Eat the ‘right’ carbs — the cancer-killing ones

Carbohydrates have a bad rap. They can spike your blood sugar and add inches to your waist, no doubt, if you’re not careful. But low-carb dieters and Paleo enthusiasts may be doing themselves a big disservice by eschewing them altogether.

That’s because if you want to resist colon cancer, a starch known as “resistant” starch offers a way to lower your risk.  You can consume this special starch in a variety of foods, but to reap their cancer-fighting benefits you have to eat them the right way…

“Resistant starch is found in peas, beans and other legumes, green bananas, and also in cooked and cooled starchy products like sushi rice and pasta salad. You have to consume it at room temperate or below — as soon as you heat it, the resistant starch is gone.

But consumed correctly, it appears to kill pre-cancerous cells in the bowel,” says researcher Janine Higgins, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Here’s how it works…

Your digestive tract can’t break down resistant starch, but the probiotic bacteria in your gut are crazy about it. By the time this starch reaches your colon, it stimulates the production of beneficial short-chain fatty acids. The result according to research: less harmful inflammation in the bowel and an increase in the death of pre-cancerous cells.

“Resistant starch may also have implications for the prevention of breast cancer,” Higgins says. “For example, if you let (lab animals) get obese, get them to lose the weight, and then feed half of (the) rats a diet high in resistant starch — these (animals) don’t gain back the weight as fast as (those) fed a regular, digestible starch diet.  This effect on obesity may help to reduce breast cancer risk as well as having implications for the treatment of colorectal cancer.”

But while you may not want to eat your potatoes and peas uncooked or your bananas green, at least if you have a hankering for pasta, you now know that eating it cooled, dished up as pasta salad, is something you can feel good about.