Live Longer? Eat Bing Cherries

Yet one more thing we should eat if we want to live to 100 (or thereabouts).  According to medicaldaily.com, "For those who are at risk of developing an inflammatory disease, eating 45 Bing cherries a day can lower the risk of developing chronic inflammatory diseases," suggests a recent study.

 Now, you may think, but I don't have a chronic inflammatory disease.  If you have rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes, you've had one. More than 50 million Americans suffer from these diseases.

 But here's an even better reason to pop some cherries into your mouth.  Cancer is now thought to begin as inflammation in the body. If eating Bing cherries can stop or slow it, why not eat them?  And besides, they taste great, too.

 The results of the study showed that consuming 45 Bing cherries a day for 63 days can "lower the levels of nine biomarkers for chronic inflammatory diseases, such as arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease."

 "Cherries are just a head-to-toe anti-imflammatory," James Michael, vice president of marketing for Northwest Growers and Washington State Fruit Commission, told Kristi Pihl of the Tri-City Herald in 
Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, Washington.
 A grower in the mid-Columbia area there said his grandmother always used to say cherries made her arthritis better, "and maybe she was right," Pihl reports.

 What are some other anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer foods to eat? Dark green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale; garlic; grapes and grape juice; green tea; tomatoes and whole grains.  

 I don't know if you'll live any longer but you'll sure eat better!

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