaut Mark Watney has to survive the Red Planet's harsh environment. Just how close to reality is a manned mission to Mars?

"We already have the skills and technology needed to take people to Mars, we just need to build it," says astro-geologist Jonathan Clarke from the Mars Society of Australia.

Skills and technologies needed to get to Mars — such as space navigation, docking, and undertaking spacewalks — were developed during the Gemini missions to put a man on the Moon in Apollo.

We are actually far better prepared for Mars now than NASA was in 1961 as it looked to getting a man on the Moon.

Dr Jonathan Clarke

"We are actually far better prepared for Mars now than NASA was in 1961 as it looked to getting a man on the Moon before the end of the decade and returning him safely to the Earth again," Dr Clarke says.

"If we put our mind to it we could be on Mars in 10 years."

NASA's timeframe is a little longer. The first step is to land astronauts on an asteroid around 2024, then it hopes to land astronauts on the Red Planet in the 2030s.

In the meantime it is testing out a range of technologies on the International Space Station, exploring the surface of Mars with robot landers, and developing space suits, exploration vehicles and deep space habitats to help astronauts live and work on Mars.

According to Dr Clarke, there are five key issues we need to look at in preparation for sending people to Mars.

1. How to survive a long-haul stint in space

Any human journey to Mars would involve a round trip of at least two-and-a-half years, six months to fly there, six months to come home again, and a year-and-a-half on the Martian surface while Mars and Earth move back into the right orbital positions for the return flight.

"We don't know how people will adapt to long periods of Mars gravity which is just 38 per cent of the gravity we have on Earth," Dr Clarke says.

"More than 30 people have already spent more than a year in space, so we already know how to survive long durations in micro-gravity through exercise."

However, Dr Clarke admits more experiments will need to be undertaken aboard the International Space Station to further improve our understanding of how the human body can adapt to micro-gravity.

As part of research into future human missions to Mars, NASA and the Russian Space Agency have started keeping space station crew in orbit on year-long missions.

"We need to fill in the data points of how much exercise people will need, do they need a special diet and so on," Dr Clarke explains.

"I don't think it's a problem, but it is an unknown."

2. How to land a payload the size of a Boeing 737r.

As if surviving a two-and-a-half-year, non-stop journey isn't daunting enough, actually landing a heavy craft on the Red Planet's surface is the "biggest single challenge" a mission will face, Dr Clarke says.

"The Mars Curiosity Rover was the biggest thing we've ever landed on the Red Planet, over two tonnes of payload entered the Martian atmosphere. And when it touched down, the rover itself was over 900 kilograms, the size of a compact car," he explains.

"When we're talking about putting people on Mars, we're talking about spacecraft landing with masses of at least 25 to 60 tonnes. These are big payloads the size of a 737 airliner, which is one-and-a-half orders of magnitude greater than anything we've done before.

"There's no reason we can't do this, but we've actually got to do the engineering to do it, and that's probably a big challenge."

3. Getting out and exploring

Assuming you did actually manage to land your craft in one piece, the next challenge is to explore your new world. With only one third of the gravity of Earth, and an atmosphere made mainly of carbon dioxide, Mars presents challenges for walking and vehicles alike.

The spacesuits used for spacewalks on the Moon and on the International Space Station weigh around 200 kilograms and are very bulky, which would make them unsuitable for Mars, Dr Clarke says.

"These spacesuits are all right for wearing every few months on the space station in micro-gravity, but when you go out exploring on Mars, the spacesuits need to be light and flexible so you can wear them a couple of times a week without getting blisters or injuring yourself.

"Various hard and soft-bodied spacesuits are being evaluated, including mechanical counter-pressure spacesuits which apply stable pressure against the skin by means of skin-tight elastic garments, and which I think are the way to go."

Dr Clarke believes the same applies to vehicles. If you want to explore Mars, travelling up to 100 kilometres from the landing site, you'll need something a little better than the golf buggy-sized lunar rover used by Apollo.

