SASKATOON (Staff) – A university researcher here thinks he has discovered why flax helps prevent cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Kailash Prasad of the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine says animal studies indicate it’s a component in the meal, not the oil, that does all the good things.
And someday, a capsule containing the flax component might be part of regular treatment against hardening of the arteries and diabetes, Prasad said in an interview.
The work started about four years ago with Prasad using rabbits as test subjects.
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He was following up on studies that indicated it was high alpha-linolenic fatty acids, the so-called Omega 3 factor found in flax and fish oil, that reduced blood cholesterol and reduced the incidence of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.
He fed one group of rabbits a high cholesterol diet to promote atherosclerosis. Another group had the same diet, except they were also fed regular flax seed. The second group had a 46 percent lower incidence of atherosclerosis.
To test if the effect was really the result of alpha-linolenic acid, Prasad repeated the experiment with a very low linolenic variety.
The results surprisingly were much better.
“So we thought it is not the alpha-linolenic acid, it must be something else,” he said.
Meanwhile, scientists at Agriculture Canada’s Saskatoon research station had developed a novel method of separating the components in flax meal, including something called secoisolariciresinol diglucoside, or SDG, an anti-oxidant.
Prasad said anti-oxidants remove toxic substances that damage arterial walls and prepare the way for development of atherosclerosis.
When rabbits on the high-cholesterol diet were also fed SDG, atherosclerosis was cut by 73 per cent.
In another experiment, Prasad fed SDG to rats before attempting to induce diabetes.
“We found that while it didn’t prevent the onset of diabetes 100 percent, it did prevent 77 percent. That’s# not bad actually,” he said.
Prasad has submitted his research for publication in medical journals and for peer review.
The next step is to apply to begin human trials and that work could take several years. But in the meantime, Prasad encourages people to eat foods containing flax in moderation.
“They were eating it already. Someone said it’s a health food so eat it. Now they will know why they are eating it.”
