Beans for breast cancer? and liver health?

Maybe yes! Packed with magnesium, and other trace minerals, protein, and fiber, beans maybe a super food of Mediterranean and other cultural diets. Less processed beans promoted AMPK & the microbiome.

Jun 03, 2023

Beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner is the recommendation for liver health by Karen Hurd and beans may also aid in breast cancer treatment or prevention.

Karen Hurd Bean Protocol for aiding detox and liver health.

The diet balance suggested below is promoting a moderate carb, good protein diet, and includes a lot of beans. Beans are filling because they are starchy so increasing beans means we need to reduce other starches to be calorie neutral. And many people may need to reduce even more if currently following a higher carb standard US diet (50-55% of total calories from carbs rather than a moderate 30% or a very low amount that can promote ketosis). Moderate or lower carb diets seems to help with chronic inflammatory conditions or weight loss.

An AI summary: “The Karen Hurd Bean Diet, also known as the Bean Protocol, is a system developed by Karen Hurd, a biochemist who healed her family from household pesticide poisoning in 1989¹. The protocol includes²:
A cup of lentils or beans three to six times a day.
3 – 5, 1/2 cups of vegetables per day, or 1 1/2 cup servings of leafy greens. Potatoes and corn and are considered starches and not vegetables so are not allowed.
Three servings of lean protein every day.”

From source (1), How I got started on the Bean Protocol (and how you can too!):

“I began with integrating beans into my diet. It’s really as simple as that. As I got more into the process and took Karen’s course which wasn’t until a few months into the protocol, I came to understand it all a bit more and I made sure to eat fats separately from my beans. This allowed for the insoluble fiber in the beans to bind to as many of the toxins (excess hormones, heavy metals, etc) as possible.” (KristenDonia.com)

Source (2) Karen Hurd Bean Diet for Detoxing Your Body, By Sandy Halliday

Karen Hurd’s website for product or course information - spoiler alert - there isn’t much information available for free. (karenhurd.com) She has been helping people clinically since 1994 and has a book of bean recipes for sale on the site. As an example of her condition specific courses see the testimonials regarding Crohn’s disease/colitis - people lose feet of their intestines and have little hope for relief with current medical care. (The Ten Brothers: Heal Crohn's Disease, UC, & more (mylearnworlds.com) $300 for a multiple video course and email contact with Karen is not a bad price for answers that actually help restore function.

A specialist medical doctor often bills $300 or more per hour, and that may just be to talk about symptoms and next steps for labwork and other diagnostic screenings - treatment will not be brought up for a while yet. I provide information for free that other clinicians would be charging for within a course or book or series of appointments.

My approach is one of Public Health - all people deserve access to health education information that will help them. Far too much of current ‘healthcare’ is wrong and I hope more clinicians and patients can find their way through the ineffective recommendations to those that can help restore normal function. For-rofit ‘science’ has been used against us for too long - wrong info is believed at generational levels - We just KNOW this is true - and that kind of belief is a nocebo - a negative placebo. We can set up problems by thinking they exist - and then soon they do.

Beans for breast cancer?

Dishes with whole beans and legumes help promote AMPK in the breast cancer tumor and mammary gland of animals fed a bean containing diet compared to the control group with standard diet. (Thompson, Neil, McGinley, 2020) (mdpi.com)

Effect of common bean consumption on the gut associated microbiome in an in vivo screening model for breast cancer. Sciforum-037577 Henry Thompson, Elizabeth Neil, John McGinley, 2020.
Abstract: The Nurses Health Study indicated that consumption of common bean reduced risk for breast cancer. This observation was replicated using a well characterized rodent model for mammary carcinogenesis and the effect of common bean was shown to be dose dependent. However, when low molecular weight fractions of bean were evaluated for growth inhibitory activity against established breast cancer cell lines, no inhibition was observed. Given that in vitro screens for anticancer activity are designed to detect antiproliferative and/or proapoptotic effects that decrease cell number, we reasoned that it might be possible to create a cell number accumulation assay for screening foods such as common bean in vivo by using an oncogene driven model for breast cancer. The advantage of this approach is that the system detects effects in the host that may be mediated by the gut microbiome. [This is an animal-based study]
»Here we report the characterization of an in vivo mammary cell accumulation assay driven by the PYMT oncogene and show that bean feeding reduced the accumulation of cells in developing mammary pathologies by 40% (p<0.01).
As a potential mechanism, we also report the impact of bean consumption on the gut associated microbiome as a potential mediator of cancer preventive activity. Based on 16s rRNA sequencing of genomic DNA extracted from the cecum, significant differences were observed between common bean and the control diet in microbial phylogenetic diversity (4.25 vs 4.98, respectively, p=0.009), beta diversity (Bray-Curtis Permanova, p=0.008), and abundance for various detected taxa (84 differed significantly at FDR <0.05). Predicted functional activity of the metagenome (evaluated by PICRUSt/STAMP) will be reported.
[…] “Our previously published work has shown that AMP activated protein kinase (AMPK) is activated in the mammary gland and tumors of bean fed animals [10]. That observation was confirmed in this model system (Figure 2B).” (Thompson, Neil, McGinley, 2020) (mdpi.com)

