Jackie: Hello welcome to Entertainment! I'm Jackie Dalton. If you're someone

who is quite careful about what you eat and likes to be healthy, then you

might want to find out about what's being hailed as the latest super food.

A 'super food' is a term which we're hearing more and more these days to

describe food that's very good for you. So far, the 'super foods' category

has included blueberries, nuts, tomatoes and garlic. But new research has

found that yet another type of food deserves to be added to the list. And

that's watercress. Watercress is a small leafy green plant that grows in

water and tastes quite strong. It's often used in salads.

Ian Rowland

Watercress has been known for a long time to have beneficial properties.

Jackie: Ian Rowland is a Professor of Human Nutrition and has just done a study

that shows watercress is very good for us. As he just said, it has

'beneficial properties' - a term we often hear to describe things which are

good for our health - 'beneficial properties'. Watercress has been used for

medicinal purposes for many years… that's another expression: if

something is used 'for medicinal purposes' it's used to treat or to prevent

illness. So, since when is watercress known to have been used for

medicinal purposes? Listen to find out.

Ian Rowland

Watercress has been known for a long time to have beneficial properties. It's been

known since the times of the Greeks, the Ancient Greeks that it has been used for

medicinal purposes 

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Jackie: Did you get that answer? Watercress has been used for medicinal

purposes since the times of the Ancient Greeks – a very long time indeed!

Professor Rowland and his team carried out an experiment on volunteers

to see what effect eating watercress would have on them. Two questions

for you to answer this time: how many volunteers took part in the

experiment and how much watercress did they eat each day?

Ian Rowland

We recruited 60 volunteers, who ate a bag of watercress – one bag a day. And these

were a nice cross-section of people, they were 19 to 55 years old, they ate it for 8 weeks.

Jackie: Did you get those answers? They recruited sixty volunteers for the

experiment and they each had to eat a bag a day. Ian said they had a

cross-section of the population, which means it was a group of people

that was typical of the population as whole, with a range of ages,

lifestyles, races and so on.

BBC Learning English

Before we hear from Ian again, a few bits of language that might be

useful to you:

To analyse something – means to examine it very closely

A sample – a sample is a small part or amount of something that's

examined in order to find out something about the whole, doctors

sometimes look at blood samples to find out what is wrong with patients.

DNA – is a substance that carries information in the cells of the body and

controls how our bodies function and change.

Now try to answer this question: what did the researchers look for when

they analysed blood samples from volunteers? 

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Ian Rowland

We analysed the blood samples for the amount of DNA damage in the blood. And

DNA damage, we know, is an important process in the development of cancer.

Jackie: Did you get the answer? The researchers looked for damage to DNA.

Every day our DNA is damaged – that's part of our body's ageing process.

But it is possible to reduce DNA damage. In the experiment, the

researchers found two key things: what were the two things?

Ian Rowland

A decrease in the level of DNA damage in blood cells of those individuals and

furthermore, when we took those blood cells and treated them with a chemical which

caused DNA damage, they were more resistant.

Jackie: Did you get those answers? They found firstly that DNA damage

decreased - went down - in people eating watercress. They also found the

cells were more resistant to chemicals that are known to damage DNA –

they could defend themselves better against bad chemicals. Listen again.

 

Ian Rowland

A decrease in the level of DNA damage in blood cells of those individuals and

furthermore, when we took those blood cells and treated them with a chemical that

caused DNA damage, they were more resistant.

Jackie: So all this suggests that watercress is good at protecting our bodies and

may help us fight against things like cancer. But that's not the only

reason to eat watercress. Tom is a British chef. He is glad watercress has

become part of what he calls the 'super food clique' – a clique is a kind

of special club or group that is not always very easy to get in to. As Tom

points out, there are other things that, at least for people in Britain, make

watercress a good choice. What are they? Try to list at least three. 

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Tom

I'm delighted with this piece of research. It's really nice to see a food sort of enter the

super food clique that's grown in Britain, largely, and all year round it's available… so

it's not like air freighted blueberries, it does taste good, and it's very versatile.

Jackie: Did you catch any of those reasons? Tom says watercress is always

available - it's grown all year round, it tastes good and it's versatile,

which means it can be used in lots of different ways. He points out that

watercress in Britain isn't air freighted, which means it's not flown in

from other countries on a plane because it's grown in Britain.

That's all for this week and if you're not already a watercress eater

perhaps, if you can get it where you are, it's worth trying it out.