Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts

Fruit Health

Fruit Health

With our ever-increasing knowledge towards proper nutrition and illness prevention, fruit health has become an important cornerstone for many who want to embrace a healthier lifestyle. Barely two decades ago, most of us relied on medication as the cure to our major or minor ills. Today, people look to fruits and vegetables as the backbone of a healthier diet designed to prevent illness, not cure it once it has set in. That transformative mind-set is the key reason why more and more people are eating larger portions of fruits on a daily basis to help them achieve their personal health goals.

The secret to this sudden interest in fruit health lies in the following important facts:

· Fruits are an abundant source of vitamins and minerals. Each fruit is different in this regard as different fruits offer different concentrations of vitamins and minerals. Citrus fruits like oranges, tangerines, and grapefruit are rich in Vitamin C while yellow fruits like mango and papaya boast high concentrations of Vitamin A. Bananas are a great source of potassium for heart health. If you want to increase your intake of a specific vitamin to boost the health of the different organ systems in your body, you can simply pick the right fruit with the corresponding vitamin content.

· Fruits are also rich in antioxidants which are extremely useful for mitigating many types of diseases. Cherries, for example, are well known to counteract the effects of gout and many other types of arthritis due to its high anthocyanin and bioflavonoid content. Pineapples are rich in beta carotene and phytochemicals which help fight cancer. Tomatoes contain generous concentrations of lycopene. One of the biggest reasons why fruit health is gaining traction is because of our improved knowledge on the benefits of antioxidants as highlighted by the fruits that offer these health-giving substances.

· Fruit has a low-calorie content which makes it great as a snack alternative. One of the biggest health problems today is obesity, which is primarily due to fast food-based diets that pack a lot of fats, calories and carbs. Junk foods are equally to blame as the easier access to all types of junk foods has increased the incidence of obesity in young children. Fruits are great snack alternatives mainly because of their vitamin and mineral content, as mentioned above, but also because fruits don't have as much calories. A serving of cherries, for example, only contains about 70 calories while an equivalent serving of corn or potato chips can have as much as 240 calories. Keeping obesity and its related illnesses therefore requires greater focus on fruit health via fruits as a healthy alternative to junk or pre-packaged food snacks.

Fruit health is something that is available to everyone and works much better from the perspective of disease prevention than any other medication will once an illness has set in. If you truly want to be healthy, slimmer and disease-free, you can benefit from increasing your daily intake of fruits so you can power your body with the vitamins, minerals, nutrients, and antioxidants that are widely abundant in every serving of fresh fruit.

If you would like to know more about the nutritional content of different fruits, be sure and look at our articles on each individual fruit. This will give you a good idea why fruit health can be so advantageous to our overall health.

www.fruithealthbenefits.com/fruit-health-facts.shtml

Robert Perry specializes in writing medical related articles and the building of income producing niche websites, usually using Google AdSense ads. For $100 he builds a 5 article website that the search engines love.

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The Top Health Benefits Of Blueberries

When it comes to antioxidants and their health benefits, guess which fruit tops the lot. Everyone knows that antioxidants are crucial to maintain and recover our health, and blueberries, out of all the fruits and vegetables contain the most.

These tasty berries are one of the few fruits native to North America. The berries, leaves and roots were used for medicinal purposes, and by looking at the health benefits explained below, you will understand why.

Heart Health - Heart diseases are no laughing matter so you need to protect your ticker from all those diseases. The vast antioxidants, high fiber content and the ability to dissolve LDL (the bad cholesterol), makes blueberries an ideal dietary supplement to cure many heart diseases.

Many studies show that red wine is good for the heart and that this is due to its source of a phyto nutrient called anthocyanin. This nutrient so happens to be found in blueberries as well, with the difference that blueberries contain 38% more of anthocyanins, than in red wine.

Eye Health - Due to their ability to relieve eyestrain, blueberries in Japan are actually nicknamed "the vision fruit". The various vitamins, minerals and lutein (a carotenoid pigment found in plants and egg yolk) found in blueberries are known to help age related vision problems like cataracts and macular degeneration.

A study published in the Archives of Ophthalmology indicates that eating 3 or more servings of fruit per day can lower your risk by as much as 35% of age related macular degeneration (ARMD), which is the main cause of vision loss in adults.

In World War II the British Air Force pilots were often given bilberry preserves (a cousin of the blueberry family) before they flew for their night missions, so as to improve their night vision and to adapt to different levels of light.

Reduces Belly Fat - A study in the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center study showed that blueberry intake affected genes linked to fat burning and storage. The test subjects were rats that were fed powdered freeze-dried blueberries. The results were that these rats had less abdominal fat, lower cholesterol and lower triglycerides (blood fats). Of course more studies are needed to prove these same findings on humans.

Brain Health - A few studies have shown that blueberries can improve brain function and can combat the start and the progression of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Studies have also shown that by regular intake of these small berries, they can repair damaged brain cells improving the overall functionality of the brain.

A small study by the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center reviewed the effect of daily consumption of wild blueberry juice on older adults. After 12 weeks the participants with the blueberry juice intake showed improved memory function.

Anti-Cancer Benefits - Another nutrient that blueberries contain in abundance is a flavonoid by the name of kaempferol. A research with over 60,000 women participants in a Nurses Health Study between 1984 and 2002 showed that women whose diets provided the most kaempferol had a 40% reduction in the risk of ovarian cancer.

As you can see the health benefits of blueberries are enormous and everyone should consider adding them in their health diet. But as all superfoods you should use in moderation to gain all the benefits. It would also be wise to consult your physician with adding any kind of food to your diet.

If today is the day that you want to change your lifestyle, then do it today, because the more you put it off until "Next Week", the less likely you are to ever start. Just take a quick look at this site today to get some free tips about living a better lifestyle http://www.whatyoucanachieve.com/


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