Flaxseed may be on everyone's lips -- and in everyone's cereal -- but this new darling of the plant world has been around for more than 4,000 years, known even in the days of Hippocrates for its healthful benefits.
Flaxseed has been a part of human and animal diets for thousands of years in Asia, Europe, and Africa, and more recently in North America and Australia, says Kaye Effertz, executive director of AmeriFlax, a trade promotion group representing U.S. flaxseed producers. As flax gained popularity for its industrial uses, however, its popularity as a food product waned, but it never lost its nutritional value. "Today flax is experiencing a renaissance among nutritionists, the health conscious public, food processors, and chefs alike," says Effertz.
The reason for the increasing interest in flaxseed is its apparent benefits for a host of medical conditions, says Roberta Lee, MD, medical director of the Center for Health and Healing at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in New York.
Flaxseed is very high in omega-3 essential fatty acids, Lee explains. It's the omega 3s -- "good" fats -- that researchers are looking at in terms of their possible effects on lowering cholesterol, stabilizing blood sugar, lowering the risk of breast, prostate, and colon cancers, and reducing the inflammation of arthritis, as well as the inflammation that accompanies certain illnesses such as Parkinson's disease and asthma.
In addition to the omega-3s, the remaining two components of flaxseed -- lignans and fiber -- are being studied for their health benefits as well, says Diane Morris, PhD, RD, spokesperson for the Flax Council of Canada. Lignans, for example, act as both phytoestrogens and antioxidants, while the fiber contained in the flaxseed is of both the soluble and insoluble type. "Flax is an interesting mixture of nutrients and other components," says Morris.
Though studies conducted to date have been limited in scope and small in nature, their results are promising, says Morris. In a small Canadian study of 39 women, for example, researchers from the University of Toronto found that flaxseed may boost conventional treatment for breast cancer. In the study, reported in the American Institute for Cancer Research Newsletter in 1998, postmenopausal women with breast cancer ate either a plain muffin or a muffin containing 25 grams of flaxseed oil every day for approximately five-and-a-half weeks. Of the 29 out of the 39 women who ate both muffins, researchers found reductions in the growth of their tumors.
These results were encouraging, says Morris, but she adds, "It's just one study." The favorable results of that study, however, are leading to others. At the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, Calif., for example, investigators are also looking into the effect of essential fatty acids on breast cancer, says Rachel Beller, MS, RD, director of the Brander Nutritional Oncology Counseling and Research Program. But here, too, says Beller, it's too soon to have any conclusive findings.
