Adlay, or Job's tears - our millet of the month in again in December - gets a lot of attention for its nutritional and purported medicinal properties, including possible anti-carcinogenic effects. The grains have long been used in Chinese traditional medicine, and there is ongoing research on effects of the compounds they contain. Several articles show the range of research. I believe that these have not been posted previously to this list, except for the Kuo et al article, which Gary shared last year. * Weng W.F., et al. "Adlay, an ancient functional plant with nutritional quality, improves human health." Frontiers in Nutrition. 2022 Dec 22;9:1019375. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.1019375. PMID: 36618703; PMCID: PMC9815450. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9815450/ ("Adlay has anti-tumor, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, blood sugar-lowering, and blood lipid-lowering effects.") * Chen, Jan-Yow, et al. "Preventive effects of coixol, an active compound of adlay seed, in NGF-differentiated PC12 cells against beta-amyloid25-35-induced neurotoxicity" Asian Biomedicine, vol. 18, no. 5, Sciendo, 2024, pp. 224-235. https://doi.org/10.2478/abm-2024-0030 ("Our novel findings suggested that coixol was a compelling agent against beta-amyloid peptide-induced neurotoxicity.") * Lee C.K., et al. "Adlay Consumption Combined with Suspension Training Improves Blood Lipids and Pulse Wave Velocity in Middle-Aged Women." Healthcare (Basel). 2023 May 15;11(10):1426. doi: 10.3390/healthcare11101426. PMID: 37239711; PMCID: PMC10218412. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10218412/ ("... when adlay was consumed simultaneously [with performing suspension exercises], blood lipids and arterial stiffness were improved [in middle-aged women]") * Oya, Hiroko, et al, "The Effects of Adlay Tea Intake on Immune Homeostasis and Vascular Endothelial Function in Healthy Adults: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Parallel-Group Comparative Study," Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology. 70, 280–287, 2024. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jnsv/70/3/70_280/_pdf/-char/en ("... adlay tea is considered to have a preventative effect against lifestyle-related diseases through improving vascular endothelial function by effects to maintain immune homeostasis of the contained polyphenols.") * Kuo, Ching-Chuan, et al, "Adlay (薏苡 yì yĭ; 'soft-shelled job's tears'; the seeds of Coix lachryma-jobi L. var. ma-yuen Stapf) is a Potential Cancer Chemopreventive Agent toward Multistage Carcinogenesis Processes," Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine, 2(4): 267-275, 2012. ISSN 2225-4110, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2225-4110(16)30112-2. ("... we summarize recent research attempting to study the chemopreventive blocking and suppressing potential of adlay and its active components in scavenging electrophiles and reactive oxygen species, antimutagenicity, enhancing Nrf2-mediated detoxification and antioxidant effect, altering carcinogen metabolism, suppressing proliferation, decreasing inflammation, and enhancing antitumor immunity.") * Ahmad, R.; et al. "Nutritional and Phytochemical Profiles of Wild Adlay (Coix lacryma-jobi L.) Accessions by GCFID, FTIR, and Spectrophotometer." Preprints 2024, 2024020722. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202402.0722.v1 (version not peer reviewed) ("Research progress on functional ingredients on Adlay support the notion that adlay may be one of the best functional foods and further reveal the action mechanism of functional ingredients oils, polysaccharides, phenols, phytosterols, Kanglaite, Coixenolide coixol, Coixolin, naringenin, lactam, and resistant starch for combating diseases") Adlay (Coix lacrymae-jobi) is not grown commercially or at any scale for food (or health uses) in North America. It. or perhaps a hard-shelled variety, is grown sometimes as an ornamental plant. Hard-shelled varieties might be impractical to use for food. Adlay grain is imported as consumer packaged goods, and sold as adlay, Job's tears, or "Chinese barley" (it is not related to barley or pearled barley). You may find it online, or in markets specializing in Asian foods. Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance