People who eat nuts in their adolescence may have a better chance of fighting off breast cancer later in life, according to data from the Harvard Nurse’s Study. A follow-up study involving the daughters of the nurses corroborated the findings. Those eating more peanut butter, nuts, beans, lentils, soybeans, or corn were found to have just a fraction of the risk for fibrocystic breast disease, which places one at higher risk of cancer. The protective effects were found to be strongest for those most at risk, such as those with a family history of breast cancer.

Another study out of the British Journal of Cancer found that even two handfuls of nuts a week may protect against pancreatic cancer, one of our most fatal malignancies.

Nuts are described as “nutritionally precious,” which may explain some of the mechanisms by which nut components induce cancer cell death and inhibit cancer growth and spread in vitro. But which nuts work the best? In my video #1 Anticancer Vegetable, we learned that two classes of vegetables—the broccoli family vegetables and the garlic family vegetables—most effectively suppressed breast cancer cell growth. In Which Fruit Fights Cancer Better?, cranberries and lemons took the title.

What about nuts? In terms of antioxidant content, walnuts and pecans steal the show. Twenty-five walnuts have the antioxidant equivalent of eight grams of vitamin C (the vitamin C found in a hundred oranges).

But how do they do against cancer? In the video, Which Nut Fights Cancer Better?, you can see a graph of human cancer cell proliferation versus increasing concentrations of the ten most common nuts eaten in the United States. If you drip water on these cancer cells as a control, nothing happens. Hazelnuts, pistachios and Brazil nuts don’t do much better. Pine nuts, cashews and macadamias start pulling away from the pack. Almonds appear twice as protective, halving cancer cell growth at only half the dose as pine nuts, cashews, and macadamias. Walnuts, pecans, and peanuts come out as the clear winners, causing a dramatic drop in cancer proliferation at just tiny doses.

More nuttiness:

-Michael Greger, M.D.

PS: If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my free videos here and watch my live year-in-review presentations Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death, More Than an Apple a Day, From Table to Able, and Food as Medicine.