A new study concludes that eating one banana a day can help prevent several types of cancer. But the banana horn needs to be green, according to the British newspaper, “Daily Mail”. Scientists gave people with a high risk of developing cancer a diet rich in resistant starch, after they found that it reduces the risk of developing some forms of the disease by more than half. Resistant starch is a form of carbohydrates that provides energy for humans, and is found in oats, grains, beans, and to a lesser extent in green bananas. The study, led by British scientists, looked at 1,000 patients with Lynch syndrome, a genetic condition that increases the risk of colon and endometrial cancer, among others. The researchers gave participants a meal of resistant starch, the equivalent of an unripe banana horn, for an average of two years. They concluded that bananas in this form were able to reduce the risk of developing several types of cancer throughout the body by about 60 percent, but it did not reduce the risk of bowel cancer. The protective effect of bananas was especially strong in the face of cancers that strike the upper digestive tract, such as cancer of the esophagus and pancreas, which are difficult to detect. “We found that resistant starch reduced a range of cancers by more than 60 percent,” said John Mather, professor of human nutrition at Newcastle University. Mather added that the effect was more pronounced in the upper part of the gut. “This is important because upper GI cancer is difficult to diagnose and often not detected early,” he added. Mather added that the dose of resistant starch used in the experiment was roughly equivalent to that of an unripe banana. He pointed out that the starch in bananas resists decomposition and reaches the intestines, where it can change the type of bacteria that live there.