"We're going to need something like a pressurised camper van," says Dr Clarke.

"And NASA have been testing their Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV), a 12-wheeled truck called the Chariot, since 2008."

Without a protective atmosphere like Earth, astronauts on Mars will be exposed to cosmic radiation.

But Dr Clarke doesn't believe radiation will be as much of an issue as some people think.

"People in low Earth orbit get as much solar radiation exposure and about 60 per cent of the cosmic ray exposure they would be subjected to in interplanetary space," he says.

"So if anyone has spent more than 240 days on the space station, they have already had as much radiation exposure as they would get in a shielded spacecraft on a round trip to Mars.

"The combination of the thin Martian atmosphere and the spacecraft or habitat hull would provide enough protection from radiation for 18 months on the surface of Mars.

"So yes it is a factor, but in my view it's not a show stopper."

In the movie, Watney is stranded after a massive dust storm hits the base.

Unlike the movie, however, dust storms are not likely to strand a real astronaut on Mars. The planet's air pressure is 1/99th that of Earth's, not enough to damage major equipment. It just could mean a lot of cleaning.

"Dust is a challenge on Mars but not an insurmountable problem," Dr Clarke says.

"Humans can always clean solar panels manually and use compressed air in airlocks to clean themselves before entering the habitat."

4. How to supply fuel, water, oxygen and food

Another challenge is how to live off the land - for a year and a half.

There are a number of options for making fuel on Mars.

One idea involves splitting the water frozen in the subsurface Martian permafrost into hydrogen and oxygen, both for use as propellant and for the crew to drink and breath.

"You can also extract water from the Martian atmosphere, or bring hydrogen from Earth and react that with the carbon dioxide atmosphere on Mars to make methane and oxygen," says Dr Clarke.

"If you're making 50 tonnes of propellant for ascent in the Martian atmosphere, you can make a few more tonnes to keep your crew alive or to power your vehicle to explore the surface.

"Once you've done that, life on Mars becomes a lot easier. So before you send people to Mars, you send an automated processing plant to the planet's surface to manufacture your fuel, water and oxygen."

But while it's more economical to make fuel on Mars, growing food would be more challenging, says Dr Clarke.

NASA has recently experimented with growing lettuce on the International Space Station.

"Growing their own food has been a major morale boost for crew in both Antarctica and on space stations," he says.

While Clarke believes growing crops will be one of the research projects undertaken by the first humans on Mars, he queries how efficient it will be.

"To actually grow enough food to support people would [require] a substantial area of several hundred square metres per person."

"You've got to process it and you have all the vagaries of maybe the crops won't grow in the Martian soil, or under Martian gravity, or maybe there'll be trace contaminants in the soil which the plants don't like, so it's easier to bring your own food with you.

Unlike transporting fuel which weighs a lot, transporting food from Earth is less of an issue, he says.

"In terms of dry weight it comes down to less than a kilogram per person per day.

"So on a thousand-day mission for six people that's six tonnes of food, the size of a small room and about the capacity of a space station cargo ship."

5. Getting back to Earth

After living on the Red Planet for a year-and-a-half, it's time to embark on the six-month journey home.

Launching from Mars will be easier than launching from Earth, but harder than launching from the Moon because of the higher gravity on the Red Planet.

"It's just a question of building a small compact spacecraft that can take you to Mars orbit, where you can dock with a return spacecraft to take you to Earth," Dr Clarke says.

"It takes less energy so it's easier coming home than going to Mars. But we haven't done it yet."

Ultimately, however, Dr Clarke says the biggest challenge to a mission to Mars will be the socio-political decision to go.

"Are we going to commit to it, and are we going to commit to it being a sustainable project rather than just flags and footprints like the Moon?" he asks.

Positive Lifestyle, Satisfaction Linked To A Particular Pattern Of Brain Circuitry

A strong relationship exists between positive behavior traits and the wiring of your brain, anew Oxford University study finds. While some brains appear to be wired for a lifestyle that includes education and high levels of satisfaction, others appear to be wired for anger, rule-breaking, and substance use, the research suggests.

