The newest superfood: How a purple potato helps lower blood pressure and doesn't make you put on weight (?)

This is a tiny study over a short period of time and seems to have been conducted without a control group! Quite worthless

Health-conscious cooks could soon be serving up a new superfood – the purple potato. Provided it is cooked without fat, it has been proved to reduce blood pressure and doesn’t even make you put on weight.

The deep colour of the Purple Majesty variety comes from the same compounds found in blueberries, blackberries, blackcurrants, red cabbage and aubergines.

U.S. researchers found that when eaten by overweight patients with high blood pressure, it was as effective as porridge oats in lowering their reading.

The experts monitored 18 volunteers, who ate six to eight golf-ball-sized potatoes with skins twice daily for a month. Their average diastolic blood pressure dropped by 4.3 per cent and the systolic pressure decreased by 3.5 per cent.

If your GP says your blood pressure is ‘140 over 90’, it means you have a systolic pressure of 140 and a diastolic pressure of 90.

High blood pressure associated with obesity can result in strokes and early death.

Purple Majesty contains an abundance of polyphenols, natural nutrients which are said to play a part in decreasing the risk of heart disease, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. The colour comes from anthocyanins, a group of health-enhancing polyphenols.

The study findings could help resurrect the reputation of the potato, which is seen by dieters as a food to avoid. It also fails to qualify as one of five vegetable and fruit portions which should be eaten each day.

Dr Joe Vinson, who led the research at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, said: ‘The potato, more than perhaps any other vegetable, has an undeserved bad reputation that has led many health-conscious people to ban them from their diet.

‘Mention potato and people think “fattening, high-carbs, empty calories”. In reality, when prepared without frying, and served without butter, margarine, or sour cream, one potato has only 110 calories and dozens of healthful phytochemicals and vitamins. We hope our research helps to remake the potato’s nutritional image.’

Despite the livid colour, the purple potato tastes similar to the more conventional varieties with white flesh.

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Steve Jobs doomed himself by shunning conventional medicine until too late, claims Harvard expert

Steve Jobs would probably be alive today if he had not put off conventional medical treatment in favour of alternative remedies, a leading cancer doctor has said.

Dr Ramzi Amri, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, claims the Apple boss had a mild form of cancer that is rarely fatal and that his choice of treatment 'eventually led to an unnecessarily early death'.

Writing on Quora, a forum frequented by Silicon Valley executives, Dr Amri said: 'Let me cut to the chase - Mr Jobs allegedly chose to undergo all sorts of alternative treatment options before opting for conventional medicine.

'Given the circumstances, it seems sound to assume that Mr Jobs' choice for alternative medicine has eventually led to an unnecessarily early death.'

Mr Jobs died earlier this month due to respiratory arrest caused by pancreatic cancer. He was 56. His death certificate, released by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department this week, said that Mr Jobs had a 'metastatic pancreas neuroendocrine tumor' and there would not be an autopsy. The certificate also stated that Mr Jobs had the cancer for eight years before his death and that he was first diagnosed in October 2003.

Dr Amri claimed that Mr Jobs succumbed to the disease more quickly because of his apparent refusal to embrace 'conventional treatment', especially over the last year, the period when he visibly began to lose weight. The pancreatic cancer expert wrote: 'It seems that even during this recurrent phase, Mr Jobs opted to dedicate his time to Apple as the disease progressed, instead of opting for chemotherapy or any other conventional treatment.'

For nine months between his diagnosis in 2003 and at least July 2004, Mr Jobs 'decided to employ alternative methods to treat his pancreatic cancer, hoping to avoid the operation through a special diet ', according to a 2008 CNN Money article.

But the rapid advance of the cancer caused Mr Jobs to undergo an operation known as a 'Whipple procedure' in which he had his pancreas and duodenum removed. Dr Amri suggests that this procedure, which is only undertaken if the cancer is quickly spreading, might not have been necessary had the Apple CEO pursued conventional medicine sooner.

He wrote: 'The only reason he'd have a transplant would be that the tumour invaded all major parts of the liver, which takes a considerable amount of time.'

Dr Amri claims that had Mr Jobs had the cancer surgically removed immediately after the disease was diagnosed then he may well have survived with 'no residual side-effects'. He added that as Mr Jobs had comparatively mild neuroendocrine tumors, compared to the far more aggressive pancreatic adenocarcinoma tumours that 95 per cent of pancreatic cancer sufferers have. He wrote: 'In my series of patients, for many subtypes, the survival rate was as high as 100 per cent over a decade.'

Dr Amri said he had the 'profoundest respect for Mr Jobs and his legacy' and did not wish to offend anyone with his comments.

But he added: 'I have done 1.5 years of research on the type of tumour that affected Steve Jobs and have some strong opinions on his case, not only as an admirer of his work, but also as a cancer researcher who has the impression that his disease course has been far from optimal.'

When contacted by website Gawker, Dr Amri said: 'I wrote that on a personal title and it's my personal opinion.'

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