Low molecular weight (MW) protein is a mixture that is processed in some way to leave only smaller proteins: “Low MW proteins – generally any protein with a MW less than 20 kDa” (ptglab.com) Our microbiome must need the larger molecular weight protein too, or maybe the fiber and other large molecules found in beans.

Whole foods versus ultra-processed affects our health and that of our microbiome.

That suggests that over-refined bean protein products may not be beneficial for a breast cancer therapeutic diet as they may not support the microbiome diversity similarly to more whole bean foods.

I make pea protein shakes for my mother now that she is eating less texture and therefore less variety and they are expensive. So, I am also making more creamy puree or split pea soup and she likes that too. White beans, Great White Northerns, are high protein with a tender coating and they make a thickened creamy broth when simmered for a while past initial doneness of the beans. Red lentils need to be rinsed thoroughly before cooking like split peas, no pre-soak needed, and also make a thickened creamy sauce rather than staying in bean shape.

Cooking technique can help reduce gassiness and improve digestibility.

Lectins in beans can help us according to the Karen Heard diet, but also may individually be troublesome according to Dr D-Adamo’s information on blood type and food lectins causing agglutination in some types but not others.

When starting to add more beans to the diet, it also helps to go slowly to reduce gassiness from too enthusiastic of a microbiome boost. Start with a couple tablespoons in other foods, then a side dish and then an Entree amount over a few weeks. The Karen Heard diet recommendation is for frequent use throughout the day, so a smaller amount several times a day can also be a way to gradually increase use of beans.

Pay attention to which types of beans or other foods leave you feeling good. Not all beans may seem as digestible or health promoting on an individual basis, so pay attention to what leaves you feeling better later on and also the next day.

Gassiness from helping the microbiome too much, can be reduced by cooking beans with a piece of Kombu seaweed or adding a couple teaspoons of Gumbo file spice at the end of the cooking.
- I am not sure if Bay Leaves effect gassiness but adding several large leaves at the beginning of cooking does seem to improve my bean soup. Those leaves stay firm and do need to be removed at the end if cooking.
- Pomegranate inner pith also helps thicken broth and aids the microbiome and promotes AMPK. I use one to two tablespoons powdered dried inner pith for two quart/two pound batch of beans or two to four minced fresh inner pith. Adding a phospholipid source (leaves) aids creaminess by acting as an emulsifier and forming liposomes which may also increase bioavailability of nutrients in the broth. Hydrolyzable tannins in the pomegranate peel thicken soup by the tannins forming larger clusters and can be soothing to the gut in moderation. Too much is an irritant.

Pre-soaking the larger beans and dumping out the soak water can also help reduce gassiness.
Boiling more vigorously for about ten minutes at the beginning of cooking and then reducing to a simmer may reduce oxalate content.
To reduce glyphosate exposure, I do try to buy organic beans and strictly only buy non GMO or organic tofu as the Round-up Ready type makes me sicker. Glyphosate may be used as a drying agent on sone garbanzo and other beans. Hummus has been found to be a source of glyphosate, sadly.
Pay attention to what leaves you feeling good versus inflamed the next day (puffy, pain, tired, flu-ish) or with lingering digestive upset. Keeping a food log and noting unusual symptom changes can help identify if foods were involved. Increased stress, change of weather, new cellphone tower installed on the block - other things can be factors in chronic inflammatory conditions.
- →And consider other ingredients in a dish. If red lentil curry is a problem, it might actually be the turmeric, hot pepper and ginger which are TRP channel activators, rather than a sensitivity to red lentils.
- Carrots are something I always added to split pea and bean soup and then it turned out to be carotenoids causing me inflammation from a longterm problem with overactivation to Retinoic acid. Oh, good to know. Now I add parsnips to my split pea soup.
- I always used Brown rice with beans and then was having a bowel flair and learned brown rice has more oxalate than white. It wasn't a new sensitivity to beans as I was suspecting, it was excess oxalate load.