A single positive-negative axis linked “lifestyle, demographic, and psychometric measures to each other and to a specific pattern of brain connectivity,” wrote the study authors.

The Human Connectome Project, a National Institutes of Health-funded venture which will conclude this year, seeks to create comprehensive diagrams of the brain circuitry for 1,200 adults. To conduct this work, scientists use noninvasive neuroimaging equipment, including customized head coils and cutting-edge MRI hardware. The splendid maps that result show the trajectories of fiber bundles coursing through white matter and functional connections between gray matter regions.

Study participants include a high proportion of twins and their non-twin siblings to help the researchers understand whether brain circuits are inherited. At the same time, all participants have had their genomes mapped so genetic influences on brain wiring can be evaluated. The participants also completed questionnaires and tests measuring behavior and demographic traits.

Importantly, the data is made freely available for scientists around the world to use in their own private studies.

Positive-Negative Axis

For one such study, researchers at Oxford University's Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain accessed completed brain maps from 461 Human Connectome Project participants. Using this data, the team created a general or population-average map of connections among 200 regions of the brain. Then, the team looked at how much, in separate participants, those regions communicated with each other. Essentially, they created a map of the brain’s strongest connections for each participant.

Finally, the team performed a mathematical analysis to compare this imaging data with some old-fashioned facts and figures — specifically, 280 measurements of behavior traits and demographic information. What did this comparison reveal?

Most people fall into one of two groups along an axis created from the two datasets, the scientists discovered. Those with brain wiring patterns at one end of the scale scored highly on measures most people consider "positive," such as life satisfaction, income, vocabulary, memory, and years of education. Similarly, those with patterns at the other end of the scale had high scores for traits most people view as "negative," such as anger, rule-breaking, substance use, and poor sleep.

This positive-negative axis, as the scientists refer to it, apparently spells the difference between a happy life and discontent. With additional studies the team may one day discover why most of us can be found at either end of this scale.

Experimental New Drug Enlists Your Immune System In The Fight Against Cancer

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that there are around 650,000 cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in the U.S. annually. Chemotherapy drugs lower the body’s white blood cell count and block cell growth and replication, which halts cancer cells from growing. Chemotherapy patients, however, become more prone to infections and illnesses with a lowered immune system. So, the obvious next step in chemotherapy drugs would be to create some that make the immune system fight the cancer cells as well. A new study published in Cell describes a class of experimental drugs that are being put through clinical trials, which aim to do just that.

UK researchers found that a protein normally involved in healthy cell growth and its spread, called Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK), tends to be overproduced in tumors, thus helping cancer cells to avoid detection by the immune system. An effect of this is that rather than the immune system working to seek out and destroy cancer cells, it actively protects them. In their research, the team found that the experimental drug acts as a FAK inhibitor, preventing the protein from camouflaging the cancer cells, and allowing the immune system to do its job and destroy them.

The research was tested on mice with squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer. But the researchers believe the drugs would work on other forms of cancer as well. "FAK is hijacked by cancer cells to protect them from the immune system," lead author Dr. Alan Serrels said in a press release. "This exciting research reveals that by blocking FAK, we've now found a promising new way to help the immune system recognize the cancer and fight it."

He went on to state that since the drug is already in the early stages of clinical trials, it has the potential to be an excellent sidekick to existing immunotherapy treatments. "Because it works within tumor cells rather than influencing the immune cells directly," he said, "it could offer a way to reduce the side effects of treatments that harness the power of the immune system against cancer."

