Big radish promotes circulatory health

The Sakurajima daikon (from Sakurajima, Japan), otherwise known as the “monster radish,” can use its legendary health properties to guide you to a healthier heart, and not just from the exercise involved in transporting it! The largest Sakurajima radish on record weighed more than 68 pounds with a circumference of over 3 feet.

Researchers writing in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry found that, bite for bite, the monster radish induced more nitric-oxide production than its smaller cousins. When nitric oxide is released into your bloodstream, it causes blood vessels to relax, reducing blood pressure and improving the flow of your circulatory system.

It may be tough to find the Sakurajima radish in grocery stores (they’re grayish-white and the size of pumpkins), but you might come across them at a farmers market, and you can grow your own. NON-GMO seeds are easily purchased online. These behemoths are a little tough, so they’re better when cooked or fermented (that’s how the Japanese prepare them), and that should give you the extra benefit of ingesting a microbiome-enhancer.

Soy for your bones

You may think of soy as a food, but it’s also used in manufacturing. In the 1930s, Henry Ford hired chemists to turn it into artificial silk, which he named Azlon. While Azlon never reached the market, Ford still used soy in his automobile paints, and soy plastics eventually were used to make horn buttons, gearshift knobs and accelerator pedals in all Ford cars.

Now a new study has found that there may be yet another benefit from soy. Turns out that soy milk and other soy foods could help keep bones strong and stave off osteoporosis, a concern for women as they age (24.5 percent over age 65 have the condition). Plus soy milk dodges the worrisome proteins and sat fat in dairy.

For a new study in Bone Reports, researchers divided rats into two groups. For 30 weeks, one ate a soy-based diet, the other a corn-based one. At the study’s end, the leg bones of the rats on the soy diet were significantly stronger. This was true for rats with ovaries and without, suggesting that the benefits could be the same for pre- and post-menopausal women.

So women (and older men — 5 percent of those over 65 have osteoporosis of the femur, neck and lumbar spine) might try adding more soy-based products to their diet.

Email questions for Mehmet Oz and Mike Roizen to youdocsdaily@sharecare. com.