Delphinidin, a plus, vs oxalate, a negative:

Oxalate is an additive digestive problem - cocoa, coffee, tea, black bean or almond skins, and kale, all are high oxalate and it can form sharp needle like crystals which feel like sharp needle like crystals in your digestive tract or bladder - not pleasant. Adequate calcium in the diet helps with breakdown of the chemical instead of crystal formation.

Black lentils or black beans are a delphinidin source (protects against misfolded proteins in Alsheimer’s or other conditions) but are also an oxalate load. Black chickpeas are more brownish, also a good delphinidin source but are lower oxalate. The soaking liquid is delicious and a standard use is to soak a cup or handful overnight, drink the liquid as a health aid, and just eat the soaked, softened chickpeas. The peel is tougher and higher fiber than standard chickpeas. See: Kala Channa, Black Chickpeas (epicurious.com).

Kombu in bean soup - extra creaminess, less gassiness.

Kombu seaweed, Emerald Cove brand. Non-GMO verified. Plastic neutral company.

The directions in various places say to remove the piece of kombu at the end of cooking your broth or beans or sweet potatoes, however as I simmered white beans the outer green flaked off the piece of Kombu leaving a translucent inner leaf. Then I forgot the soup for an hour and overcooked it to extreme creaminess. By then the Kombu was gone →now part of the extreme creaminess I think.

With a little additional broth the beans and parsnip/onion/garlic/thyme/rosemary made a good puree soup for my mom (who has Alzheimer’s and probably breast cancer too now, but that is not officially diagnosed). Combined with soft-cooked asparagus and its broth, the overcooked white bean soup made a tasty cream of asparagus soup. I added a drop of lemongrass essential oil to boost the flavor.

Add seasonings at the end of cooking to preserve phytonutrients, which are what add the bright colors and inviting aromas — and medicinal benefits.

Kitchen math regarding bean, peas, lentils.

A pound of dry beans is about two and a half cups while split peas or lentils are compact and measure about two cups in a pound. Cooking a pound of legumes with 6 cups of water, (after a presoak for larger beans and dump that water), will make a brothy bean or split pea soup or red lentil sauce. Use less water or stock for firmer beans that don't leave much broth at the end of cooking.

Softer longer simmered beans and lentils will be easier to digest. Save energy and free yourself from the stove by cooking beans through the initial harder boil stage and once mostly cooked put the hot pot with a lid on in an insulated container like wrapped in a fleece blanket and left in a Styrofoam ice chest. It retains the cooking heat at a steam table level of warmth and will continue to soften the beans. Pressure cookers or Crock pots may also be handy for beans.

Presoaking can occur with cold water overnight or ~ 8 hours. Or bring the beans to a boil in a generous amount of water and then remove from heat and leave covered for one hour before cooking.

Larger beans take about an hour and a half to cook while lentils and split peas may be done in 45 minutes to an hour.

Brown lentils may even be recommended to cook with a one cup water to one cup lentils ratio for a firmer texture that can be used in Sloppy Joe style sandwich fillings, wraps, or other salads. Brown lentils may be harder to digest for sensitive guts than split peas or red lentils.

My basic bean soup recipe from before I learned of Retinoid Toxicity is at the end of page G8. Cookies & Bean Soup, (effectivecare.info). It includes sweet potato and carrots. I was making myself sicker feeling. Arrgh. Knowledge is power.

Other recipes using legumes:

‘Green Salad’ Recipe, (substack), peas and seasoned tofu, avocado and green Bell pepper.
Excerpt regarding lectins: Some lectins - plant protein chemicals - react more with some blood types - blood cell surface marker chemicals - than other blood types. The blackberries that are a super beneficial food for people with blood type A can be a lectin irritant for people with blood type O.
- See Dr. D’Adamo’s work for more information. ‘Eat Right 4 Your Type’ is one of his books. “Lectins and Blood Type”, Peter D’Adamo, Type O, A, B, and AB, are the four. He also gets into other serotyping but I don’t remember many details about the greater minutia.
- Examples of the four blood type groups and ‘superfoods’ for fighting seasonal allergies vary a little bit with some overlaps: 4yourtype.com/blog/Alleviate Seasonal Allergies with the Blood Type Diet: Eat Right 4 Your Type/

Pistachio Sumac Pilaf - recipe (substack.com), with peas.
New Year, new recipes - (substack.com), Black-eyed peas - history and a soup.

Disclaimer: This information is being shared for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health guidance.