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Eat more fruits and vegetables to reduce risk of breast cancer, researchers say

As if you didn’t have enough reasons to eat your fruits and vegetables, a new Harvard study shows that women whoย get their daily servings, or more, have a lower risk of breast cancer, especially aggressive tumors, than those who eat fewer servings of fruits and veggies. Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, and yellow and orange vegetables, had a very strong link to lower risk of breast cancer. In the study, lead by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, researchers analyzed diet questionnaires from the Nurses’ Healthy Study (88,301 women, starting in 1980) and the Nurses’ Health Study II (93,844 women, starting in 1991). They found that women who ate 5.5 servings of fruit and vegetables each day had an 11% lower risk of developing breast cancer than those who ate 2.5 servings or fewer. (A serving is defined as one cup of raw, leafy vegetables, a half…

Guts bring glory: microbiomes of elite athletes may mean an edge

Elite athletes often work their entires lives to excel in their sport, but new research shows they may also get a slight edge from their digestive tracts. Scientists have tapped into the microbiome of elite runners and rowers to identify certain bacteria that may be responsible for aย boost in their athletic performance. “When we first started thinking about this, I was asked whether we could use genomics to predict the next Michael Jordan,” says Jonathan Scheiman, Ph.D., fellow in the laboratory of George Church, Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School. “But my response was that a better question is: Can you extract Jordan’s biology and give it to others to help make the next Michael Jordan?” To identify which bacteria support athletic performance, researchers collected daily samples of 20 athletes training for world-reknown Boston marathon in 2015. The microbiomes were then examined for changes between performance and recovery. In studying the…