Another recent study looking to improve immunotherapy found that adding aspirin to the treatment could lead to better outcomes. Using COX inhibitors, a group of chemicals that aspirin falls under, researchers were able to help stop the production of prostaglandin E2 , which is produced by skin, breast, and bowel cancer cells. These same inhibitors triggered the immune system into action and got it to fight the cancer cells

6 Health Benefits Of Guava Leaves

Guava leaves are just as medicinally useful as the nutritional powerhouse fruit they grow with. The leaves of the guava tree are full of antioxidants, anti-inflammatory agents, antibacterials, and even tannins that can have significant health benefits, from treating stomach troubles to chronic diseases like cancer.
Just like the popular tropical fruit can be made into beverages, jams, and other foods, its leaves can too. They can be brewed to make a tea, for example, which releases beneficial substances like vitamin C and flavonoids like quercetin. Scientific studies have documented the healthful qualities of the superfruit’s leaves, and you can see what they’ve found for a variety of conditions below:

Diarrhea

Drinking guava leaf tea, taking its extract as a capsule, or adding a few drops of the essential oil to a cup of warm water can help loosen the bowels to treat diarrhea. In a 2008 study published in the Journal of Smooth Muscle Research, researchers sought to test the anti-diarrheal properties of guava leaves on rats. They found the extract was able to delay the onset of castor oil-induced diarrhea, decrease the frequency of defecation, and reduce the severity of diarrhea in the rats. This science merits the folkloric use of the plant as a natural remedy for managing and controlling diarrhea.

Obesity

While guava is high in fiber and has a low glycemic index, making it a useful supplement for weight loss, guava leaves and their extract can also help. They do this by inhibiting complex starches from converting into sugars. Typically, the sugar is metabolized by the liver where it gets turned into fat, and then secreted into the blood. This is what contributes to weight gain.

Diabetes

The high fiber content in guava can help manage diabetes by slowing down sugar absorption in the blood. But guava leaf extract can prevent type 2 diabetes from developing, according to a 2010 study published in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism. The study authors used guava leaf tea, which has been approved as one of the Foods for Specified Health Uses, and is now commercially available in Japan. This emphasizes the importance of how a commitment to managing blood sugar levels can prevent type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Revathi Sundaramurthy, a doctor for iCliniq.com, supports the use of guava for diabetics. “Guava has low glycemic index, even diabetic patients can consume guava, which prevents fluctuation in insulin and glucose levels” she told Medical Daily in an email.

High Cholesterol

Regularly taking guava leaf for months can help reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglycerides without any side effects, according to the aforementioned 2010 study from Nutrition and Metabolism. Eating the fruit can also provide the same benefits as guava leaf, as it only has 0.1 grams of saturated fat and 0.2 grams of unsaturated fat, according to the USDA. With such low levels of this fat, it’s no wonder guava helps to reduce cholesterol.

Gastric Cancer

Guava leaf extract is so potent that it has the potential to treat patients with gastric (stomach) cancer. Its anticancer and antitumor properties come from compounds, like lycopene, quercetin, and vitamin C, which work as antioxidants to neutralize free-radical damage in the body. A 2011 study published in the journal Food Chemistry found that when the plant extract is consumed it leads to apoptosis, or gastric cancer cells attacking themselves.
Using guava in its essential oil form can also produce anticancer activity in the body. A 2006 study published in the journal Cancer Letters revealed guava essential oils could slow cancer activity in patients with stomach cancer, due in part to its rich concentration of nerolidiol, caryophyllene, beta bisabolene, p-selinene, aromandreno, tannins, beta sitosterol, leucocyanidins, and triterpenoids.

Prostate Cancer

Guava leaves’ high lycopene content is vital to fighting cancers, such as breast, prostate, and oral. Its cancer-fighting properties help inhibit the production of androgen, which is the male hormone responsible for the growth of cells in some types of prostate cancer, according to a 2012 study published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.
Moreover, Sundaramurthy says the fruit is just as good at preventing cancer, and she attributes its effectiveness to its nutritional content.
“Guava rich in vitamin C, A, antioxidants, and lycopene helps in prevention of prostate and other types of cancers,” she told Medical Daily in an email.
Consult with your doctor before using guava as a substitute to treat these health conditions