The National Mango Board is touting recent research it funded that shows the fruit possesses what it calls promising health benefits in overall health and fighting breast cancer cells.
Research scheduled to be presented at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego in late April suggests people who eat mangoes maintain a better diet than those that don’t while another study shows the fruit contains a substance that may affect breast cancer cell proliferation.
In the first study, researchers compared the diets of more than 13,000 individuals participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2001 and 2008 to the Healthy Eating Index, which compares people’s diets to federal dietary guidelines.
Researchers found that people who regularly consumed mangoes scored higher on the healthy eating index, and they had lower levels of sodium and total fat. They also maintained lower average body weight, according to a news release by the Orlando, Fla.-based mango board.
“The research adds to the NMB’s body of evidence that mangos are not only delicious but healthy,” said Megan McKenna, the board’s director of marketing. “In addition to helping consumers select and cut mangos, teaching consumers of mango’s nutritional value helps increase mango consumption across the U.S.”
Conducted by Texas A&M University researchers, the other study discovered that a polyphenolic compound in keitt mangoes may be toxic to breast cancer cells. The study found decreased proliferation of breast cancer cells treated with the polyphenolic extract and reduced tumor size and weight in mice.
“In summary, the anti-carcinogenic and anti-inflammatory activity of mango polyphenolics in breast cancer cells were at least in part due to targeting proteins that play an important role in the survival of breast cancer cells,” Susanne Talcott, one of the researchers, said in the release. “The ability for bioactive components in mangoes to reduce cancer promoting cells may be the next big thing in the battle against breast cancer, but more research is needed at this time.”
The mango board said results from the studies should add to the body of evidence suggesting mangoes are a nutritional powerhouse.
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