Vegetables are not everyone’s favorite hot plate, and understandably so. However, despite their unappealing taste, health experts continue to discover new health benefits associated with vegetables.
Apart from their known benefits on the waistline and muscles, Australian researchers recently revealed that green, leafy vegetables are good for your heart.
Nitrate rich vegetables and blood pressure
The researchers from Edith Cowan University conducted a study that revealed that nitrate-rich vegetables, beetroot, and leafy greens lower blood pressure and the associated risk of developing heart complications.
The study says that taking a cup of raw leafy greens every day could give you a 26% lower chance of developing heart disease later in life. These nitrate-rich vegetables include broccoli, kale, spinach, cabbage, and lettuce.
Researchers studied records from over 50,000 people who took part in the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health Study. The records followed up each participant’s health and dieting habits for 23 years.
The results showed that those who ate the most nitrate-rich vegetables had lower systolic blood pressure by 2.5 mmHg. The systolic number in a blood pressure reading is the first or upper number and shows how the individual’s blood is applying on the artery walls when the heartbeats. Furthermore, the researchers found out that participants who ate the leafiest greens had 12 to 26% lower chances of developing cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Catherine Bondonno, one of the study authors, explains that their study reveals how eating a cup of vegetables every day can help lower cardiovascular disease risk. She adds that peripheral artery disease was the most significant reduction with up to 26%. The disease is characterized by narrowing in the legs’ blood vessels. However, they also discovered a lower risk of strokes, heart attacks, and heart failure.
Using supplements instead of natural vegetables
Although the dietary supplement market is booming in most countries, including the US, the researchers say that you don’t need them to get the nutritional benefits of leafy greens. They discovered that eating a cup of vegetables every day would do the trick and did not find any additional advantages of exceeding this limit.
